Lovely friend who always changes plans at last minute.

It's flaky and selfish behaviour. In future I would not plan anything with her which involves paying upfront - what's the point you know she'll cancel and it will be an expense for you. As for her changing plans at short notice I guess that depends on how much of an inconvenience it is for you but next time she does it I would be tempted to say 'this doesn't suit me today - lets leave it and meet in a couple of weeeks'. I don't understand her changing lunch arrangements to breakfast plans depending on how she's feeling in the moment as surely you would have already eaten breakfast yourself by this point. You've said she seems dismissive of your suggestions. She doesn't seem like a lovely friend.

She sounds massively annoying. Does anyone have any insight into why people do this? My DP is the same - everything from where we’re going on holiday right down to sitting down in a cafe and deciding just after I’ve got comfy that we have to move tables.
Sympathies OP. It’s easy enough to say ‘don’t put up with it’ but people can be real buggers sometimes for making you feel like you’re being the awkward one. You’re not!

Well she's not a lovely friend, she's a user.

• stop booking & paying for anything; tell her to book if you want to do anything so she'll end up being the one out of pocket
• don't let her move things around all the time. If you were meeting at 12.30 for lunch & she wants to meet at 10.00 for brunch it's OK to say "sorry, I've got things to do this morning. I can stick with our 12.30 plan or let me know when you want to reschedule for"

she only "always changes plans at last minute" because you let her, though. All she can actually do is ask or suggest to change the plans - it's up to you to then say "yeah okay" or "no that doesn't work for me. We agreed to go for breakfast, not lunch and I need to be back by 12." You don't have to do what she says.

I can only agree with pps - just stop making any plans with her that you wouldn't be happy to do alone or where you honestly don't care if the details change . And stop paying for her tickets up front!

Don’t book anything with her unless she transfers money to you first.

Next time don’t txt her offering to meet up, wait until she texts you.

If she offers to change prearranged plans tell her that unfortunately you can’t as you’ve made plans already and if she can’t make the original plan you prefer to rearrange. And see how she’ll react.

Follow these^ to the letter and you’ll see the difference one way or another soon.

You are being a massive people pleaser. Treat your plans with her as a ‘might happen’ and don’t buy tickets etc up front any more. Let her do it. Let her make restaurant bookings. If she won’t then she clearly isn’t that keen to go.

I had a friend who was always late. I don't mean five minutes, I mean an hour, every single time. No text, nothing, she'd just waltz in after I'd been waiting for her, no apology.
If we had booked something, I'd leave her ticket at reception and go in and take my seat.

I absolutely hate people being late. I'm always early, so it was infuriating. However I decided to put up with it because I liked meeting up with her.

You need to decide if you can tolerate her behaviour and if you can, then find ways to mitigate it. If she doesn't go to gigs, then stop booking tickets.If you don't want to do breakfast, then say it doesn't work for you.

I have one of these friends too. It's like a pathological need in her to change arrangements. She'll tweek the meeting time by 15 mins earlier on the morning itself. What on earth are we going to achieve 15 minutes earlier than the original plan.

I just send her a thumbs up sign now, can't be bothered by a discussion as to why. Like you, we have a lovely time together so I just let it wash over me. What's really galling is, she'll almost always be late anyway!

I agree with OhBling.

She's taking advantage of your good nature and willingness to arrange things and throwing it back in your face on a whim. She clearly doesn't care that her selfish behaviour is affecting you because, if she did care, she'd change.

I can handle a change of plan, but every single time? I find that extremely selfish. It would put me off making arrangements with her. She seems very in touch with her needs and preferences but not her friends.

I would find this annoying. If she does it every single time, then I would not agree to events where her flakiness would be a problem. So she wants to book a gig I'd say, "Mary, I'd love to go to that but the last 4 times you've cancelled at short notice and I've either had to scramble to find someoen or not go. So let's just stick to dinner" or whatever.

And if she changes dinner to lunch or a walk to a coffee, and YOU don't fancy it, then just say, "Sorry Mary - no problem that you want to change but I was really looking forward to getting outside so I'm going to go for the walk anyway - see you next week instead?" or whatever.

That sounds very frustrating! As a start, I’d ask her to book tickets or ask her to transfer £ before you book. It isn’t fair she cancels and doesn’t pay - this approach may at least stop this. I’d also consider saying something.

I’m relatively easy going but I do struggle a bit when plans change! Sometimes it’s unavoidable but I still struggle. I would suggest saying to her ‘can we confirm this is what we’re doing next because I really like to know what plans are’?

If you have a nice time when you meet up, I'd stick her in the flakey category and only agree to things that won't cost you money or mean you're stuck at a gig etc with a stranger.

Have you spoken to her about it?

It's really weird of her to do that every time though!