How to bail on plans without losing friends

It’s the act that’s defined a generation, an experience so common it’s become memeified: canceling plans. Bailing is a litmus test of sorts; who and what events you back out of says a lot about you as a person. Are you the type who commits and only bails when absolutely necessary? Or are you a frequent flake looking to change their ways? (No judgment here: The occasional canceling of plans is acceptable, and you shouldn’t feel guilty about it.)

Call it a byproduct of overscheduling, a facet of introversion, or a condition of mild social anxiety, but bailing is a popular tool in our social arsenal. Regularly deployed mere hours ahead of a previously scheduled engagement we’ve come to dread, canceling was once considered a get-out-of-obligation-free card. In recent years, though, general consensus around bowing out has seemed to shift, perhaps spurred by the growing attention paid to the dangers of social isolation or simply because being consistently bailed on feels like garbage. All of which is to say, canceling requires much more tact than simply rattling off a text 30 minutes before you’re supposed to meet up with a friend.

There are, of course, valid reasons to skip a movie night (you’re sick, for instance) and very few excuses good enough to justify not showing up to a wedding you RSVP’d to. But rather than giving in to the impulse to flake when the urge hits, it’s important to make a more considered choice based not on how much you think you’ll enjoy a social event but on the consequences of skipping.

Consider this your canceling checklist, a bailing thought experiment, a toolkit for bowing out. Taken together, the following five questions will help inform your decision on whether to skip a social engagement.

Before flaking, take your audience into consideration — namely, whether this is a person you’d be comfortable inconveniencing. Because we’ve already invested significant time and energy into close relationships with family and friends, we’re more likely to want to preserve those relationships by upholding plans. This past history can influence how comfortable we are with bailing.

“How important is this person?” Julian Givi, an associate professor of marketing at West Virginia University, tells Vox. “Do I value this person’s friendship, or are they someone that I’m okay with canceling on? Have they canceled on me?”

Close friends are complicated. In a study, William Chopik, an associate professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, found that participants reported being most upset when a best friend canceled on them, compared with when a good friend or acquaintance canceled. Ironically, though, that closeness gives us latitude. People also tend to be more forgiving when close friends cancel on them, Chopik says. By virtue of knowing someone so intimately, we understand the constraints on their time and can intuit they’d only cancel for a good reason. It’s also safe to assume we’ll likely see them again soon, too.

We may feel less obligated to those we don’t know well. The participants in Chopik’s study said they’d only be “a little” upset if an acquaintance canceled plans. So, if this is someone you don’t know very well, and don’t necessarily plan to, you might feel more comfortable ditching them.

A monthly game night and a funeral don’t carry the same significance. You can probably guess which one is acceptable to skip. The formality of the event will give you a signal on whether it’s alright to bail. “People are more likely to cancel informal things,” Chopik says.

It’s fine to bail on a coffee hang, but think twice before ditching a wedding, funeral, retirement party, or other event of importance where someone might’ve paid money for you to be there, even if you don’t necessarily deem it a monumental occasion. “If it’s super important to this person, I’ll go, I’ll move mountains, I’ll traverse seas, I’ll travel as much as possible or inconvenience myself a lot,” Chopik says. “But then if it’s more informal or you don’t know them very well and the burden to get there is high, those things are the things that’ll lead you to likely cancel.”

While it may seem acceptable to ghost on a group occasion — who would notice you’re missing anyway? — your absence might alter the vibe. Take a bachelor or bachelorette party: If five of seven invitees back out, the celebration has shifted from a group affair into an intimate gathering. “Those last two left are in such a weird situation where it’s like, now I don’t want to go as much because it’s a smaller bachelor party,” Givi says. Your bailing signals to the stragglers that the event isn’t fun enough for everyone to attend.

How annoying is it for you to attend?

How often do we schedule a hangout only to remember later how much of a burden it’ll be to get there? The costs — financial, logistical, and energetic — all factor heavily into which plans we see through. A long and expensive commute for a short, casual hang when you’re already exhausted may not seem worth it.

The problem is, we’re bad at predicting how much fun we’ll have. We tend to overestimate the costs and underestimate how enjoyable the event might be, which leads us to cancel plans. In reality, our worst fears almost never materialize. “If you’re really anxious about it, it’s probably not going to be as bad as you expect. And that’s a pretty consistent finding,” Ella Moeck, a lecturer at Adelaide University in South Australia, tells Vox.

Everyone’s bar for what constitutes “too far” or “too much effort” varies, though. Your canceling over a 15-minute drive across town runs the risk of pissing off a friend who doesn’t consider that a hassle at all.

Concerning money, when people have already paid up front, they’re more likely to stick with plans. In that case, canceling would create more problems instead of quelling them. “That’s why anytime I’m planning anything, especially if it involves money, I make people Venmo me weeks in advance,” Givi says, for, say, a show or concert.

In his study on canceling plans, Chopik found the most reasonable excuses for canceling were being sick, dealing with a family emergency or childcare issue, or having a work obligation. The worst justifications were mentioning something better came up, not being interested in the activity, and straight-up lying.

Surprisingly, participants weren’t sympathetic when someone canceled because of financial constraints. Chopik suspects the framing matters more than anything else: “I bet if you communicated that ‘I would’ve loved to go to this concert and spend time with you…but I just really can’t squeeze this right now,’ that’s a way more understanding excuse than being like, ‘That’s too expensive. I’m not going,’” he says.

The excuses themselves carry weight, but what they signal is also crucial. By telling a friend you’re bailing on them because you’d rather hang out with someone else, you’re communicating that they might not matter to you. But if you provide clarity about why you can’t make it and try to reschedule, that’s a sign you value the relationship. “If it’s just like, ‘I’m tired,’ come on, you committed already,” Givi says.

What are the consequences?

Canceling plans comes with potential fallout. Bowing out of a recurring group event isn’t likely to ruffle many feathers, but sending a “Sorry, can’t make it!” text minutes before a dinner reservation with out-of-town family members might not fly. Think about the position you’d leave the other party in, Givi says. “You could imagine it’s probably more acceptable the more time that there is before the event, the less meaningful the event, the less it’s putting them in a bind,” he says.

But recent research suggests these social consequences may be overblown. In an unpublished study, researchers found cancelers tend to overestimate how upset others are when they back out and underestimate how much canceling impacted others. “Realizing that canceled-on persons are more understanding than expected can reduce social stress,” the authors write.

However, this isn’t permission to back out of events with abandon. If you do leave people in a tough spot — they need to cover your concert ticket, they’re scrambling to find another way to get to an event you said you’d drive to — be prepared for scorned parties to share some choice words about you behind your back. “There’s this social penalty, too, that sometimes if you bail, people aren’t crazy about that,” Givi says.

Being in a relationship with someone — friends, family, romantic partners — requires us to honor our commitments. To be there. If we fail to uphold that simple promise, the invites will inevitably dry up. Who wants to keep making plans with someone who seemingly doesn’t value them? How can a friendship blossom when you don’t see one another?

“If you want a friendship, you have to honor those commitments and show up,” Chopik says. “You have to honor the non-important stuff.”