Cancel plans at the last minute → Friend gets annoyed → Nobody says anything → The person who bailed justifies themselves or doesn’t → Repeat forever
You’ve probably noticed it. You might even be that person who, after politely accepting an invitation, later sends a text and backs out. Anastasia, 24, often cancels her plans at the last minute. “I usually have a schedule in my head that seems doable when I make the plan, but when the time comes to go out, sometimes I just don’t feel like doing it right then. Having something on my calendar feels like a burden.”
That burden grows heavier when Anastasia has made plans with just one friend. When it’s a group thing, everything shifts. “If I know I’ll be throwing off one person’s entire evening, I’ll go. But if I made plans with a lot of people and I’m just not in the mood to leave the house, I’ll flake, because not everyone is depending on me.”
Flaking: The growing trend of unreliability, meaning canceling plans (even professional ones) minutes or hours before they’re supposed to happen. It’s usually attributed to people’s overloaded schedules, conflicting commitments, the constant access we have to each other through technology, or some combination of all three. If someone feels drained by a packed schedule and can cancel their plans right then and there using their phone, chances are they will.
“Sorry, Can’t Make It After All”
And yet, the world kept spinning. Even after Anastasia bailed on her friends, spring arrived and caterpillars turned into butterflies. That’s usually how it goes. According to the unwritten rulebook, if someone backs out at the last minute, the rest of the group can have their drinks without them. Life, sometimes, is unusually simple. Unfair if that person cancels at the last second, but simple.
Social media have made canceling plans remarkably easy. A quick direct message is all it takes: “Sorry, can’t make it after all” is the most common version. And, to be fair, everyone has the right to cancel plans at the last minute, as long as it doesn’t become a habit. We are, after all, living in the age of flaking.
But when does initially accepting an invitation and then canceling without much explanation cross a line? When does social commitment feel so oppressive that we bail in the name of self-care? Is flaking selfish?
The reasons behind flaking are likely multifaceted, touching on psychiatry and psychology as well as broader sociological and cultural shifts. According to psychiatrist Dimoklia Baltzi, modern life is defined by constant overstimulation, heightened demands, and very little separation between work, social life, and rest. As a result, “many people operate in a state of chronic mental strain or low-grade burnout, which often leaves them feeling they don’t have the mental energy for social interaction, especially when that interaction requires presence, engagement, and emotional availability.”
“Occasional cancellations due to genuine mental or physical exhaustion are completely human.”
At the same time, the culture of self-care and personal boundaries has grown significantly in recent years. A quick scroll through Instagram or TikTok confirms it. “That shift has had undeniable upsides, including greater recognition of mental exhaustion, anxiety, and the need to be able to say ‘no’ without intense guilt. In some cases, though, the concept of self-care seems to get confused with avoiding any form of discomfort or mental effort whatsoever.”
Mental self-care does not necessarily mean operating exclusively based on how we feel at any given moment, since human relationships require, to some degree, consistency, resilience, and the ability to show up even when we are not in the “ideal” mental state. When did that change? During the pandemic.
As Dimoklia Baltzi told the newspaper, “social withdrawal and isolation became part of daily life for an extended period during lockdown. For many people, it seems the post-COVID era brought with it a reduced tolerance for social fatigue and an increased desire to stay in more ‘safe’ and controlled environments, like home.”
The Role of Social Media
Relationships today, thanks to social media, can be maintained at a much “lower cost” than before, with no need for physical presence or any real investment of time. A photo, a reel, a quick “how are you?” can be enough. Canceling a plan at the last minute naturally becomes a trivial matter.
“There is also a broader cultural shift at play,” notes Baltzi. “In the past, social relationships were built more on a sense of obligation and consistency, whereas today greater emphasis is placed on authenticity, a person’s emotional state, and personal choice. This change has its positive sides, but it may also be making it harder to maintain stable interpersonal bonds when every commitment depends entirely on how someone feels in the moment.”
From a psychiatric standpoint, flaking is not a diagnosis and does not necessarily indicate psychopathology. In some cases it may be connected to social anxiety, depressive symptoms, burnout, ADHD, avoidant personality traits, or a generally reduced tolerance for mental fatigue and frustration.
The difference between a healthy need for rest and problematic flaking shows up mainly in frequency, accountability, and the degree to which it affects relationships. “Occasional cancellations due to genuine mental or physical exhaustion are completely human. But when avoidance becomes repetitive, when someone consistently struggles to keep commitments, or when the impact on others is systematically ignored, the behavior starts to genuinely affect one’s ability to build and maintain stable relationships.”
As a closing thought, Dimoklia Baltzi suggests that flake culture may reflect a broader struggle of our times: “the effort to balance the need to protect oneself, especially in a demanding era, with the need for stable and meaningful human connection.”
Anastasia, for her part, stood up her friends at the last minute and feels no guilt about it. “I think they’ll understand,” she says.
