The group chat fills with scheduling back-and-forth. You finally find a date that works for everyone. Someone confirms. Then another. Then, the day before, someone can't make it. The dominos fall. The dinner never happens. Again.
This isn't just your friend group. Plans falling through has become a cultural epidemic. The more connected we are, the harder it is to actually connect. The technology that was supposed to make coordination easier has somehow made commitment harder.
The flakiness isn't individual weakness - it's a systemic response to how modern life is structured. When everyone is overwhelmed, commitment to anything non-essential becomes impossible. Plans are made with good intentions and broken with reasonable excuses.
The Problem People Keep Running Into
The fundamental issue is that modern life is overbooked and unpredictable. When you commit to plans weeks in advance, you're betting that nothing unexpected will come up. That bet loses more often than it wins.
Work bleeds into everything. The meeting that gets scheduled at the last minute. The deadline that moves up. The emergency that demands attention. When employers own your time by default, plans become provisional.
Digital coordination creates an illusion of flexibility. "We can always reschedule" removes the urgency of commitment. The ease of cancellation makes cancellation more likely. Every plan is tentative until it actually happens.
And opting out has become easy. A text message cancellation requires no confrontation. You don't have to see the disappointment on someone's face. The friction that used to prevent flaking has been eliminated by technology.
How Modern Systems Created This
Several forces combined to make plans increasingly unreliable:
Schedule density leaves no margin. People book themselves solid because being busy signals importance. When there's no slack in the calendar, any disruption cascades. The one thing that has to give is usually the optional thing - your plans with friends.
FOMO creates tentative commitment. Why fully commit when something better might come along? People keep their options open, which means every commitment is conditional. Plans compete with hypothetical alternatives.
Social media creates false presence. Liking someone's post feels like maintaining the relationship. You're "in touch" without actually being together. The sense of connection persists even as real interaction disappears.
Fatigue has become normal. Chronic exhaustion makes every commitment feel burdensome. When the day arrives and you're depleted, staying home feels like self-care. Canceling becomes a health practice.
Reciprocity has broken down. When everyone cancels, no one feels guilty about canceling. Flakiness normalizes itself. The standards of follow-through lower as the behavior spreads.
Why It Keeps Getting Worse
Economic pressure intensifies the problem. When job security is precarious, no one feels safe prioritizing social obligations over work demands. The job always wins, which means friends always lose.
Pandemic habits created new patterns of isolation. People learned to exist without social gatherings. Re-entry has been incomplete. The muscle of showing up atrophied and hasn't fully rebuilt.
Mental health struggles increase cancellations. Anxiety about social situations. Depression that makes leaving home impossible. The mental health crisis manifests as flaked-on plans.
And the cycle feeds itself. When plans consistently fall through, people stop making them. Why bother scheduling if nothing happens? The fewer plans made, the less practice at keeping them.
How People Cope Today
Some over-invite. If you expect cancellations, invite more people than you need. The math works out. But it also signals that you expect to be flaked on, which makes flaking more acceptable.
Others create high-commitment plans. Buy tickets in advance. Make reservations with cancellation fees. Add financial stakes to create follow-through. The friction of cost replaces the friction of politeness.
Some shift to spontaneous rather than scheduled. Instead of plans weeks out, they reach out same-day when they know they're free. Success rates are higher, but this only works with available friends.
Many lower expectations. They plan one-on-one instead of groups. They expect cancellations and aren't disappointed by them. They accept that showing up has become exceptional rather than baseline.
The falling-through of plans reflects something larger - a society where everyone is stretched thin, commitments are provisional, and connection takes a backseat to everything else. Individual solutions exist, but they can't fix a collective problem.