There’s a moment of fury, but relief soon follows. These are
the stages of bailing, they say. “Initially, it’s a tiny flicker –
you try to push the idea away, blow it out. But the flame
keeps getting bigger. You come up with various different
excuses; wait to see if you get bailed on first by throwing
out a, ‘Are we still on?’ kind of message. Finally, that flicker
becomes an all-consuming fire – it’s burning and you have
to put it out and just do it.”
Inevitably, the close friends, the ones we love the most,
feel the full brunt of our flakiness because we know they will
understand, so we end up spending an inordinate amount
of time with the friends we’re slightly terrified of. Breger and
Silver’s parents wistfully tell them of a time when you would
make a plan to call someone and know your friend would
answer. “You made a plan, you’d go and you’d be on
time.” But now, technology has killed the promise.
Flakiness has become unavoidable,
filling our text messages and the column
inches of our papers. Writing toNew
York Magazine’s agony aunt Heather
Havrilesky, a reader describes herself
as “an introvert who has deceived the
world by pretending to be an extrovert,
which means I have a lot of friends and
yet I am exhausted at the prospect of
maintaining so many relationships at
once”. Her dream, she says, “is to live
in a little cabin somewhere, focus on
my work and never get another text that
says ‘Drinks soon?’”.
Havrilesky empathises: “Making
plans these days sometimes feels like a tedious part-time job
you never wanted,” and, poking deeper, adds, “I think
you’re looking for a way to live a more genuine, authentic
life. In order to do that, you need to learn how to say no
without immediately apologising for yourself.” There is a
way, she’s suggesting, to maintain relationships without
guilt, and also without rushing off to dinners every night. But
it involves learning how to tell people what you need.
“Today, many people complain about feeling like they’re
on a treadmill,” says psychologist Dr Abigael San. “Like they
have to be, to do, everything. And, inevitably, that means
demand won’t meet supply.” This then leads to the piles of
cancelled arrangements littering inboxes everywhere.
“Digital contact has become the norm, so real life
provokes anxiety,” adds Dr San (real life being sitting with
somebody and discussing actual emotions). “The instinct is to
remove the cause. And there’s a negative reinforcement:
cancelling brings a sense of relief.” But it also risks alienating
friends. There is, however, a way to bail well. We need to behonest about why we’re flaking, stresses
Dr San. “Frankness feels worse, but has a
better impact in the long term, because
there’s no room for the other person to fill
in the gaps.” The thought of this makes me
shiver slightly: “Esther, I’m sorry, but I don’t
want to come on Saturday because
I need at least two hours for a conversation
with my boyfriend about the future. Priya, can we Snapchat
instead of going to the pub? You get maudlin after two
drinks, and I’m already feeling sad.”
Perhaps, San offers, the rise of flaking is a positive thing.
While previously we would have dragged ourselves to
appointments we were dreading, today we are able to speak
up. Which means cancelling. “Is this a sign that we are finding
our voices? Standing up for what we really need?” she says
(whether that’s time alone or an early night). “Is this a sign that
people are validating their own rights?”
Could this be the hidden truth of our golden age of bailing?
A perfect storm of lubricating technology and anxious
timelessness has led to this moment, when we have the facilities
to cancel arrangements that will not enrich us or make us
happy. If we are honest about what we want, and when we
want it, nobody gets hurt. In fact, that honesty allows a depth of
candour that we are unlikely to offer up in a crowded bar, or at
a white-tableclothed wedding. Could it be that flakiness is the
thing that saves us?E88
“Close
friends feel
the brunt of
our flakiness
because they
know we will
understand”Photography: Jens Langkjaer. *Survey from World Branding Forum, November 2005ZEITGEIST