The Flake

Recently, I made plans to hang out with an old friend from church, half-knowing that he would most likely cancel on me. In times past, he was one of the most energetic, fun-loving people in the group, but we saw something that was a slight issue... His lack of follow through. He was the Flake - our Flake.

There's (almost) always one in the group - along with the instigator, the clown and the planner. I'm not trying to put people in boxes, though it's quite remarkable how we attract people that have completely different viewpoints, traits, and well... quirks.

Back to Mr. Flake.

We had all seen this flaw for quite some time, and we got so used to it, that we'd start planning things around his flakiness - scheduling an alternate person to serve in his spot if he didn't show up (which was several times a month), showing up to his house for weekly poker nights (regardless of if he canceled several times before), offering to drive him to places so we knew he'd be there... Eventually, it got old and most of us gave up on trying.

Well, here we are, eight months later, feeling like I haven't seen him in forever. So, I emailed him and asked if we could meet for dinner, or coffee, or ice cream. Something just to catch up and see what was going on in each other's lives.

That brings us to last Thursday. I made a bet that if he flaked on me one more time, I was going to call it quits. It's tiring being someone's friend when they don't make an effort... Ya know? Sure enough, he didn't just cancel - he stood me up! He called me that morning to confirm our dinner time and location, and then he didn't even bother calling later that night to tell me he forgot. In fact, I wound up calling and got his voicemail. Short story long, I had a lovely dinner by myself (I was in great company, after all) and got a voicemail later that night laced with excuse after excuse.

I received an email from him yesterday saying he understood if I "never wanted to forgive [him] or talk to [him] again," and I thought it best to write back and tell him what none of us had the courage to say in the first place.

I have yet to hear back, and I wonder if it was too much. Even though I had been cooping this up for years (yes, years), I wanted to tell him I still cared enough to tell him the truth. Yet, hearing such things can be hard to handle. Perhaps it would have been easier on him if I had said I wouldn't forgive him and didn't want to talk to him again. Hmm...