Flakes/Unreliable People

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How do you react if someone cancels or does not answer your messages for weeks and then suddenly contacts you out of nowhere?

Here is an article on the subject from one of my favorite self-improvement blogs which I would recommend to you all.

http://www.succeedsocially.com/unreliable

How would I react?

It depends on numerous things:
1. Why did they do it. Are they cancelling or not replying because they are busy with work/school, handling an emergency. Are they forgetful, or poor at managing their time? Are they indecisive? Are they disrespectfully being a fair-weather friend who only talks to me when they want something? I don't think cancelling one friend to see another is a good excuse most of the time.

2. The degree. Being late an hour is different from being late 5 minutes. Same as cancelling literally an hour before compared to cancelling the day before.

3. The frequency. Does the other person do this often, or only once in a while?

We all have different preferences. Some prefer planning a week ahead and some prefer scheduling on the same day. But not replying for days/weeks, being very late, etc. is very irresponsible. If its someone they respected and did not want anything to go wrong with, then they would not do that. It's a clear sign, that you fall low on their priority list, IMO. I give people reliability ratings similar to how people in finance give credit ratings.

I would generally not end a friendship with someone who is unreliable, but I would just not take them seriously. If someone with an A+ reliability rating proposed to so something, I would keep my schedule completely clear and prepare for it. If someone with a D rating propose to do something, I would not put too much stock in it, and I'll still have contingency plans, and if something comes up, I may even cancel on them.

Your thoughts?

My thoughts on this subject are that if a friend frequently flakes out on plans, they shouldn't even bother making plans with me. I don't take the occasional flake-out personally. I understand if somebody is in a bad mood, genuinely sick, busy with their kid or if an emergency came up, but they should at least let me know so that I wouldn't waste my time waiting. I have a phone and they have my number, so it's not like they can't get ahold of me. I would let my friends know if I can't make it somewhere, I think it's fair to expect the same thing in return.

Some people are unreliable. Nothing you do will ever change them. If they let you down once, hey, perhaps they had a reason. If they do it twice, the likelihood of flakiness is high. If they let you down three times, drop them. If they let you down four times, you're an idiot for still hanging out with them.

I don't make plans out of fear of being one of these "flakes". I used to be one of these people actually. I would find that I would make plans rather abruptly, usually fueled by my mood being good at the time. Days later, or whenever the plans were scheduled to happen, my mood would usually be drastically different, and I would either cancel last minute or just not show up at all. I had started losing the few people that I had close to me and it wasn't long before I realized that a change was in order. So, to fix the problem, I stopped making plans altogether unless it was something I knew I needed or wanted to do. If someone asks me to do something and I'm unsure if my mood will change days from now and I won't want to go, I just simply tell them that I have other plans but if I find some free time, I'll be sure to drop in. I know this isn't ideally a perfect fix and it generally only applies to certain scenarios, but it's a step in the right direction.

I suppose the point of me saying this is that sometimes, people do like to make plans, but they don't have the courage enough to admit when they have a problem being unreliable until they're labeled as such. That said, I certainly don't condone unreliability in any manner, I was just giving my own personal experiences with it and how I fixed it.