Mindy feels you.

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Hello Bad Advice readers! This week I got a question that I’ve heard many times from friends, mostly millennials, who get the classic “I’m not really standing you up because I texted you five minutes ahead of time” line from their friends. As we emerge from social hibernation this spring, take heed: all your friends are jerks. Get used to it.

Dear Bad Advice,

Have you ever had a friend that seems to always bail on plans? Not only do they bail, but do they wait to the very last possible minute to not-so-gracefully bow out?

A close friend of mine is almost ALWAYS doing this to me and it absolutely drives me nuts!  Now, I hate double-standards, but are they necessary when it comes to teaching people a lesson?

Is it wrong for me to give her a taste of her own medicine a few times by doing the same exact thing she repeatedly does to me? Or, is this too childish?

I should note that I hate confrontation and yes, I admit to being a bit passive aggressive sometimes to avoid it.

– Fed Up with Being Stood Up

This is going to sound like bad advice, but stop expecting your friends to show up for things. If they don’t give a crap about you, don’t give a crap about them.

You got excited for a fun evening out, you picked out a cool outfit and cleared your schedule, and you even started thinking about all the funny stories you wanted to share, when phssssssssssssssst, you got that text message that bursts your bubble.

Getting stood up by a friend stings no less than getting stood up by a date.

Flakes of the world, listen closely:

Your friend made time for you. She probably turned down other invitations she got for that evening to be with you. She postponed hobbies or chores or phone calls with other friends and family to hang out with you.

You might say, “We all have cell phones and I can text her five minutes before I was supposed to meet to tell her I’m not coming.” Guess what? YOU’RE STILL RUDE.

A nice person cancels at least 24 hours ahead of time so her friend has time to make other plans for the evening if she wants to, and so she doesn’t spend all day getting her hopes up about something that’s not going to happen.

A nice person gives a compelling reason for why she cancelled — if you promised someone your time, you owe them a reason for why you can’t give it to them.

A nice person doesn’t make plans for an evening when she’s already promised someone else to be somewhere else at the same time. Either work it out so you can visit one friend first, then the other friend later; or decline the second invitation and honor the one you’ve already accepted.

These all sound like stodgy etiquette rules. But they have real meaning. They’re about showing your friends that you respect them, that you value them, that they can count on you, that you care about their feelings and they’re important enough to you to make time for them. If you’re nodding your head as you read them, then I don’t see how you’d think that treating your friend with as much rudeness as she treated you is going to make anything better.

Have I broken those rules? Heck yes. And I’m ashamed to admit I’ve flaked on friends too. We’re all human, and I bet even you, flakee, have been the flaker once or twice. But when you’re really invested in a friendship, you try not to make it a habit. And when you notice that one of your friends has turned flakiness into a long-standing pattern, it might be time to look at your friendship.

This is going to sound like bad advice, but don’t try to teach your friends better manners — just adjust your expectations. And ditch the friend if she’s that annoying.

Being a good friend is hard work. It’s about more than just showing up when you feel like it, to do the stuff you want to do. It’s about supporting each other and showing each other that you care. Sometimes it means going to that Carpathian folk dancing recital she’s in that she’s too embarrassed to tell anyone else about, or taking her to dinner to listen to her talk about her promotion when you’re bone-tired and just want to go home. Because she does the same for you when you need it.

If your friend is one of those deep, meaningful relationships that you want to keep in your life, then you need to talk to her openly about her flakiness and how much it hurts you. Chances are, if she cares about you, she has no idea she’s hurt you as much as she has, and just telling her might be enough to get her to try harder to show up.

In friendships as well as relationships, communication is important. Passive aggression is not communication — it’s a form of manipulation. A relationship isn’t healthy when two people start manipulating each other to make a point. It’s time to put on your big girl pants and talk to your friend. And I mean talk to her — don’t send an email because it’s too easy to overstate your feelings or misread hers that way.

You also need to be prepared to accept the fact that some people are flakes. And that even if your flake friend tries hard to make it to more of your friend-dates, she’s still going to ditch every once in a while — maybe because she’s bad at keeping a calendar, maybe because she was being thoughtless, maybe because she’s easily distracted by shiny things and she’s been standing in front of the Swarovski two blocks from your place for half an hour. Another part of friendship is accepting your friends the way they are, warts and all. Some folks are just airheads about schedules. If your friend is that way, try to meet her in the middle — if she makes more of an effort to honor her promises to you, you can also try to be a little understanding when she doesn’t.

The truth is, no one likes a sermon on manners from a friend. But once you’ve cleared the air on the specific incidents when she’s hurt you, the best way to teach your friend good manners is to set a good example. And I don’t just mean don’t be a flake. I also mean don’t be a manipulator.

A lot of life is choosing your battles. If this friendship isn’t a deep and meaningful part of your life, don’t bother with the talk, and don’t try to “teach her a lesson” by flaking on her, either. Just stop hanging out with her so much. I mean, life is too short to spend it hanging out with jerks.

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I have a few really flaky friends. I mean, clinical-strength flaky. There’s probably something about them in the new DSM. I used to get extremely upset and confused when they didn’t show up to things — and then I got to a point where I just rolled my eyes and thought, “Okay, it’s just Desdemona being Desdemona.” That’s because I stopped leaning on them as the kind of friend I expected to show up when it was really important to me, and I relegated them to the wider “just for fun” friends group.

The truth is, if she’s not going to make an effort at all to honor her dates with you, then stop making them. Or, stop setting up nights where just the two of you hang out, and only invite her to events where you’ll already be hanging out with friends that you can count on — that way, you’re not high and dry when she cancels. If she’s been a serial absentee friend, you’ll be surprised by how quickly you can phase her out of your life… because she never really bothered to show up in it in the first place.

Submit your questions about friendship, relationships, careers, family, or life decisions to [email protected]