As the midweek dinner approaches, I keep an eagle eye on my WhatsApp. Who’s going to bottle first? Inevitably, someone will. “Hi, guys, can we move Wednesday’s dinner to next week? Soz. Snowed under .” It’s as predictable as clockwork. I know this because I know my friends, and I know myself. It’s a game of chicken, willing someone to beat you to cancellation, thus allowing you to retain the moral high ground while securing the best kind of night in: the unexpected, guilt-free one.

How did it come to this – to loving your friends, yet loving the prospect of a bonus night on the couch even more? It gives new meaning to the term “cancel culture” and is so very 2025.

“Because our lives are squeezed, when the catch-up comes along, it’s like another thing on the to-do list,” says Melbourne writer Madeleine Dore, who explores the phenomenon in her podcast and newsletter, A Social Life, with Friends. “We’re starting to treat our social lives like our work lives, which is really quite devastating.”

Kayla Steele, a clinical psychologist and postdoctoral research fellow at the Black Dog Institute, says cancel culture also reflects a rise in prioritising self-care (“I just need a night in”) over social obligation (“I really can’t cancel again … can I?”) when it used to be the other way around. Fear of missing out often drives the initial booking, only to be replaced by social anxiety as the date looms.

David Meagher, editor of Gourmet Traveller and author of two books on etiquette, reckons the digital world has fuelled the practice, with everything from restaurant bookings to telling friends you’re bailing now done without the need for verbal conversation. “In cutting out the personal interaction, it becomes a lot easier to be thoughtless about it because you don’t have to explain yourself as much,” he says. In etiquette terms, he adds, nothing beats picking up the phone “to convey the understanding that you’re inconveniencing someone, and that you’re sorry”.

Therein lies the rub. For every person who’s happy to get a bonus night in, there’s another who’s sad, annoyed or even angry at your last-minute cancellation – including event organisers, who you might have assumed wouldn’t feel the slight. “It’s still a form of rejection,” says Naomi Parry, the Black Communications founder who spent two decades hosting glamorous events for Sydney’s social set. “It doesn’t matter how distant a relationship is, it can still hurt.” And if you thought cancelling on the day was bad, Parry has seen worse, including people texting mid-event to say they can’t make it – or not showing up at all.

What’s the solution? Dore recommends replacing the diarised dinner three weeks hence with low-expectation, low-organisation “hangs”, such as a standing arrangement that whomever is free on Saturday meet for coffee at a designated spot in the park. Or not. No drama either way.

For me, I’m making a concerted effort to say yes to less. And a funny thing has happened since implementing this new regimen. I’ve found myself looking forward to my one night out a week and praying, as the date looms, that nobody cancels. Then my phone lights up. “Sorry, guys …”

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