There is an art and a science to canceling plans. You can’t just text somebody 30 minutes before your date at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co and expect them to not be bitter about it. Let’s say you have plans at 8 PM. If you text somebody at two that you can no longer make it, they have a solid amount of time to reconfigure their plans for the evening. If you text them the same flaky news at four, they’ve exited the period of time where they can reasonably make new plans. You’ve ruined their night, and you have bad planning etiquette. 

There’s one thing worse than canceling plans too late, which is standing somebody up completely. I’ve only been stood up once. I sat waiting for 30 minutes in the most cursed coffee shop in Columbus Ohio to host a date: Kafe Kerouac. Later, she told me she was sleeping. If you sleep through a 1 PM date, there is no reason to give you a second chance, and I decidedly did not. One woman who slept through her date thought that Twitter would take her side on the issue, but she was sorely mistaken.