How To Be Flaky
Advice from a real-life Certified Flake
(1) Develop strong skills at being non-committal
This is the single most important part of being flaky: never commit to anything, but also don’t not commit.
(Yes, there’s a double negative in that sentence.)
See, you can’t ever commit to anything by saying “yes”, but you can’t flat out say “no” either. Those would both be too definitive and the key to being flaky is to always be ambiguous. Let’s look at an example conversation demonstrating one tactic:
The Almost Commit
Friend: Want to get dinner Friday?
You: Sure, I think I can do that!
Note: You can substitute “dinner Friday” with any type of invite you’re not that into, but you need to pretend you’re into out of politeness, and “friend” for anyone.
The reply above indicates interest and it’s almost a definitive “yes” (hence “Almost Commit”) but the flaky factor is that you’re giving yourself an out with the very important phrase “I think I can”. If you use this response and choose to later back out, you’ll then need to employ a secondary flake tactic, An Excuse, which is described below.
To avoid the need for an excuse later, you might use a different response right from the start:
Lining Up the Punt
Friend: Want to get dinner Friday?
You: Hmm, I’m not sure I can. Let me check my schedule and I’ll let you know!
With this reply, there are two easy ways to back out.
Lining Up the Punt, Follow-up Option 1: The Ghost
One follow-up move here is The Ghost. It’s sort of an asshole move to pull a Ghost (but you’re pretty much already an asshole anyway for always being the flaky one). For The Ghost move, you never follow up with the “I’ll let you know part”. Just don’t reply. Simple as that. Leave them hanging. Then if they ask you about it, you can pull out, “Oh, I’m sorry. I totally forgot! Friday won’t work after all.” And then that brings us to…
Lining Up the Punt, Follow-up Option 2: The Perpetual Punt
The Perpetual Punt is the game you play where you keep trying to make plans forever.
If you want to avoid being an extra asshole then you can skip the Ghost and go right to, “Looks like Friday won’t work after all!” Send this on Thursday. Or for maximal flakiness, wait until Friday morning and say, “Sorry, tonight won’t work for me!” Try to remember to say you’re sorry because then it seems like you care. Use an exclamation point, too, because then it seems like you care emphatically.
You know very well you don’t really even want to make these plans, but the other person doesn’t know that. Friday won’t work after all, so maybe you ask them about Tuesday knowing very well Tuesdays never work for them, so they suggest Wednesday and you can’t do Wednesday for some other excuse, etc., etc. You get the idea. You punt perpetually until it turns into a Ghost situation or a Forced Commit.
If, it turns out, the other person is also trying to be a flake, you could end up in a Perpetual Punt forever. It’s an ideal, but incredibly rare, situation.
(2) Learn how to craft an excuse
There are three classes of excuses. Let’s start with the two you’ll probably use most often: The Advance Excuse and The Last Minute Excuse.
The Advance Excuse
Friend: Do you want to get dinner Friday?
You: Sorry, I have to go to my co-worker’s birthday thing on Friday.
The Advance Excuse is the easiest to employ, but it’s an effective non-commit. With a non-commit, you might feel inclined to offer an alternative like, “Can you do Tuesday instead?” This can turn into a Perpetual Punt situation. You could also not offer an alternative, but then you risk (a) coming off like an asshole, and (b) the inviter offering an alternative resulting in you needing to come up with another excuse, which makes you seem flaky (remember, while you want to be a flake, you don’t want to be too obviously flaky. People don’t like that.) Your best bet if they offer an alternative is to go with the Almost Commit.
In executing the Advance Excuse, it’s good to include a detail explaining why you are busy. This makes it seem more real. Of course, you could just say, “Sorry, I’m busy Friday!” but that sounds like an excuse and you want it to sound like a real thing.
A word of caution in crafting the Advance Excuse — you must take care to be certain the Excuse you’re using can’t be interpreted as an alternative invitation. For example, this is a bad Advance Excuse:
Friend: Do you want to get dinner Friday?
You: Sorry, I told my roommate I’d go see his band play.
Friend: Oh, cool! Where are they playing? I’ll meet you there.
At this point, there’s no great way to flake out of this one. You could Line Up the Punt with “I forget actually lol, I’ll let you know!” but at some point you’ll need to pull out another excuse like, “Bummer, the show was canceled!” but then you’re kind of on the hook for dinner. So the lesson here is: really think about the possible repercussions of your excuses! This same advice applies to the second class of excuse…
The Last Minute Excuse
Be careful not to use too many Last Minute Excuses or else you will definitely be labeled a flake. Sometimes, though, these are really the only option for backing out of an Almost Commit or a Forced Commit (explained below).
The Last Minute Excuse is used when you have already pretty much committed to something, but you still really don’t want to go. You definitely need to wait until the day-of to use one of these. Depending on the event, you may even want to wait until a few hours before the thing you’ve been stuck committing to.
Here are some good ones:
Ugh, I’ve had a splitting migraine all day. I think I need to lie down and stay in tonight :(
Pros to the migraine excuse: (1) Nobody really knows whether or not you have a migraine. (2) It’s okay to pull this out extremely last minute because it’s logical that maybe you were waiting to see if the migraine would go away.
Some tips: (1) Be sure to say “migraine” and not “headache” because if you say “headache” people will think you’re being a wimp. “Migraine” is a serious thing. (2) Use a sad face emoji so it seems like you’re really sad and not like you were planning to cancel from the get-go.
Think we can reschedule for another time? Looks like I’ll be stuck at work late tonight.
This should be employed earlier in the day and not super last minute. The best follow-up here is The Perpetual Punt. Obviously, this only works if you have the type of job where you might be “stuck working late”. Similar to the migraine excuse, this one is good because it’s unlikely anyone will know whether or not it’s actually true.
I’m not gonna be able to make it tonight :( I think I have a stomach bug.
This cannot be used often (people generally don’t get stomach bugs very often), but it’s a good one because nobody wants to ask anything about stomach bugs. It’s the type of thing where they’ll just take your word for it because they assume it involves gross and unpleasant details. Sad face emoji is totally appropriate, maybe even the vomit face emoji if you really want to sell it.
(3) Strategically accept the Forced Commit
Sometimes, try as you may to avoid it, you will be backed into a corner and forced to commit to a thing. (I mean, even though it’s called the “Perpetual Punt”, you can usually only punt for so long.) Once you’re in a Forced Commit, you could use a Last Minute Excuse to get out of it. But, again, use of too many Last Minute Excuses is generally frowned upon by ordinary, non-flaky people.
It’s also to your advantage to occasionally force yourself to commit in order to mask your flakiness. If you are going to commit to a thing, here are some good ways to continue being flaky to further avoid the actual thing for as long as possible:
- Ask for a time change (e.g. “Running late! Can we push it back an hour?”)
- Show up late, with or without a prior time change request and with or without an excuse. Doesn’t matter at this point. You are flaky, after all.
- Employ the third class of excuse: The Post-Dated Excuse. This is where you come up with a reason why you must leave early. Examples you could use here are: “My sitter can only stay until 10” or “My cat is dying and needs his medicine in precisely 2.5 hours” or “I have to be up at 4 AM tomorrow”. If you’re using the “up early” excuse, be sure it’s 4 AM or earlier. People rarely have sympathy for 5 AM, and they definitely don’t have sympathy for 6 AM.
Let’s recap!
(1) Never commit to anything, but also don’t not commit. To do this, you might Almost Commit or Line Up the Punt.
(2) Develop a robust Rolodex of Advance, Last Minute, and Post-Dated Excuses. Be sure to never over-use any single excuse. You may want to jot down somewhere which excuse you used and when so you can efficiently rotate through them. If you hear someone use a great excuse, make note of it because you too may want to use it in the future.
(3) Accept that sometimes you’ll be forced to commit. Unfortunately, that’s just how it goes. But that doesn’t mean you need to stop being flaky. Get creative! If you go to the thing you were Force Committed to, use a Post-Dated Excuse and emphasize how busy you are all the time so people assume you’re not being flaky on purpose. Say it at least twice, “Work has been so hectic lately!” This is sort of setting the stage to enable future flaky behavior.
Once you have mastered these techniques, you too can call yourself a Certified Flake.
While you might take pride in your new found flake skills, I do need to leave you with one final note of caution (or encouragement): once you become a Certified Flake you may, eventually, find yourself with no more friends/co-workers/people who invite you to things, at which point you will have reached a new level of achievement: Master Flake. Congratulations on your supreme flakiness! You’ve become a true exemplar of what all other flakes aspire to be.
