Polite way to cancel an unconfirmed tentative meeting?

April 28, 2022 5:56 AM

I'm thinking of situation where someone tentatively commits to something, I ask them to confirm close to event, then don't hear back from them (I may or may not have remembered to say "please let me know by X..."). After my email asking for confirmation is not replied to, not sending anything else and just assuming the appt. is off comes across as a bit hard. Is it fine to just say "Haven't heard from you, so I'm assuming meeting Saturday's not going to work..." and then go ahead and make other plans?
posted by Jon44 to Human Relations (10 answers total)

I think it's fine to say what you've outlined above. "Hey, I haven't heard from you regarding X Meeting on X Day, and I need to make other plans. Please let me know any times that would work for you to reschedule."
posted by Medieval Maven at 6:26 AM on April 28, 2022 [4 favorites]

Your suggestion is what I would do. It feels annoying and potentially passive aggressive, but that's inherent in the situation (you not getting a response from them). If the meeting is more important you could offer alternative contact info, like a number you can be texted at in case their email isn't getting through for some reason.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:27 AM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

Just in case they thought their tentative yes was a real yes, I think I'd be more likely to say something like "so if I don't hear from you today . . ." before I made other plans.

(Source: Just had a mixup with adult child over not quite this but kind of similar.)
posted by FencingGal at 6:34 AM on April 28, 2022 [10 favorites]

Yes, it's fine to do what you suggest.

Effectively - you're doing that "magic email" thing that you can use when people haven't responded to you. It's a kind of presumptive end-of-conversation marker, and you're inviting the other person either to continue to ignore you - in which case, conversation closed - or to jump back into life and say ooops sorry for being out of touch, of course I'd love to see you on Saturday, how about 2pm?
posted by rd45 at 6:36 AM on April 28, 2022 [4 favorites]

As I was once disinvited from an event because I did not respond to a message that said "We're meeting on Tuesday at 7pm", just please make sure you're actually asking for confirmation, rather than assuming you asked for confirmation.
posted by Dotty at 6:51 AM on April 28, 2022 [9 favorites]

Your approach is fine. For future things, I also recommend "please reply by ______" or something that sets a deadline and then something to the effect of making other arrangements or freeing up calendar or whatever after that date passes.

Assuming a wide range of communication styles, I prefer to be as blatant as possible in my expectations and not leave things open-ended. "We discussed X, this email is confirming that. Here's all the info you requested. I need your response by Y, and will do _____ if I do not get a response by Y."

This is something I learned arranging conference speakers. You send an acceptance email and assume that 1) the person applied to give a talk, you have 2) accepted that offer, and 3) given the date + time. That does not mean that the speaker is actually going to show up then, if you don't hear back!

So I've built in "accept talk by X date or we will select another speaker."

Likewise, in my day job I have to publish content on specific dates. I give firm deadlines for reviews. You don't review it by that date? It's still publishing at my discretion. Etc. If people don't respond, give them the last nudge and move on.
posted by jzb at 6:59 AM on April 28, 2022 [4 favorites]

FencingGal's script is perfect, although you're probably being nicer than I would be myself.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:00 AM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

I like jzb's scripts. Depending on how well you know this person, it's important to be as explicit as possible. No assumptions either way. "If you do X then I will do Y; If you do not do X, then I will do Z."
posted by hydra77 at 8:44 AM on April 28, 2022

I agree that your script is fine, and I also agree that you can pre-empt the situation completely by including a deadline in your first message, e.g. "if you do want to meet on Friday for lunch, let me know before noon on Thursday."

And don't worry about being rude. You are not the one who is out of line in such a situation.
posted by rpfields at 2:59 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm the flaky person on the other end of this. If you want a gentle approach, you can also just say "oh hey*, something's coming up on Saturday, so if you want to get together, let's find another time!" You can even throw in a "sorry" at that * if you want to be super nice. You don't know what they've done to start making that plan (e.g., started looking for a babysitter). The lack of communication is understandably very annoying, I'm not defending it, just saying that if you act like you're cancelling on them or apologize as you rescind an offer, you'll have gone above and beyond. I wouldn't personally suggest being super explicit about their lack of response unless you're giving them one last chance to lock in the plans.
posted by slidell at 1:39 AM on April 29, 2022