to think i am going to stop trying to make plans with people

[EatinAintCheatin]

and see if they actually bother with me

I have noticed for a while that its almost always me contacting friends to make plans and I am sick of it, I just feel that if I didn't bother then neither would they and we would never see eachother

maybe its needy of me but OTOH maybe it will actually show me who my true friends are ?

is this just me or do most people tend to be pretty equal in making plans etc?

[PattiLevin]

Having expectations of people will generally make you disappointed imo.
I wouldn't take it personally, everyone is different.

[AbelMancwitch]

I know what you mean, I find I'm the person that organises things often - I think people are a bit lazy, or life gets in the way or sommat.

[NeedMoreSleepOrSugar]

You may well be correct that they won't make arrangements, but that doesn't mean they don't care about you or want to spend time with you.

I have a few friends who are the 'organiser' types - they pretty much always arrange when we meet up, but that doesn't mean I don't care - it's just that they have assumed that role (and often are quite difficult to make arrangements with for one reason or another, so its easier to start with when THEY are available, rather than the other way around)

Likewise, i have a few friends who I'm always the organiser for. I don't think who organises meeting up is whats important in a friendship.

Are they people you like to be around and who are fun/supportive/positive etc as friends in other ways?

[Mouthfulofquiz]

These threads pop up from time to time - I think 'organiser' types take it all far too personally. I'm not the organiser type, I prefer to go with the flow and not have plans... But it doesn't mean that I don't value my friends or that I don't want to do things with them. I just like doing things on my own quite a lot too - and there are only so many hours in the day. If organising things is stressing you out, just hold off a bit, but don't be surprised if it takes your friends a little while to realise what's going on.
To be honest, you'd be better off just talking to them openly about how you feel. Then they can say how they feel and you can reach a middle ground.

[brassbrass]

I am guilty of leaving others to do the organising. In my defence I am good at committing to arrangements and if I say I'm going to attend I'm reliable. I would never flake out or ditch someone for a better offer.

But I am not good at organising.

[CaptainCrunch]

What NeedMore said.

[EatinAintCheatin]

To be honest, you'd be better off just talking to them openly about how you feel. Then they can say how they feel and you can reach a middle ground

I feel this would look needy

(I realise that I AM being needy. I just don't want to look it to them. hence moaning anonymously and pointlessly

[Winterbiscuit]

Like Mouthfulofquiz I like to do my own thing as well as spending time with friends. Sometimes I've had friends who were "the organiser" and they organised too many things, too often for me. If they'd given it longer I'd have arranged something, but they always got there first. It may sometimes be people with this approach who then feel "no-one else arranges anything".

[Outfoxed]

I did that, quit contacting my mates cos they never contacted me. They still never contacted me, and I still felt shitty :/

[Outfoxed]

Because if you always initiate things and then suddenly stop you're the one changing the dynamic not them, regardless of how they never initiated anything before

[CakeNinja]

Sil did this.
Didn't contact any one for 2 months and literally deleted anyone from Facebook that hadn't sent her a text or been I touch after the first week - she ended up with very few friends. Her silly little competition backfired on her.
To be honest, I do find her very needy and high maintenance. If she wasn't the mother of my niece and nephew, and the wife of dbro, we wouldn't be in contact.
Not to say I don't enjoy her company, as actually she can be quite a good laugh, but it's all on her terms, she's a control freak and needs to know she's in people's thoughts etc all the time.
She moans that her parents/friends etc don't phone her and ask about the kids parents evenings and things. I do, but she had never once asked me!
I don't take it personally, we are just very different.
But yeah, she can be hard work and if she were just a friend, she'd probably be one I would lose.

[EatinAintCheatin]

aww outfoxed that is shitty

eeek cake ninja I hope I am not as bad as your SIL

I wouldn't go quite that far (what she did) :D

[Mouthfulofquiz]

Having an honest chat with them
Might just sort it out though. My friend who needs a lot of attention kept on and on and on asking me to do things which either I didn't want to do, or weren't suitable with kids ('let's go on a girls trip to new York' - I'd had a baby two months before, and yes she does have small children too!)
Eventually we had to talk about it because I was so conscious of the fact I was saying no to everything. She was feeling hugely rejected and I was feeling hugely stifled and pressurised. We reset the expectations and now we know where we are. It wasn't an easy conversation but it felt very grown up and we are better for it. We compromise both ways.

[BeYourselfUnlessUCanBeAUnicorn]

I did this. I never heard from some of them at all anyway. There were a couple of organisers in the group, everyone else went with the flow, I thought I could do this too and it turns out I couldn't and they got funny and just left me out all together. Fuck them, they weren't real friends.

[storminabuttercup]

I've actually done this, since Xmas, one friend who we go out with as couples was forever saying 'we need to meet up' so we'd spend ages working out a date, I'd have to suggest where, as she didn't know, (ooh I dunno what do you think?) then times would take ages as she wasn't sure, should we eat that early/late, is 7.30 too late to go out?, then money was an issue so I would invite them here, then the same palava the next time. It was never a 'shall we all go for a meal on X or X date' and was driving me mad! Or id get a message saying 'fancy going out' I'd say sure when? And I'd get a list of dates pretty much blocking out the next three months of when they couldn't do
Anyway I had enough and since Christmas I just reply to the 'we miss you lets meet up' messages with 'yeah sure, let us know what you are thinking and when' I still get the same message every few weeks and I reply the same. The one time an actual date was suggested was a date we couldn't do (and she knew this)
I've also stopped asking people round to the house, i realised that despite hosting some friends upwards of 20 times I've never been invited there. So fuck that too!
I now make more of an effort with the people who ask me to go places, I was focussing my time on a handful of friends and it was all one sided.
That was a bit long wasn't it?

[EatinAintCheatin]

LOL storm she sounds hard work

I have a couple of friends like that, they are "so in demand" and don't they want everyone to know it

mouthful - I am literally just inviting people for daytime coffee's etc not anything massive like trips away or even nights out, so I hope no one feels stifled or pressurised :( I would never want to make anyone feel like that

and be yourself - that's what I am thinking, perhaps if I don't chase anyone it will show me they weren't my real friends anyway. I would rather have no friends than crap ones