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Comment by jonnycomputer | Hacker News Reader

Just an observation, n=1; when I moved to Los Angeles to go to school, I was shocked to find that people cancelled plans on me all the time. At first I took it personally, because that didn't happen in the more rural town I'm from. But then I realized: its part of the culture, and maybe its just an attribute of very dynamic urban social networks, where an exciting new opportunity might pop up any moment. So I learned to not get my hopes up, and learned to cancel on others too without worrying about it over much.

When I moved back to rural California, people thought I'd become a jerk. Took me a while to shift back.

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As a New Yorker, I find the social culture out in LA to be super flaky and pretty annoying. People are non-committal, or cancel, or complain that you're staying in an inconvenient neighborhood for them to see you in. I blame it partially on the physical landscape of the place, just a bunch of suburbs smashed together trying to pretend to be a single city.

In NYC people might show up late, but generally I find New Yorkers to be good at keeping plans and the city lends itself to spontaneity. In LA if the restaurant in the strip mall you tried to go to is full, it means driving to another strip mall and interrupting the flow of the night. In the city you can just walk down the block and change your plans on the fly. In LA I've had friends cancel plans to later find out they got an invite to some famous person's house. In New York, you'll likely end up getting invited along because who cares if you were in a movie.

As a relatively new New Yorker (I've been here for five years) I agree with your assessment. New Yorkers commit to engagements and follow through, in my experience. I've had new acquaintances here follow through at a higher rate than old friends back in California. It is one of the things I like most about the city.

> People are non-committal, or cancel, or complain that you're staying in an inconvenient neighborhood for them to see you in. I blame it partially on the physical landscape of the place, just a bunch of suburbs smashed together trying to pretend to be a single city.

1) No, it's just LA flakiness. It's all about being seen dontcha know.

My weird story about this. I was at a Little Barrie concert. Of course, there is a band before and a band after. We're there up front listening to the first band--Auditorium (Spencer Berger, his brother, and someone else) who were really good. There's the two of us at a bar table like 4 feet from the band, and something like 4 other people. 6 people total. We talk to the band (awesome dudes) afterward.

And, then, suddenly, it's like a hipster sea flows in. Skinny corduroy jeans everywhere. Snaps and flashes everywhere. I had words with the corduroy boys who thought they were going to be annoying as fuck in front of us. Uh, no, we understand that you're going to get a little riled up but you're NOT going to have your phone flash in my face the entire concert (I love the fact that Johnny Marr (separate concert) will call these douchebags out in the middle of a concert and chuck them out if they don't stop.). That can fuck right off--fortunately, I'm huge and make a very nice wall so they can get a nice picture of my back or they can move.

Little Barrie takes the stage about 5 minutes later--awesome super high energy show. And, then, suddenly, the hipster sea flows out.

And there's 6 people in the bar again for the band afterward. We felt so sorry for them. It's one thing to be the opening band and not have people but its another thing to be the closing band and watch everybody leave before you even hit the stage.

That's LA.

2) However, part of it is LA traffic. Your median appearance time is -20 minutes. Your variance is +15 to -Infinity.

If there is an accident between me and you that's going to make me 2 hours late, I'm not coming. I'll text you and tell you why, but I'm not coming unless you are a very close friend.

If you think LA is just strip malls you've never been to LA. Plenty of walkable areas.

For sure, each suburb has it's own sort of "downtown" area in LA. But just because you can sort of walk around some parts of LA doesn't make it a place where spontaneity can thrive. As soon as you throw necessitating a car into the mix you lose that.

That's not really accurate based on my 20+ year experience living here.

Lived and worked in LA for over a decade and never once did I find myself feeling it lacking for social spontaneity.

LA is dense by American standards, but the numbers show NYC is on another level entirely:

https://github.com/scythe/mdqs/blob/master/README.md

Swaths of LA are very dense, some neighborhoods have over 40k people/sqmi:

https://i.redd.it/v84al8v4ymp11.png

Yeah. Even if you do go out in a strip mall neighborhood, unless you're in the SGV or something there will be enough of them you can easily hop from one to another on foot (and people do).

And honestly some of the best food in this country is found in these strip malls. This humble strip mall of a half dozen restaurants contains some of the best Thai food in the world (1). If you've ever heard of the chef Jet Tila, this very strip mall is his formative ground.

1. https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1018633,-118.3056169,3a,75y,...

It feels to me like your initial intuition was right - they are being jerks/babies and they aren't respecting the decisions their past selves have made.

I went through a phase of tongue-in-cheek "quantum planning", wherin I would give my friends a percentage on any plan I was invited to. So if I was asked to dinner I might just say "60%". Needless to say this didn't go down very well with people.

There is a value to your word, and yes, it is more prevalent in closer-knit communities than in bigger cities, but I think that's because the cost of ditching a "friend" in a big city is much lower - after all there a plenty more potential friends to be had. But in my opinion someone who habitually breaks plans is giving a clear indication that they don't value their word and don't value the person they break plans with.

Might be something to do with LA (and possibly other large urban/metro areas) but possibly something more to do with 'school'. Even at a university level, people are still kids or young adults, don't have many connections, don't really understand the impact of their actions, reputation, etc. ) I saw this sort of "yeah/maybe/cancel" behaviour amongst some portion of peers back in my university days, but even then, it wasn't everyone, or even most people in my circles. It was known poor behaviour then. We tolerated things a bit more because... no mobile phones, no email, etc. If you weren't there, you weren't there, but often didn't have a good way to let someone know you had to cancel ahead of time (but you'd check your answering machine timestamp to verify!).

This was true of my life in SF as well post college. I suspect it’s universal of life for young single people in cities.

Looking back, if I had to diagnose it, I’d say it had to do with a compulsion to stay busy coupled with overcommitting to the point of social burnout. Kinda like how children get cranky when they don’t get their nap but don’t believe they’re tired until they fall over.

You might be right about that. I left LA after graduating.

> I went through a phase of tongue-in-cheek "quantum planning", wherin I would give my friends a percentage on any plan I was invited to. So if I was asked to dinner I might just say "60%". Needless to say this didn't go down very well with people.

This is hilarious. I do think it's generally a good idea to communicate hesitation or any degree of unwillingness, I'm just laughing at how you convey it with this approach.

BTW I kinda love your quantum planning approach. It's honest and accurate! If you're 50/50 on going to something, be transparent and tell others that. If they don't like it, that's on them, not you.

It's terrible behaviour. Flip it around:

"Hey, would you like to come to a dinner party at my house on Saturday. There's a 50/50 chance that I'll turn you away at the door."

Don't make your indecisiveness other people's burden.

Ok totally fair! This does not work for dinner party planning. I was thinking more as an answer to “hey are you going to this party on Saturday?”

But that's not how planning works. I want to know how many people to expect. I want to know if you're coming or not so I can plan accordingly. If someone just said 50/50 without any kind of reasoning or explanation, I'd say OK forget about it then.

Honest, maybe, but not transparent.

  "I've got a pretty busy day that day and am not sure I can make it" - transparent
  "I don't know if I'll be up to going to that that day" - transparent.
  "Hey, maybe; if I find nothing better to do" - transparent.

  "50/50 chance I'll be there" - all the charm of the last of those, without the transparency.

Haha thanks, but I agree with the sibling posts, I just did it to be weird and provocative (and not but for more than a week or two) and people _hated_ it and for good reason, I think.

Just like the linked post, learn to better predict how you'll feel so you can go from 50/50 to 100% in either direction as soon as you can. Then you can all move on instead of having another spinning plate in your life.

hahaha.. i thought about doing that percentage thing but decided it would be a dick move before i actually did it.

now i just ignore the text for a day or so until I've made my decision and stick with it

IMO cancelling plans on people because 'something better came up' is rude and selfish. I just stop being friends with people like that.

e.g. I had someone cancel plans made weeks ahead to meet up with me and my family at the last minute because they got invited to go skiing (this is in an area near many ski resorts, it was not a once in a lifetime opportunity). I just lost interest in meeting up with that person again.

I similarly dislike dealing with people who "keep their options open" by refusing to commit to plans until the last minute (e.g. RSVP-ing to a birthday party invite the night before).

I generally agree with your sentiment but do also think there is value in some degree of flexibility and recognizing some plans have more significance than other.

E.g. if the friend bailed on a coffee break instead of a weeks-in-advance-vacation-plan it would be much less of a big deal (maybe not even worth nuking the friendship over?). Either way, situations like that do call for evaluating how important that person is in your life and (down)ranking them accordingly. Everyone has some fair-weather friends.

There's flexibility and then there are repeat offenders. In a more detailed look, last minute cancel is the worst.

I have moved the fair weather friends to group invites, and they either come or don't. They torpedo so many plans, it's not worth making the changes anymore.

> Los Angeles [...] people cancelled plans on me all the time

Traffic. It's because of traffic and sprawl.

LA is massive[1]. If you lived in Manhattan and made plans with people living in Queens or Brooklyn or East Rutherford, you would expect them to flake just as much as people living in LA. If I only make plans with people in Santa Monica and I live in Santa Monica, they will probably show up.

The reality is that in LA you do not have subways that go everywhere. You also do not walk. So you interact with people that mostly got to that location via freeway and probably live at least 30 minutes away. Plans sound nice and people like to be agreeable, so they will say "sure, I might make it." And usually you do not get a strong yes. It's always a maybe. Because when the event rolls around, you're stuck deciding whether you feel like getting into the car and driving a good hour in heavy traffic or not. It's not because people are dicks, like everyone is claiming. It's because the city wears on you. Distance is measured in time, not miles in LA.

Also, parking. If you live in WeHo, KTown, DTLA, or Santa Monica and you're asking people to find parking, be prepared for lots of canceled plans. No one likes circling the streets for 20 minutes to find parking.

[1] https://www.welikela.com/how-big-is-los-angeles/

> LA is massive[1]. If you lived in Manhattan and made plans with people living in Queens or Brooklyn or East Rutherford, you would expect them to flake just as much as people living in LA. If I only make plans with people in Santa Monica and I live in Santa Monica, they will probably show up.

Why does logistics make your attendance unreliable? I live in Cambridge (UK) and regularly have social things in London. The transport usually goes: cycle to station (20 minutes), train to London (1 hour), Underground to destination (10-40 minutes). I know that's the transport when I agree to do something - if I don't want to do it, don't accept the invitation. If I change my mind in the intervening period then that's me being shitty for not thinking it through in the first place or for not bothering to put in the effort.

If anything the longer the transport the less likely I would be to flake due to the larger mental commitment I've made.

Kind of incredible how deeply having good public transport can transform culture.

> so they will say "sure, I might make it."

I really don’t see why you would do that if you already know it’s an hour’s drive away, and you think that’s too much.

Saying yes in that situation sets you both up for disappointment.

Barry Sobel made hay of this aspect of LA culture back in 1992: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLf3EaDEf68 I'm amazed this has been bouncing around in my head for 30 years, and equally amazed I could instantly pull this up with a Google search.

Wow! Thanks for pointing that clip out. So, not just me. (:

Grew up in LA. Never had people flake. My guess is via random variation, some people get unlucky, have a few people flake, and assume it's the cultural norm. You can insert "people from ____ are flaky" and find complaints about pretty much anywhere.

Common experience for me, rural stores closing 15 to 30mins early (so from my pov as a customer, flaky, by not being where they said they'd be)

I'll affirm and agree with the sibling comments here: I know lots of people who live in / spent time in LA and they report the same thing -- that lots of people there are just flakey on plans.

I don't think the fact that lots of people do it makes it OK in any way whatsoever. If the culture is to be rude and flakey, you don't have to conform to that, and you don't have to accept that from others. I'm friends with some people in LA and we all know that flaking on plans is a no-no regardless of what city we're in / from.

This must be a cultural thing because it's the rudest thing I could imagine! Agreeing to a plan is a commitment. The other people involved (who have also committed) rely on you doing your best to honour your commitment - who knows how their plans would have been different had you not committed in advance.

part of the culture

Nah. They're assholes.

If its understood that this is the norm, then expectations adjust to match. Maybe you start overbooking your social calendar as well.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

Its only a wrong if it is not understood how contingent the affirmative is. If its common knowledge that fulfillment of an agreement to meet at a certain place and time for a social occasion is highly contingent on the circumstances on the time, no violation of trust occurs. Let's not be too rigid in our thinking about human social relationships.

And then you're surprised when you can't buy a TV without built-in ads that sends back telemetry about what you watch.

Also n=1, but a buddy of mine from the east coast lived in LA for 7 years, told me the people there were the most selfish and fake bunch he had ever met. He said he never made a real friend in the entire time he was there, and that was a major reason he moved back east. I think you just ran into a bunch of assholes.

One good lesson I've learned is to prioritise making plans with the right people.

In this case the right people are those who don't think "plan" and "current best option" are synonyms.

Try living in a German-speaking country for a little bit and you can be cured of your lateness and flakiness.

Is this like you cancel 30min before, or days in advance? Either way it would be annoying but the former moreso.

A bit of insight, the people you we’re hanging with weren’t from LA either. There is a difference between the people who grew up here vs the people that are here to act out some fantasy.

Nah, anyone who cancels on you doesn't value you and your time. If there's a good reason sure, but all the time?

Would be better to find like minded friends instead.

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