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Nothing sucks worse in a friendship than empty promises.

Everyone has a friend of this kind of caliber; where in their presence everything is grand, everything is peachy and the time for doing {insert activity} is now, now, now! Effusive commitments are made, the chisels are taken out to engrave the engagement in stone. You make plans, arrange your schedule, wait… and…

Nada.

No call, no forewarning, and of course, no show. Why? Well inevitably the excuse is “I didn’t know you were serious.” Or “I thought you had something else that day.” Or some other equivalent schlock.

True, most of us know, when dealing with these types, that it’s best to have some sort of fallback plan but still, giving them the benefit of the doubt is just providing more rope to swing from in the end.

Still there’s a worse sort, imho. The type that are more insidious in their promises. These are the friends that *expect* you to keep after them when a commitment is made. Chasing them around with a handful of “Post-its” reminding them of what to do, and when to do it, and if you don’t then *you* were the one that wasn’t serious (because you know how forgetful they are).

The horrible, awful part about this all is the fact that really these are nice people whose company you do enjoy when you’re with them and so you’re willing to put up with the angst because: a) you’ve done it before and b) they really don’t mean you any harm. And it’s true, they don’t… but the better question is – why punish yourself by dealing with them in the first place?

Think about it next time, wouldn’t a good book be more rewarding?