This is just an observation. YMMV, of course. But I've noticed this with increasing frequency in recent years...
It's not necessarily a "new" thing. Lying certainly isn't new. But I imagine there must have been a time when, hypothetically, you could make plans with someone, or discuss something, and they would damn well hold to it/keep their word...
Like, in my observation, this happens all the damn time: people flake, people change their mind at the last minute, people ghost (and I do it, too), people, worst of all, change plans, or change their mind, and don't even tell you...
I'm not talking just with women, either. My male "friends" do this. My family does this. Constantly. Randoms I meet, and plan to meet up with later, do this too. And sure, I'm a common factor, but I see this happening more generally, to all manner of people I know, too.
I really, really wish that we "as a society" hadn't normalised this... "Flaky", noncommittal, "my needs come first, always" bullshit...
I really, really do.
If there's a culture where keeping your word and actually committing is still the default, I look forward to one day finding it. Because I am yet to really... Ever experience that. And I've travelled fairly widely and met a lot of people.
Western culture has become soft and evasive of consequence over the past 60 years. There's a deficit of purpose and causal reasoning that's a primary factor in obnoxious behaviors being normalized. Adopt a constant mindset of your time being valuable, try to gauge if someone actually interested in a plan upfront, and appropriately scold them if they still want to do shit after flaking.
Yeah. Agreed. It’s just very frustrating coming from a family where this is, and was, always “normal”…
I had to teach myself that it wasn’t…
I can’t tell you how many times I was left waiting somewhere, after school, because my parents changed their plans and didn’t bother telling me in advance (as an example. “Conveniently” they lived an hour away)…
Dunno how I came to realise this wasn’t “normal”, actually…
My cousins still haven’t, lol, and we’re pretty much all adults, so…
It’s an odd thing.
I had a “best friend” who used to take advantage of me all the time, from around 17 - 21…
I knew something was “off”, but I had been so… Accustomed to that as being “the norm” that I just put up with it for years…
Took me moving interstate to realise that the relationship was almost entirely one way, lol…
Amen to breaking free of behavioral programming in spite of social pressure. I'm not gonna pretend to be an easily likable extrovert, but I've found investing in not being a push-over, with some ethical deception (personal motivation is filtering out literal-minded aspies and normies alike) pays off in the long run.