People who don't know how to keep appointments

[MaggieTheCat]

So, I met this girl, C, at an anime convention a few months ago. Turned out we live in the same city, so we exchanged contact info and decided to hang out after the con. She's cool. I like her, for the most part. Except I'm finding out that she's pretty flakey. She's fun to hang out with, when she gets her shit together, but twice now she's completely flaked on me.

The first time, we had made plans to get together for lunch. We made the plans a week prior to when we were actually going to get together, and she had college finals the day before the lunch date. The day of the lunch date, she didn't show up, didn't call, and didn't respond to my texts. She contacted me the next day, apologizing and saying she forgot and that she had been asleep. All right, you know, I can forgive that. She's 20. I slept till noon or later when I was 20. And she had just finished finals so her mindset was basically "YES I'M FREE FOR THE SUMMER AND HAVE NOTHING TO DO" so that was fine.

Today, she was supposed to meet with my D&D group to watch/maybe play with us and see if she wanted to join our group. I had asked her the first time we got together after the anime con if she'd be interested in playing, and she said she was, but that she didn't know the rules or anything. This weekend was the first weekend she was free when we normally play, so I asked her if she could come over a couple hours before the rest of the group so we could help her make a character, go over some of the basic rules, etc. Our group normally meets at noon, so I asked her if she could come over at 10am. She said that was fine and that she'd be here, and acted really excited about finally being able to join us.

At 10:20pm I got a FB message from her saying that she was asleep (again) and apologizing for missing our game.

WTF? You were asleep for 12 hours, DURING THE DAY? She sleeps at night, it's not like she has a night job and sleeps during the day. When she didn't show at 10 this morning, I figured she had forgotten to set her alarm or had slept through her alarm or something and that she'd show up later, whenever she woke up. When she didn't show up by about 2, I figured she'd woken up, realized she had missed our pre-game character creation session, and was too embarrassed to show up for the rest of the day. But no...apparently she had been asleep the entire time and didn't wake up until after 10pm.

I just...don't...get people like this. Our one player, K, is like this, to a certain degree. Some of you probably remember my rants about K; he is NEVER on time for ANYTHING. He's a co-worker of my husband's, and when they go on business trips, K isn't even on time to the airport. He shows up 20 minutes before the plane is scheduled to depart. He showed up an hour and 20 minutes late today. I guess at least he showed up at all, for what that's worth. But I just don't get people who aren't on time or who can't keep appointments. How the hell does C expect to get/keep a job when she sleeps for 12+ hours a day and doesn't keep appointments? I realize this was just a game and missing it isn't as life-altering as something like a job, but still.

Mostly just a rant. I still like her, but I don't think we're going to invite her back to the gaming group. It's one thing if she stands me up for lunch once in a while, but it sucks when you have a player/players in your group who can't show up consistently. We already have K to fill that role, no need for another person to do an even worse job of it.

[DrFaroohk]

Ugh, that's half the people I know. Especially, for some reason, my single friends with no responsibilities. They always want to hang out, but they won't bother to try and keep up with my schedule at all. I tell them when I'm free, and they make sure they show up no where near that time.

[blas87]

That's just about everyone I know as well.

I at least get a valid excuse for sleeping because I work all night and some days I just cannot stay awake. I try to not do that, but sometimes it happens.

I never totally blow people off, though, and it irritates me that so many people I know think nothing of it.

Time to meet is either rapidly approaching or is already passed, and by about that time, if I get ANYTHING, it's a call or a text asking to do something else or saying "Sorry, went out with soandso instead, sorry!"

[LadyBarbossa]

I did a thread a while back on how I hated flakes. It's my friend Pip all over. He swears up and down he'll be someplace, can't wait, loves that restaurant and then . . . nothing. An hour before I'll text him "Are you coming, need a ride?" No response. And then I'm left sitting there drinking my drink sitting next to an empty chair and feeling like an idiot. These sorts of people are best left without our invitations, they don't deserve them.

[telecom_goddess]

These sorts of people are best left without our invitations, they don't deserve them.

agreed 100 percent. I hate that bullshit myself and am always early to stuff and always like to confirm. These kinds of people always use my number one hated excuse too..."that's how I roll" well fuck that.

[blas87]

Oh God, the "It's who I am!"......well, grow the fuck up and learn some responsibility. Even better are the "I don't like to make plans!" people. Guess what? Adult life is nothing BUT plans. You have to plan around your job for errands or leisure, you have to plan around traffic and whatnot for timing, you have to plan around the weather, everything. It's common courtesy to tell someone if you aren't going to show up or don't want to commit to any plans.

[Evandril]

agreed 100 percent. I hate that bullshit myself and am always early to stuff and always like to confirm. These kinds of people always use my number one hated excuse too..."that's how I roll" well fuck that.

My response to 'That's how I roll' tends to be 'Fair enough, it's not acceptable to me, so bye now!'. If they want to behave in a way that's not something I'm willing to deal with...I don't *shrugs* Sucks, and has cost me friends, but causes FAR less stress in the long run, IMO. Also helps get the point across that certain things aren't acceptable, on occasion.

[MaggieTheCat]

The guy in our gaming group, K, uses the "that's how I roll/that's who I am" excuse for why he's always late. He claims that when he was in college, he was always early/on time to everything and always stressing about being on time to everything, to the point that he had a nervous break-down. His therapist told him he should just relax and not stress so much about it all the time...so now he's just the opposite and has no sense of timing at all. I have voted that we remove him from our gaming group multiple times, since not only is he always late, he never contributes anything anyway, but the rest of the group has the "eh, he's not contributing but he's not hurting anything either so just let him be" opinion. Personally, it drives me CRAZY.

[telecom_goddess]

The guy in our gaming group, K, uses the "that's how I roll/that's who I am" excuse for why he's always late. He claims that when he was in college, he was always early/on time to everything and always stressing about being on time to everything, to the point that he had a nervous break-down. His therapist told him he should just relax and not stress so much about it all the time...so now he's just the opposite and has no sense of timing at all. I have voted that we remove him from our gaming group multiple times, since not only is he always late, he never contributes anything anyway, but the rest of the group has the "eh, he's not contributing but he's not hurting anything either so just let him be" opinion. Personally, it drives me CRAZY.

Bad therapist....how would this therapist like it if he everyone had that attitude about appointments? "I don't wanna stress about it so I'll just show up whenever I feel like it" ....it wouldn't go over very well. Appointments are made to avoid chaos, and one has to stress to be on time. It can be done without having a nervous breakdown.....what the fuck ever.

[KellyHabersham]

It's common courtesy to tell someone if you aren't going to show up or don't want to commit to any plans.

In total agreement with this - one of the reasons I've had issues with my daughter's father is because you couldn't depend on him to show up when he said he would, and he wasn't one to call to say he was going to be late or couldn't make it. (and of course, he couldn't figure out why I had a problem with this)

[McDreidel09]

I had this happen at ACEN this past weekend. The group in the car wanted to leave at 2 on Sunday because one of the guys in the group needed to get back to our school so his parents could come get him and the rest of his belongings and I needed to meet with a friend en route and he could take me home.

We let everyone know that we were leaving at 2 and meeting in the registration lobby. Apparently, one guy didn't care. We decided to head to the car and kept calling and leaving voicemails and texting to let him know as such. He finally answered his phone and got back to the car an hour late.

I really wanted to strangle him because we were all tired and just wanted to get to our respective destinations. He was also the last person to show up at the meeting place before we left school for Chi-town. This guy also didn't put everyone's numbers in his phone, like everyone was instructed to do. We even sent everyone a list of numbers! So, he was constantly asking for numbers.

[Mishi]

It's one of the things I hate the most. Especially when I make time for someone even though I have other important plans.

This is why, even though it's going to be a pain to get there, I'm NOT rearranging all of today's appointments. The doctor found a space for my daughter to see a nurse for a speech assessment, himself for the actual referral and gave me the number for a speech pathologist that had a cancellation for 2 hours after the nurse+doctor visit. After all that effort and with us only waiting 2 days for appointments (vs. 2+ weeks normally) there's no way in Hell I'm flaking out.

[LadyBarbossa]

Sometimes things get rearranged; I was supposed to hang with a coworker yesterday for movies and drinks at her place, but I ended up switching days with another girl so I could have today off to take someone to the airport. So I'll hang with coworker today, no biggie. But I DID inform her, and that's what matters and makes all the difference. Don't just fall asleep or not respond; I mean really, who goes to sleep after making plans with someone and then sleeps through the rings or text alerts? And if you shut it off, that means you KNEW they were going to try and contact you and chose the asshole way out.

I never really ask Mr. Flaky anywhere anymore. I understand he really wants me to come with him and document him getting a tattoo on his ass next month, but I'll believe that when I see it

[Android Kaeli]

I am the type of person is always early for something, be it work, a movie, lunch date, etc. -- I usually am twenty to thirty minutes early. I hate it when someone comes right at the last minute, it's annoying especally to someone who's always, and I mean ALWAYS, early.

Now I have been late to meet friends once or twice, maybe three times, but it was my fault entirely: I had set my alarm, it went off, I got up but laid back down for a few extra minutes before I knew I was two and a half hours late. But I had enough sense to call up the friends and say how sorry I was, I'll be there in twenty minutes.

If I and someone else makes plans to go see a 1:30 movie, I best damn well see them at 12:45 to get tickets, popcorn, and sodas.

[MaggieTheCat]

We're usually right on time, or maybe 10 minutes early, tops, to events. I don't mind if people arrive right on time or "at the last minute" as long as they're not super late. If we make plans for 1:00 and they show up at 12:58, great. Even if it's 1:05, not a problem.

Why make plans for a certain time if you're just going to be half an hour early? (I'm not trying to be a smartass, I'm really just asking.) If we plan to meet friends at 1:00 for lunch, we'll be there at 1:00, maybe 12:50 at the earliest. Why be there at 12:30 and then be upset when they show up half an hour later, if that's when you planned to meet in the first place? I think 45 minutes early to a movie is way overkill, personally, but we don't usually get popcorn/sodas and we usually don't go to the primetime showings (Friday/Saturday evenings.) 20 minutes early to a show is plenty for us, and that's if we are planning on getting concessions.