You can’t make commitments. You cancel at the very last minute. You say yes to something, but then you always tend to blow it off. Are you someone who decides you want to go to an event, but you blow it off at the last minute because no one else will go with you?

Do you know what flaking says about your personality? It shows a lack of commitment. It shows a lack of respect for other people.

I remember an event I did about a year ago. I had 35 confirmed attendees for a room that held 35 people. It was a very exclusive event.

I re-confirmed with these 35 people four times, because this special event had a waiting list of 100 people who wanted one of those 35 spots at the event. I even confirmed with all of these people just a couple hours before the event (because I know human nature and that there are people who don’t respect other people’s time).

Even with all of this, I still had seven of these people who had confirmed just a couple hours before who did not show up for the event. They did not show up because they did not respect my time.

The next day, I emailed those seven people and asked them why they did not show up. They all came up one stupid excuse after another.

The truth is that there was no real excuse. The reason they did not show up was because they neither respected me nor my time.

I received emails from many of the 100 people who were on the waiting list who didn’t get to attend, asking me how the event went and inquiring when I’d be doing another one. Every one of those 100 people really wanted to attend the event, and seven of them could have.

When you commit to someone, you are committing not only yourself but also that other person’s time. So when you flake, you are telling that person that their time is not valuable to you. You are telling that other person that they are not worth hanging out with, and that you don’t respect their time or them as a person.

Flaking says a lot about your personality. Guys ask me all the time whether they should continue to hang with a woman who has flaked on them several times. They ask me if they should continue to call her.

I always ask them, “Why would you want to call her? Why would you want to continue to call somebody who doesn’t respect your space, doesn’t respect your time, and doesn’t respect you? It shows a lack of respect for yourself.”

So do not flake when you’ve committed to something. Show up and be present. You might learn something, and you might actually have a good time.

The reason why you do is because you like to be a doormat. You continue to date these people because you enjoy being a doormat, and your self-esteem is so low that you’re willing to let someone walk all over you.

I’m sorry to be so crude and to just lay it on you so bluntly. It is really important, though, that you understand this dynamic and what the boundary lines should be.

Let’s say you’ve just started dating someone and they call you at 4:00 pm and say, “I’m being held up at work. I can’t hang out tonight like we planned.” That is okay. You can give them a one-time pass.

They are allowed to use work (or whatever else) as an excuse for flaking one time. If they come back a week later when you’re excited to see them saying that their boss is holding them up or they need to go to an appointment, then that is the second time. You cannot give them another pass.

If you keep giving them a pass, then they are going to look at you as a doormat. What I always say about people who are flakers, is that they are someone who doesn’t respect the time of someone who has committed time to them.

If somebody has rearranged their schedule planning to spend an evening getting to know you and is excited to see you, you show them absolutely zero respect by flaking on them. If you are someone who allows people to flake on you over and over again, though, you are also showing yourself zero respect.

Do not allow somebody to flake on you more than one time. You give someone a one-time pass, and that’s it!

Not only that, but if you end up in a relationship with someone you’ve allowed to flake on you multiple times, then you are going to likely have another problem. If someone flakes on you over and over but yet keeps telling you they want to see you, a year or two down the road you may find that quality time with you may not be anywhere near the number one priority in their life.

They may end up flaking on you a lot. They may always put work or something else first. Flaking behavior is a definite peek into someone’s personality.

If you are a person doing the flaking, then it’s time to get honest with yourself. If you were really excited about the person on whom you are repeatedly flaking and they were a person you truly wanted to get to know, then you would be changing your routine to make that happen.

There is nothing more exciting than getting to know someone new. If the other stuff you’re doing every day — work, appointments, watching the ballgame — is causing you to flake on someone, then clearly that other person is not intriguing you very much.

If that is the case, then stop stringing them along. Be a man (or a woman), let them go and don‘t play with their head anymore.

If you are sick and tired of being a dating doormat? Let me show you how to stop this behavior in your dating life for good! CLICK HERE if you are a man and CLICK HERE if you are a woman to read more about how.

You think you have flaky people in Missouri, right? You have flaky people in Vegas? You have flaky people all over Southern California, right? And there are flaky people all over Jersey and New York, right? And in Arizona…

But here’s the thing about flaky people: they don’t exist. If someone flakes on you, it just means that they are not really that sure about you. They are just indecisive about if they are into you or not.

We all flake on people that we’re indecisive about. Do you know how many times I’ve been invited to a party or out to dinner with some people, and then at the last minute I realize that I really don’t want to go? And I bail out.

Does this make me a flaky person? No, it’s just because the people that were invited to the party just didn’t really intrigue me enough to want to go. It wasn’t worth my time to go.

Client: You said you were going to go in the first place?

David: Of course! We always accept those invitations before we think about it.

Client: Yeah, we all do that to a degree.

David: Right, and then later – at the last minute – we realize that the person that we’re going to go hang out with doesn’t really excite us, so why are we going to go give up one of our nights?

So when people bitch and complain about people being flaky in terms of dating and other things, I just tell them to let it go. You just didn’t excite them enough, and for once you’re on this end of the stick. More often you’re the one flaking on somebody.

If someone is truly excited about hanging out with you, they are not going to break the plans. If they do have to break the plans, they will say something to you like, “something at work just came up, can we do something tomorrow night?”

Khiem: And if you seem to be meeting constant flakes, well, then you just aren’t exciting or intriguing enough.

I think I’ve written a couple of blogs on flakiness and dating before. A lot of people say, “I don’t understand. I seem to meet women (or men) and they just always seem to flake out on me.”

Here’s the thing: in general, people tend to be pretty flaky. Assume that people are going to be flaky.

Why are most people flaky? They have their own stuff going on – they are busy with work, with friends, with their dog or their cat – maybe they are busy chasing the FedEx guy around. Who knows why they flake?

But it gets more and more difficult to meet people as people in general become more disillusioned with dating. This is when they tend to flake out.

There are countless times that I’ve met women who I’ve been on the fence about – I wasn’t quite sure she was worth giving up a night for – and so we made plans, but the day before we were supposed to meet, I decided that she wasn’t really worth it. So I flaked. We’ve all done it. We’ve all been there.

In dating, people try to play it very safe. Very few people let out their full personality when they are dating. I’m not talking about verbally vomiting everything you’ve got on the table on your first date, but I think that we don’t really give people a peek into who we really are to intrigue them.

The key here is this intrigue. If you intrigue someone enough – even if it is just five minutes in person or ten minutes on the phone – I think people would flake much less.

As you get older, you begin to learn about what you really like and you just want to be excited about somebody – I’m not talking about doing back flips or anything like that – but you want to be somewhat excited. You want to look forward to giving up one of your evenings to spend it with this person.

You might just be giving up a night of television, but it doesn’t really matter – you are still giving up your own time. The older we get, the pickier we become, the more precious our time is, the more interest we have and the more satisfied we are in our own lives. This is why we tend not to just give up a night. We only want to give up our time to people who really intrigue us.

If you’re on the fence about somebody, my suggestion is to get him or her on the phone again. If you’re a woman and you’re on the fence about a man, call him one last time. The same goes with a man for a woman. Lob one last phone call at her, and see if there is any interest or any sparks.

You could also possibly throw them an email and try to get a flirtatious banter going. If you’re not fully intrigued by somebody it’s really not worth giving up a night.

There are plenty of people out there – you have to have an abundance mentality in life. There are plenty of people to meet and date. Personally, I’m not a huge dater at all. I really kind of just go with the flow. If somebody interests me, I’ll go out with her. If not, I’m not going to go out on a date just for the sake of going out on a date.

Last night, I went to the beach, took the dog for a long walk, had dinner with a friend – and that was a great night. If I meet somebody, I’m much more in the mindset of just hanging out and getting to know each other. I know it right from the start if someone interests me.

So these days, I tend to not flake. I’ll make a phone call and get to know a woman over the phone, and if she doesn’t interest me, I’m done. I don’t need to pursue it. I don’t feel like I need to give somebody a second chance.

But some of us do. So if you are ever on the fence about somebody, give him or her a second chance. Lob an email at them. Lob a phone call. Maybe they were nervous the first time you spoke to them. Maybe their real personality will shine on this second chance. But give them that second chance before you totally write them off.

As for flaking, I’ve always said that I don’t believe that flaking exists. I believe that you’re just not interested in somebody or that they didn’t intrigue you enough. Flaking is not really the issue here. It’s really about letting go and letting yourself out.