It’s always the case when making plans with friends that something has to go wrong, and coincidentally it seems the same person cancels at the last minute, time and time again.

We all know this person, the one person who never seems to want to do anything, but says he will anyway. This is about as close to a national epidemic as one can get without actually talking about diseases, because the amount of people that do this is steadily rising. It’s annoying because these kinds of people always will say they can go, and as soon as it seems like the plan is set in stone, operation last-minute cancel is set into motion. Even worse, a vast majority of the time this offender won’t even bother to give an excuse for their absence. While it’s possible these people had something come up or made other plans with other people, they still often don’t ever have the decency to tell anybody, as if abandoning at the last moment is any better.

Even worse are the times where these people are even the ones to try to arrange something, but still do their weekly tradition of jumping ship right when it’s most inconvenient. This may seem very minor of an issue, but after having everything arranged and coordinated between four to five people and their parents, only to have everything cancelled over and over can be demoralizing. It’s only a problem because of how rude it is. If you were constantly deciding not to show up to work, you’d be fired. Same principle here, and it’s ridiculous how little some people care about other’s time.

So how can this issue be solved? First off more people need to learn about time management. If there is any doubt in being able to conform to a schedule, one shouldn’t say they can “totally go, 100%”. Another way to stop this issue is to not recklessly accept any and all offers thrown at you. It’s fine if something comes up and you can’t attend, but repeated offenses have no excuse but poor time management and planning.

All this points to the big question; is it better to just not invite this person and exclude them? Or better to instead work around them and make a new schedule based around them? Should we try to help them manage their time better?