How Do We Respond When People Are Flaky?
by Bronwyn Lea
Sophia is the Greek word for Wisdom, and Propel Sophia seeks out the voices of truly wise women and asks them to share worked examples of how they express faith in daily life. Pull up a chair at Sophia’s table, won’t you? There’s plenty of space. Learn more here.
My friend sighed and showed me the text message: Sorry, won’t be able to make it :(
Jo had flaked. Again. “What do I do when people keep dropping out at the last minute?” she asked. “People are just so flaky. I know we’re supposed to be gracious, but this doesn’t feel right.”
I agree. It feels awful. It is hard to be stood up by a friend, or to be leading and have people flake on their commitments. In business relationships you lose customers if you are unreliable, but with friends, family, and in ministry, we sometimes have a hard time knowing how to navigate flakiness. Sometimes the grace abounds verse in Romans 5:20 seems to be understood as “you can walk all over me”.
So what do you do?
Some years ago I read He’s Just Not That Into You, by Greg Behrendt. I won’t comment on the Sex in the City values of the book, but Behrendt did make one, very excellent point: if people want to do something, they find a way to do it. If a man likes a woman, his social media connection skills magically improve. I wondered how this principle applied in other settings: for example, with the college student who wanted to talk about her new faith, but she (and her friends) told me repeatedly she was very flaky and I would need to remind her.
While I was very excited to meet with her and could easily have sent her reminder texts, I refused. I said, “I’d love to chat, and I believe if you want to meet with me, you’ll find a way to remember. You’re a smart, capable adult: you get to class and your finals without others reminding you. When it matters, you’ve figured out ways to not be flaky. I trust that if meeting with me matters to you, you’ll figure it out.”
She showed up. Every time.
By playing the ditzy-college-girl-card, she had been giving herself permission to flake when it suited her. Part of my job as a mentor was not just to invest in her spiritual development, but her holistic growth as a person – which included learning to honor her commitments to others. Jesus said our “yes” should really mean “yes” and our “no” should mean “no” (Matthew 5:37). Not “yes” at first, and then “oops, I forgot” later. I wanted to encourage her to respect her own ‘yes’, so that others would be able to do so too.
Now, I confess I have stood people up before. On Christmas Eve a few years ago, we realized at 11 pm that we had completely forgotten our friends’ invitation to dinner. While we’d been fussing with a colicky newborn, they’d spent a horribly silent night alone in front of cold plates. Worst. Friends. Ever. We felt HORRIBLE and begged their forgiveness. We’ve all had urgent things come up which conflict with prior commitments, and in those situations, we need abounding grace.
However, there is a difference between someone saying, “Oh! I’m so sorry! I know I committed to your thing, but this other thing has come up and I feel torn. Can I make it up to you/catch up on the work/meet with you at a different time as I would like to try and honor both obligations?”, and sending a text saying “Sorry, won’t be able to make it :-(”
The former respects both my own initial “yes” as well as the other party’s. The latter is just flaky. We’ve all received texts like this. We can tell the difference.
Things come up. People make mistakes and forget. Grace abounds.
However, we also need to be people whose words are reliable. To the best of our ability, our yes should be a yes. And if, for some reason,we can’t honor our obligation, we should be willing to accept the consequences. If I forget our appointment, perhaps you will let it go the first time; but if I do it again, it’s reasonable to change our appointment to being in your office during your office hours, rather than you going out of your way to meet me.
In the Kingdom of God, we are called to being gracious and forgiving, and also to living with boundaries and consequences. If people are repeatedly flaky, we can love them and also change the way we interact with them. Not because we’re mean or ungracious, but because we respect our own time and our own yeses and nos, and we want others to grow alongside us.
Bronwyn Lea
Bronwyn Lea is an author, speaker, activist, and most recently, editorial curator for Propel Sophia. She loves Jesus, puns, her home country of South Africa, her adopted country of the US, her endlessly patient husband, her three goofy kids, wisdom and justice, seeing women thrive in the Kingdom, and quality ice-cream (in no particular order). Find her online on the web, and follow on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
