Confessions time: Are you THIS friend?

By ROSIE WATERLAND

So I have this friend. Let’s call her… Posie (sideways glance).

This friend annoys the hell out of her other friends for constantly being a total flake. She makes plans and breaks them at the last minute. She makes plans and forgets she made them. Sometimes she even makes plans with no intention of going through with them at all.

So frustrating.

You see, Rosie’s Posie’s problem is that she thinks there’s two of her. She thinks there’s Present Posie, who gets to do all the easy things, like say yes to dinner and plan to get up early to go to the gym. Then she thinks there’s Future Posie, who has to actually deal with all the crappy things Present Posie planned, like catching the bus to that obscure dumplings restaurant in the rain or getting out of bed at 5am to run on a treadmill and make small talk.

But that’s where Posie’s plan falls apart.

You see, Future Posie doesn’t exist.

Future Posie lives the perfect kind of life that Present Posie wishes she could live, but actually doesn’t. So when it comes time to do all the things Present Posie planned, Present Posie is the one who has to do them, not Future Posie. Future Posie is always too busy living a fantasy life of 5am starts and lunch with mum followed by drinks with three different friends in three different places.

Basically, Future Posie is Present Posie’s ideal self, and Present Posie schedules her life like she already IS Future Posie.

Big mistake.

Posie’s friends have had enough of her making plans only to delegate them to a non-existent perfect version of herself. Posie needs to learn that there’s only ONE Posie, and she needs to organise her life accordingly. So they’ve come up with some pointers that Posie can follow to help make scheduling her life a little easier. And a LOT more realisitic:

You can’t actually watch that extra episode of Game of Thrones and be at lunch within 20 minutes. Don’t be cray.

Don’t only call your mum from public transport. You can make time at home and won’t even have to keep your voice down when talking about secret women’s business.

When you’re out with someone and you check your phone every time it beeps, you have been outed as someone whose phone is attached to their hand.

You can’t then ignore txts and say you ‘didn’t look’ at your phone all day. If you stopped our conversation to reply to someone else’s txt, you can stop another conversation to reply to mine.

You can’t stay up reading websites about weird cults until 3am when you have to get up at 6am for work. 1) you’ll be tired and 2) it’s creepy you weirdo.

Stop agreeing to do things that you don’t want to do and have no intention of doing. As soon as you put emphasis on the word definitely (“Yeah! I’ll DEFINITELY be there!”), you know there’s no chance you’ll be there. Either say no or prepare to take your trackies off that day, cos you’re going out.

When you make a plan, stop assuming that this ‘Future Posie’ person will remember it. WRITE IT DOWN IN A FREAKING DIARY.

You know that if you don’t reply to that email immediately it will disappear into the email equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle. You can’t not reply to people and then blame ‘the email abyss’. That’s not a thing.

So, are we clear on all this Rosie Posie? Future Posie is a pipe dream. Present Posie needs to adjust accordingly.

Do you have a flaky friend like Posie? What advice would you give them?