How do you be assertive with someone who is flaky?

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Hi there:

I need some advise. I have a network with someone who I am supposed to meet once a week to work on a special project. Long story short, this network of mine has postponed on me three times by saying "I have to go out of town this week for work but let's meet next week." I have had to confirm it with him the night before and have him respond with all of the above that he can't.

I blew up at him today by saying, "You know this is getting ridiculous and I am getting sick of this. Always next week with you. Now you have broken your promise on me several times." I also said that I pretty mad at him by mentioning that if we are going to work together that:

1. He needs follow through with me
2. Give me a heads up and tell me the next time he has to do some work out of town
3. He also did not finish working another project that we worked on together even though he said he was going to do it.
Note: I blew up about the third time he seemed to pull this on me.

He wrote back and said he could not talk to me anymore since he has an old phone and said he would call me when he got the chance.


Did I say the right things? If not how do I be assertive with someone like that without ticking them off?

Lose the friend.

Ironic in that just this morning I was kind-of taken advantage of, again (!), by someone who routinely steps on me. So I do know it hurts.

Remember that it's not your fault. You've done nothing wrong. I guess the key is how to react to it. To rise above it. But, at the same time, it's important not to condone their behaviour. You have the right to be assertive with him and if he cannot accept that, you can just ignore him. If he initiates contact with you, then he's lowest priority. You really do not owe him anything further. You deserve better.

I don't want to loose him just yet. I want to learn how to set boundaries with him that I can set and put my foot down since he has only done this three times.

For instance, I made it clear to him that if we are going to work together that he either needs to follow through with me or give me a heads up in advance when he will not be available.

I even offered to my share of the work when he is not around and then submit in the work into him due to his special skills to help. If that does not work then I will do all the work myself. Besides it really would not kill me to learn those skills myself to put on my resume anyway.

Maybe it would not hurt for him to create a schedule and give it to me.

However, what I am asking from you is what to say without being ugly or immature.

Nothing wrong with being assertive. Group projects are the worst because people like that skate through, never doing anything.

I think you have already - you've established those boundaries. If he still does not understand, maybe you could explain it again, making his realise that his indifference does hurt. I think you're right in that it's never ideal to dump a friend. Maybe you could explain in writing, like you've posted here, and just be sincere and objective like you are.


Apologies for the last-minute edit here, but something occurred to me too, just as I was getting yet another run-around message from the one who does it to me. Anyhow, I think at some point we just have to accept that certain individuals are just that way.....I know it hurts, I know it's not right (and we're not like that), but your friend has a flaw. You'll not be able to fix the flaw, and it's not your fault. Instead, just to accept that it's imperfect and hurts.

If another person gets ticked off with you because they flake on you when you need to work on a project? They have some nerve to get ticked off then. You didn't say anything personal, or launch any attacks against him. You addressed your concerns and that was fine.

Oh I don't know if he is that ticked off lol. He actually seems like he is being more of a coward if you ask me. He said that he would love to meet but has some major burdens to take care of.

Still I feel like he made a promise and he needs not to be breaking that promise like that.

Maybe you're right that he is being a coward. He is taking care of other problems and letting this issue with you become a bigger problem.

There are some people in this world that like to run away from problems rather than sort it out. In the end, that problem you run away from never disappears. It comes back and bites you in the ass again someday.

I have have had other friends who were cowardly like that before too.

One of them was a girl who was set to get married asked me if I would like to be a maid of honor in her wedding. I said yes and took it serious enough to ask her lots of questions.

She could not come up with a specific answer about this wedding that she was trying to cook up at the last minute
1. We were going to have the ceremony at her house and then change into our suits and go swimming
2. She was going to have cats at her wedding
3. She then said that we would have chinese food catered
4. Finally, they were doing a cook out
5. She put together about a $250.00 budget

This was three and a half weeks out:

So anyway, she did not bother once to talk to her maid of honor for two weeks and I so I had to constantly hunt her down by even call her mom.

So I finally got a call about one week before she was getting married and it turned out that she was having a marriage at the court house. She said that they decided at the last minute so they could get the papers signed to move in together which was an excuse. They did not have the money.

So I got into a huge fight with her for being flaky like that.

My "best"/only friend is flaky like that. She is a very fair-weather friend. I still love her like a sister but I don't bother to count on her if I need anything.

I love this guy dearly too and I love working with him and I think he and his family are neat people. At the same time, I think he has problems of his own once again and it working with those problems.

Still, I cannot accept that kind of behavior from him and he seemed to say one thing and did another and so I am going to take whatever he says with a grain of salt. Flake is his middle name and I need to honor him like that.

I don't even.... just.... what ?

I know somebody who still uses one of those first generation mobile phones... you know the kind, they're about the size and weight of a brick.

And, I know people who still use the old-style rotation-dial wall-mounted phones.

Having an old phone sounds like a total BS excuse for being uncommunicative, to me.

He could not keep up with my face paced texting because I have a smart phone and he does not. However he did manage to shut his phone off when I called him and yelled at him on his voice mail. That is when I got the text.

The most annoying part of this is that he is someone who has worked with an Autism organization for a long time and I know him through an Autism center. So I thought I could trust him enough to be reliable but it turns out that he is just as bad as any of the staff at the center. They are flakes too.

Pfssssh sure it can take a while to write a text on a stupidphone (I have one of those) but it's not like it's impossible or anything.
And well, he could always take the radical approach of using a phone to actually phone you up once in a while.
He sounds like a royal pain in the arse, to be honest.

I give the person a few chances and then move on to make another friend. I will still in most cases consider the flaky friend, a friend just not consider them reliable. It can be difficult sometimes. I've had a friend who will say let's do this event Friday night, but then say wait no let's do this event because a guy I like bought tickets already. I felt flaky when I decided to stick with the original plan since there would be a few people there that I knew.