Is it ever OK to stand someone up?

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Sad to say, we all come to understand our place in the pecking order, even in the eyes of our nearest and dearest. Nothing reveals it more clearly, more cruelly, even, than when a cherished pal abandons your plan to meet because they are in receipt of a better offer.

Irritation, the sensation of being a less-appealing prospect than the shadowy rival, even the Fomo (just how good a time are they having without me, anyway?!) — there’s a spectrum of reactions, often depending on how you are feeling as much as the callousness of the dumpage. Sometimes these friends-and-family snubs sting. But sometimes, well, you just have to admit to being outclassed.

Why is this on my mind? Picture the scene. A windy street outside the local pizzeria. There was I, waiting — not at the church, as the old music hall number has it — but for a jet-setting friend who’d pledged to share some dough balls. “When I found he’d left me in the lurch. Lor, how it did upset me.”

The inevitable text message, when it came, was not the sort of rejection his transatlantic job makes inevitable: “Sorry,” he wrote, “not going to make it. Having dinner with Tom Cruise.”

Not even an exclamation mark to show this might be out of the ordinary. And, really and truly, who could blame him? You would have to be the churl of all time to bear a grudge. I mean, wouldn’t you opt for an evening with Teeny Tiny Tom, as we call him in our house, rather than boring old me or even, and I hate to ram this down your throat dear reader, boring old you?

I admit that this is an extreme example of social gazumping, at the far other end of the spectrum from “Sorry, I’m washing my hair.” Up there with, “The prime minister just called and I have to go for a snifter and a chat” (this also happens in my line of work and, again, fair enough). Or “the bod from EastEnders just dropped out of Strictly and they want me to go and demonstrate my rumba.”

But hard cases make bad law. And extreme proximity to Hollywood A-listers or even prime ministers is a bad guide for any code of conduct on snubbing, which, I admit, I’m struggling to formulate here. Clearly, it’s harder to rule on situations where there is no basking in the reflected glory of a friend dining out in a Los Angeles hotspot and probably being papped on exit.

So when, short of a bona fide celeb or a call from Downing Street is it OK to dump or be dumped for the evening? When do we shrug and think: go you! How about this for a solution? As above, improbable but true better offers are exempt. Also, perhaps, last-minute tickets for some incredible trip or outing. Maybe don’t cry wolf about sick relatives even if no supernatural being is doling out bad karma. Imagine how it looks if you are found out.

Social media posts make it more likely these days that you will be rumbled. Colleagues have horror stories of ending up at a party or dinner in a restaurant to find someone who had cried off living it up on the other side of the room with a rival host.

Which brings me to honesty: when it comes to social snubbings, is the white lie always preferable? I’m agnostic. A strategic case of the common cold or even an impending deadline are excuses to save everyone’s face, so long as it’s not embarrassingly late in the day.

It’s better to fess up, though — unless you are that annoying friend who always, every time and across decades, responds to an invitation with a frank “maybe”, questions about the guest list and even (god damn the cheek) the menu. Do try not to make it clear that a friend’s hospitality makes the grade as a back-up plan but not the main event.

And what’s the best riposte as a dumpee? Maybe take inspiration from the dull suburban man in The Fast Show who pretends that spectacularly famous people have popped in. Bill and Hillary Clinton, say, asking for some sun-dried tomatoes to make a sauce, “which was nice”. I might start making similar claims if pushed too far. “I see your Tom Cruise and I raise you, oh, I don’t know, the Almighty. Who was in great form actually . . . ”

Miranda Green is the FT’s deputy opinion editor

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