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Flaky friends


Danika

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If someone blatantly flakes on me without proper courtesy (doesn't even get in touch to cancel), I delete their number. Even if we are decent friends. I just don't need friends like that. Not saying I won't ever talk to them again, but I'm certainly not going to put in effort anymore.

 

Is this harsh and unreasonable? How do you deal with flakes?

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If someone stands you up for no good reason and can't even be bothered to let you know it tells you that they don't value your friendship much, so no, it's not unreasonable. I cut friends a fair bit of slack, but if I find myself thinking they're rude, or self-absorbed, or dull, too often, I fade them.

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Unless it's literally a life and death thing you find out about later, like a relative had to go to the hospital or a car wreck, I think you're right. Now, I'd be worried if someone totally flaked that is one of my friends, and I'd be calling hospitals or whatever. I had one real flaky friend (well, two, but I quit with her early on). It's just so disrespectful.

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I've dealt with this a lot recently with my best friend who also is a kind-of romantic interest. She flaked on me on New Years Eve and then didn't contact me for four days after the fact. I basically gave up on her after that and unfriended her on social media and stopped initiating get-togethers.

 

She texted me about a week later asking what was up and why I was being distant. I told her I would like to talk about it in person, not over text. That was a month ago, and that's the last time we were in touch.

 

I had talked to her about being flaky/unresponsive/incosiderate in the past, and her behavior changed for a while. Then on NYE it was more of the same and I just couldn't take it anymore.

 

Some friends - even when you love them with all your heart, like I do with her - just take wayyy more than they give and end up causing more problems than it's worth and you have to cut them loose.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Excedrin PM

In my opinion, the word "flaky" should not even enter the realm of a good friendship. It's like being "a little pregnant"...doesn't work.

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One question I have for people who deal with this behavior is: How do you address it? Like, cutting someone off, deleting their number, not engaging with them anymore ... that doesn't really address the problem, does it? I mean, it keeps them from bothering you anymore, but it doesn't change their behavior, presumably.

 

When my best friend/girlfriend flaked on me on NYE, I deleted her on social media and stopped initiating get-togethers. That resulted in basically the end of everything between us. She texted a few half-assed questions a week or two after the fact and that's the last I heard from her. She never responded to my request to talk face to face.

 

I'd like to tell her exactly how her behavior made me feel: Like I didn't matter to her, like other people/things/activities were more important, like I wasn't even worth the two minutes it would have taken to make a phone call or send a text. It made me feel - momentarily - worthless and like she was indifferent to me.

 

So if you have the chance, do you tell people that, or do you just do the slow fade and let the relationship die a slow agonizing death?

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I mean, if I'm real familiar with them, like one was my roommate, I'd tell her, Hey, I'm not sitting around wasting my time waiting for you. We ended up taking separate cars everywhere because I refused to go with her she was so flighty. If they're new, the friendship isn't going to get off the ground.

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If someone blatantly flakes on me without proper courtesy (doesn't even get in touch to cancel), I delete their number. Even if we are decent friends. I just don't need friends like that. Not saying I won't ever talk to them again, but I'm certainly not going to put in effort anymore.

 

Is this harsh and unreasonable? How do you deal with flakes?

 

Looking for a polite way to tell a friend that I love hanging out with her, but that it's clear at this point there's no point in planning anything, since she's going to have to cancel anyway.

 

She keeps doing this thing where she'd take the initiative to plan something, and then "has" to flake. But she also asks randomly if I can hang out at *that* exact moment (which I can't, I've got most of my days planned out in advance), so then I feel bad that I never take the initiative. But since she cancels her own plans, what hope would plans organized by me have?

 

So genuinely I rather have she stopped inviting me to ****, and that we just talk occasionally via Facebook like we're doing now, and sometimes run into each other to things we were going to anyway.

 

I've yet to find a good way to phrase that :p

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