I have a friend who changes her mind a lot. And I never learn. She says she wants to meet for a movie and we iron out all the details and thirty minutes before I'm leaving, having been accommodating with my own preferred time, she changes the time, the day, or something. I don't exactly know how to frame a question which is roughly, "Are you sure this is going to work for you, really, really sure, because I don't appreciate sudden changes at the last minute?" So what I do is cowardly: I make excuses the next couple of times she calls, because I don't trust the details. I had a long term friend like this who has now deceased, and I finally got up the nerve to say, "I don't want to go to movies with you, as you're always late and we miss the beginning and it drives me nuts". We continued to see each other, but no movies. We also did not plan events that required a ticket, due to the late gene, and I usually picked her up from work for lunch and brought her back. That way she was a captive to her own lunch break and couldn't really be too late getting back. I loved her, but I respected her limits. Timeliness was not a real possibility for her.
This friend has good reasons for canceling and changing. But still, there is a pattern here. I now know not to agree to something unless I really, really want to go and can call up alternate transportation. Luckily, I'm almost always driving, so I can just go by myself. I am perhaps a bit anal about joint plans. My friend no doubt wakes up and sees what she fancies today, then switches plans on a whim, or not feeling tip top or a hunch. There is no commitment. She loves me, but everything in her world is negotiable. She's loosey goosey. I'm an organizer. Despite our differences, we had fun when we do actually end up at the same place at the same time. So I guess the talk can wait.
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