Quote from B on April 10, 2022, 4:51 pm

My thoughts: this is becoming a power struggle for him. He wants to communicate the message that you need him, and that without him you cannot play.

On top, he is being blatantly disrespectful.

He didn’t even try to find a good excuse (like, “I have a problem that is going to continue until the time we set for the game”), but is instead putting his disrespect in the open (ie “I am finished with my other more important thing, and I could come if I wanted, but since I’m tired I won’t come, because I don’t want”).

Also notice how he is constantly one-upping the group with his “more important” things to do: “a hot girl”, “a trip to a ski resort”, etc. The message is: you play games, I’m busy living.

So the best answer would probably be on the same factual level: to find another fourth person to play with, assuming you cannot play in three. Or, if you can, just go ahead and play without him.

Maybe then he will stop cancelling at the last minute, if having him onboard is something you will still want.

Since it is now becoming a pattern, I would also not invite him anymore. Assuming you cannot avoid inviting him to future games, if he cancels again, I wouldn’t even answer and just go on with the game (or not go on, if that’s the only thing you can do).

If you are forced to invite him, you could also consider surfacing his “nasty, probably deliberate unreliability” a bit:

You: And of course X is always invited as usual, too. It’s always good to reconnect with old distant friends!

Personally, I would just fade this… “high conflict person” out of my life.

Quote from John Freeman on April 11, 2022, 1:03 pm

More context: he’s a good friend. We have a good relationship. I consider him a high quality person.

I’m finding he’s very individualistic. That’s how I view it.

Thank you for your perspective. I decided to punish him by lowering his status. That means I will still be inviting him but in the last people.

I gave him a lot of value and I feel like he’s not being grateful enough.

I like him a lot but this is quite disrespectful. Especially if he cancels on the group when the number of players matters.

So I think it mostly comes from him and this is not targeted towards me or us.

I cancelled once on him because I was exhausted. I was on my way to his place and told him I could not make it feeling how tired I was. Different story.

That being said I learned that it sets a precedent giving him a pass to cancel on me. Not really but he can use this in our social bank account. As if I made a withdrawal so he makes a withdrawal as well.

Lesson learned: So now if I said I come, I come to a meeting even if I’m exhausted. Worst case scenario I leave after an hour. Otherwise it might give (fake) permission to others to do it to me.

Quote from SocialPower on April 11, 2022, 2:05 pm

Quote from John Freeman on April 10, 2022, 3:24 pm

Hello guys,

The same friend who cancelled on me to go with a girl cancelled again.

Context: we were going to do a board game this afternoon at 6pm, the four of us.

His message at 1pm:

Hello! Someone took me to (ski resort) so I will be to tired for tonight. Sorry

There is a power move (sorry) and a deniability of his accountability (someone took me) as if he was forced. But basically he prioritised this over our game, which I understand with this beautiful weather.

My answer:

We were counting on you 🙁 . We will be 3 in the Celtic land (context of the game)

I chose not to let it fly (it's all good!). However, I wanted to express my disappointment (assertiveness) while not being to harsh or too "butthurt". It empowers him a bit as it makes him important. I did not want to go to dismissive of him ("Next time!" instead of "We were counting on you 🙁 ") because to show him that we did not need him was both untrue and too gamey for me.  However I could have done so.

His answer :

Sorry, I'm already dead from the party yesterday evening...

Once again, I understand. However, there is a power dynamics element in there: "I can cancel on you guys last minute and still do something else I enjoy in the afternoon".

What are your thoughts on this?

I'm looking forward to hear from you!

It for sure is disrespectful, as this person seems to keep your thing as a lower priority thing that can be switched if something better comes along, which I personally wouldn't tolerate. Actually I have been thinking about the same question - how to deal with last minute cancels, I believe it depends alot on the situation and dynamics and reasons. If it's a good friend, in this situation I'd just probably try to make a deal for both to not cancel last minute as a sign of respect for each other or some way try to insinuate that it's disrespectful (not in a butt-hurt way). If it was a date I wouldn't ask her out again, but with friends, in general, it kind of seems like lower-stakes thing to cancel stuff. To combat this sort of stuff, with some close friends, we have built a culture in where being late or canceling is not tolerable unless absolutely necessary, and will be laughed at or someway deemed ridiculous. Probably wouldn't fit to most groups though, also depends on culture.

Quote from SocialPower on April 11, 2022, 2:07 pm

Quote from John Freeman on April 11, 2022, 1:03 pm

More context: he’s a good friend. We have a good relationship. I consider him a high quality person.

I’m finding he’s very individualistic. That’s how I view it.

Thank you for your perspective. I decided to punish him by lowering his status. That means I will still be inviting him but in the last people.

I gave him a lot of value and I feel like he’s not being grateful enough.

I like him a lot but this is quite disrespectful. Especially if he cancels on the group when the number of players matters.

So I think it mostly comes from him and this is not targeted towards me or us.

I cancelled once on him because I was exhausted. I was on my way to his place and told him I could not make it feeling how tired I was. Different story.

That being said I learned that it sets a precedent giving him a pass to cancel on me. Not really but he can use this in our social bank account. As if I made a withdrawal so he makes a withdrawal as well.

Lesson learned: So now if I said I come, I come to a meeting even if I’m exhausted. Worst case scenario I leave after an hour. Otherwise it might give (fake) permission to others to do it to me.

I think that the idea of following through is pretty great and avoids the "double-standard" of canceling greatly, unless canceling is absolutely necessary (e.g being sick) or in other way understandable and he's really sorry. Then it's easy to demand the same respect by showing up.

Quote from B on April 11, 2022, 7:39 pm

Quote from John Freeman on April 11, 2022, 1:03 pm

More context: he’s a good friend. We have a good relationship. I consider him a high quality person.

I’m finding he’s very individualistic. That’s how I view it.

I gave him a lot of value and I feel like he’s not being grateful enough.

I like him a lot but this is quite disrespectful. Especially if he cancels on the group when the number of players matters.

So I think it mostly comes from him and this is not targeted towards me or us.

I cancelled once on him because I was exhausted. I was on my way to his place and told him I could not make it feeling how tired I was. Different story.

That being said I learned that it sets a precedent giving him a pass to cancel on me. Not really but he can use this in our social bank account. As if I made a withdrawal so he makes a withdrawal as well.

Lesson learned: So now if I said I come, I come to a meeting even if I’m exhausted. Worst case scenario I leave after an hour. Otherwise it might give (fake) permission to others to do it to me.

I re-read your other thread on this same friend, and I agree with you this is a case of you having evolved over time, while this friend remained as he was when you first met him.

Not really anything you could have done differently here, sometimes people are only in our life for a time. And being on a path means "losing" or distancing (some) people inevitably, not so many want to walk with the one who learns and grows.

Quote from John Freeman on April 11, 2022, 7:44 pm

Great points, SP, thanks for your feed-back!

I’m going to implement this in our group. Making fun of him along with light shaming is a great idea. Surfacing could also work. For instance, answering to him cancelling:

So you had a better opportunity and you’re cancelling on us. That’s not very nice.

Or

You're ditching us!

Actually putting the responsibility on him. We can also add:

You're ditching us! It's alright we'll be 3 players anyway.

I think humor is called for in this situation with friends. To keep it as light as possible.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on April 11, 2022, 10:07 pm

Keep in mind that going direct and honest is a valid option.

Generally speaking, when you feel angry or poorly treated, that's an important signal that you should consider direct talk (and assertiveness), which prevents festering -ie.: you growing angry and bitter inside and turning a friendship into a frenemy-.

As we say here, assertiveness is not always the best option, and we've got plenty of real-life examples for when it's a bad strategy (Ali had one great example in this forum, and it's also in the upcoming TPM's book).
Edit: you John had a great example of assertiveness not being strategically sound in your journal. 

However, generally speaking, whenever you feel angry and/or that you're being treated poorly and you can afford to go for it, it should be one of the top options.

This is my latest example of last-minute cancellation, just a few days ago:

A different scenario as he wasn't my friend, so you -John in this case, or anyone reading- knows best his own situation.
Edit: the simple reason that made assertiveness perfect here was that "there was no reason not to". I did believe it was not cool. Anything else from my side would have been dishonest. Was there anything stopping me from being honest and direct? No. Could he have gotten angry? Yes. His problem, he'd have been twice in the wrong, in that case. So no point in going indirect or playing games.

Yet, also consider that, generally speaking, the closer and the better the relationship -or the better relationship you want- often calls for more honesty and upfront talk, not less.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on April 11, 2022, 10:16 pm

So my first gut reaction in this specific case was to say exactly that:

I understand, shit can happen, and still... It's not cool

That was my gut reaction based on John's feelings, which seemed to be exactly along those lines.

If the get-together was more like "whatever, if you can make it, come, if not, next time", then saying "not cool" would have been very much out of place.

But if the frame was more like "we planned this, and you're important to make it happen", then a direct and high-power "not cool" was a more appropriate answer.

Generally speaking, whenever you can avoid games with your closer circle, you always want to avoid games.

It's certainly possible there was a misunderstanding here, or two different approaches (including potentially different approaches to life).
Such as, John meant it with the "we planned it" frame, while his friend had a more "we'll see" frame.
But still "not cool" would have been fair and would have also kicked out an honest talk discussion about the different expectations, which would have surfaced and clarified the issue.

Quote from John Freeman on April 11, 2022, 10:26 pm

Thanks for your answer, Lucio!

Now I understand why I was feeling uneasy and was not sure how to respond: it was a public conversation. So I did not want to appear too butthurt. Because otherwise I was afraid other friends in the group would feel: "Wow, John is overreacting. If I cancel on him, he will treat me badly."

Saying:

We were counting on you 🙁 . We will be 3 in the Celtic land (context of the game)

Was as assertive as I could go with my current mindset in a public situation. From your example, I can imagine myself saying this to him in the future in a private message:

Hey man, you're cancelling at the last minute while you said you were coming. I bought food for you and you know that we wanted to play this game at four players.

And wait for an answer. That's what I actually wanted to say and I made it more indirect in public as not to make the other people get scared. I was scared that I could have been perceived too domineering with such a message in public. Moreover, it is power protecting to talk in private.

Great point about the quality of relationship related to honesty within them. It's deep and true.

Same comment about festering and getting bitter which sours the relationship, if only on my side. I'm going to write a post about a situation I'm in as I think it could be useful for other forum members as well.

However, generally speaking, whenever you feel angry and/or that you're being treated poorly and you can afford to go for it, it should be one of the top options.

That is definitely how I felt.

What I think I did good was not to use my old way of communicating (submissive) with a "it's all good!" (doormat style). I was also able to express my disappointment as assertively as possible at the moment. However, I see that I'm losing some power on the table by not having talked to my friend directly. I'm still also losing some power on the table by being afraid of what other people think of me.

I could have talked to him privately assertively as above and then write in the group:

"I spoke with B. in private. He'll join us another time. For this time we will be 3. Game on!"

This is quite eagle-like and leader-like I think.

As you see Lucio, your answer sparked quite a few thoughts in mind, thanks!

Thank you to all of you guys, your views helped me to reinforce my self-frame that it was disrespectful from him.