Bagging Off At The Last Minute

i have done this to people quite a few times over the last couple of months and it makes me feel bad and horribly guilty. but it's not as if i was ditching these people for a more interesting prospect, i was just too tired to go out. i really am so tired. i know this makes me sound like a terrible wimp and a liar, but it's true - i just wanted to stay in and sleep and not go out and get drunk and grumpy and even more tired + hungover the next day. please kate, say that this is excusable.

Not aware of this "bagging off" term. And I didn't notice the lateness thing going on gender lines - unless Dave Q's secret is out.

And this won't split either, if you say you are coming out with me on a night, you better bloody well rock up else you will no longer be my friend. Standing people up, even if it is with notice, is the biggest sin in the Pete napsack. Its all insecurity of course (again) trying to work out why they don't want to see me = me being rubbish. But only this week I had a huge go at a friend who was genuinely ill (phenom I do not understand) thinking she was jibbing out.

Lateness I can handle but flakiness I don't stand for. I tend to be a high-anxiety person so I find myself sitting in silence as the clock's minute hand mocks me... then I start messing up my apartment and tidying it up again to stall, etc. etc. Then when it turns out they don't show up I usually curse them, get drunk, and take a long nap or something. If "whoever" tries to apologize or make plans with me again, they are smacked with a ruthless glare and all the skepticism I can muster. Scurvy dogs indeed.

I won't do it without a good bit of advance warning - at least I hope I won't. Usually it's because I'm tired or ill - eg last Friday, I'd said earlier in the week yeah let's go out, I didn't feel up to it on Friday morning and said so (though then faffed about it for hours).

If I don't want to do something I'm more likely to turn up and leave early.

I used to do this more often though, a few years ago when I was depressed. For all that I wanted to see friends there would come a point where the crushing horror of leaving the house, walking around, and the prospect of having to open your mouth and say things would just be too much and I would cancel. Eventually I twigged that forcing myself along to these things was part of 'the cure' and it would gradually get easier.

Firm plans especially with just one person I wouldn't welch on except in unavoidable circs. I'm usually accommodating on the losing end. Looser arrangements, especially with larger numbers, I think are more negotiable I'm more likely to be non-committal than bag off anyway, which is equally unpleasant because it contributes to overall amount of insecurity in the world. Non-committal-ness is partly reactive (as everyone sounds out everyone else), and for me partly born out of a particular set of circumstances (work and lots of friends in one city, boyfriend and house in another, unpredictable car or train journey in-between which means that sometimes what seemed feasible yesterday becomes difficult for small reasons today).

And BTW, I don't think lateness = men. I didn't pipe up on lateness thread (because shocked (!?) at degree of hostility towards The Late), but yeah, I am one of those who exists in a time-world that is subject to sudden and unexpected drifts and slippages. I do my best not to fuck people off. One or two of my closest friends are also habitually and sometimes chronically late. I just can't make myself mind that much, and have never read their lateness primarily in relation to me or our friendship. Lateness is the function of a complex interaction between the agreed time, external events, will, whim and the unknown factor x.

Tom, I had/have the exact same problem: When I am depressed, I tend to cancel a date or meet-up at the last moment. The mere thought of having to put on my jacket was even too much. Now I force myself to go out. Although it won't help a depression stay away, I think it will make you feel better.

I fucking hate people who make shit excuses why they're not coming out. Most annoying are the people who stay in around exam time not to do study but because it makes them feel better and they think they shouldn't be having fun or something. Pointless stuff. I don't mind people not going out if they never indicated they might, but it fucks me off something awful when I get a late call or something and I'm all ready to go out and then have to stay in, I get so tetchy.

Kate - somebody has just fucking done this to me! I'm having a fortieth birthday piss-up/disco tomorrow and a mate has just e-mailed me with a long and convoluted explanation about getting the date wrong, and he went ahead and arranged to go to Cornwall and enter a biking event! (What bike - since when has he had a bike?). And GET THIS - I played darts with him last week and he fucking knew he wasn't coming (he told someone else) and he was too chicken to tell me. AAAAGGGGGH?!

I've encountered this in another way - trying to organize a football team. My last team packed up this year as we couldn't raise enough players - YET no-one would ever come out and say "No, I'm not available" OR "I'm not interested in playing football any more", they'd say "I should be OK for the match" then never turn up. WHY? By the end I was giving everyone the same lecture along the lines of "IF you know you can't play, or don't think you will, or don't want to BLOODY SAY SO NOW!" Result - team folds. Why do people do this?

Pete you have spelt KNAPSACK wrongly. And I hereby publicly apologise for not coming round yours for New Year's Eve 1997 when I said I would.

Look at all previous CLUB SUSSED threads for more examples of this perfidy.

Its my napsack and I'll spell how I want to.

Napsack = place you sleep.

BTW Ellie, you are right. I'm not so fussed about turning up if I know its a large group, its those one to ones which our lives are made up off which I make sure I'm there for. Mind you, if everyone jibs out of a large group thing = mass horror.

If you live in couples you stand up much more then others . sorry brian.

Sounds like you're guilty of caring too much, Kate. I've been there too, but I've since learnt to feel very noncommital towards noncommital people. There's only so many times someone can give you the heave-ho before it's time to give them the elbow.

Pete: if everyone bags off a big thing BAR ONE = lonely, isolating and paranoid horror.

ON a related note, I hate when people throw big bashes and get narky cause you didn't go just because there weren't enough people there in the end to make them look popular. IF yr good friend blows off your birthday party, that's bad. If some work crony who's only said they'll turn up if they can never shows, and you cold shoulder them and make snidey comments about it, and you only really invited them as a kind of reserve in case your real friends didn't show (because they didn't, and now you're more insecure than ever) - that's rubbish.

Every time I want to go to a gig, I say to someone, 'let's go to this', then, 3 days before said gig, 'er, sorry, can't come'. all the fucking time. Usually forgiveable because they're doing something important, but how did they not know this originally when they plainly should have done? Upshot is I go to FAR too many gigs on my own.

I have done this and had it been done to me. Karma?

It makes me even more angry than people who won't commit until the day or hour before. no, it makes me AS angry as people who won't commit until the hour before, because it's practically the same thing. you should not invite them for a little while then try again.

Nice thing about Seattle is: everyone is flaky, everyone knows it, and hardly anyone pretends. So it all works out... thanking the phenomenon of lowered expectations and surprising turnout results.

I am about to end a friendship with a noncommital person because I find this disrespectful. I work for the US government on an army post and find that I prefer my own company than counting on people who back out at the last minute.

What does where you work have to do with it?