Flakiness is out of control at the moment.

Someone has sabotaged my social schedule for the remainder of the year. 

Looking at the dizzying array of colours and rectangles that is my Google Calendar for the festive countdown, I can see that someone with far more energy and capacity for small talk made these arrangements for me. 

There are coffee catch ups and musicals and gigs at wineries and even a weekend away. There are Galsmas lunches, work parties, daycare concerts, school assemblies, before-Christmas get-togethers and then at least two weeks of wall-to-wall family visits.

The person who agreed to all these events needs a slap, I decide.

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But as I look around for a non-existent PA to blast, I realise with sinking dismay that the person who made this mess was me. In October. 

Drunk on the promise of summer, giddy with the arrival of warmer weather and the prospect of rosé in the sun, October-me was a rose-coloured socialiser. 

End-of-November me is a twitching, overstimulated walking to-do list, limping towards the end of the year on a cocktail of coffee and cortisol.

The prospect of shaving just a few engagements off the schedule feels like sweet, sweet relief. 

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I look at the cluster of activities I have planned and try to decide which ones I can pull out of while causing the least amount of disappointment. I choose a few, fire off my "so-sorry-but-I double-booked" excuses and ride the wave of relief that courses through me. 

As it turns out, I'm not alone in this. 

People are flaking out of plans at an increasingly rapid rate as we hurtle towards the end of the year. 

"Three out of the five women who had planned to go to girl's drinks on the weekend bailed," laments my most extroverted friend when I mention this phenomenon.

"I wish I'd gotten in first," she adds, a shade guiltily.

Another friend admits she's had to pull the pin on several social plans lately as the life admin and costs leading up to Christmas have spiralled out of control.

"I just had to have a really firm talk to myself and get realistic about how much was on my plate," she explains. 

"It's not that I wanted to flake, it was that something had to give."

Earlier this month, we ran a story about a woman who had 40 people RSVP to her wedding. Only five showed up. 

In a video that quickly went viral on TikTok, Kalina Marie shared footage of her walking into a near-empty venue, shocked to discover that people who'd confirmed their attendance hadn't bothered to show.

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And while bailing on a loved one's wedding is in a slightly different ballpark to canning drinks with the girls on a Friday night, it seems it's part of a wider trend of no-shows.

In October, I wrote a piece about the rise of the last-minute canceller, suggesting that perhaps social anxiety was to blame in some situations. 

But it seems there is something more at play here than just run-of-the-mill anxiety. 

There's something about the moment we're living through right now that seems … heavier. 

The Guardian ran a piece last weekend that expertly summed up the general ennui permeating the vibe of 2024's tail end, headlined: 'The fatigue is not only real, it's absolutely legitimate': why are so many of us so tired right now?

In it, journalist Bianca Nogrady posits that a combination of horrific global conflicts, a cost-of-living crisis that has us all firmly squeezed, overwork and burnout are all contributing to the bone-tiredness many of us feel stepping out of bed in the morning, even after a solid night of sleep. 

I hazard a guess that the same factors are at play in the flakiness epidemic currently sweeping our inboxes. 

Because as my friend wisely explained: something does have to give. And while no one wants to let a friend down or be seen as flaky, maybe we need to extend each other and ourselves a little extra grace when it comes to flaking this festive season. We could even rebrand it as 'snow-flaking', to soften the blow. 

We do want the connection. We do want to spread Christmas cheer. We do want to clink glasses with workmates and yap with our mates. 

But, please God, after the year most of us have had, we also just want a lie-down. 

Feature Image: Getty.