Cancelling friends at short notice because of a better offer is very rude...

Yep really rude. Hate it plus the ‘I’ll let you know’ when trying to arrange something. No, commit (and stick to it) or don’t bother. I have better things to do than wait around on the off chance you decide to grace me with your presence.

I cannot stand the event blenders. Seems to happen to me all the time. A very demanding friend insisted I see her for drinks the next night so she could unleash more gory details of her separation from her DH….where I sit and listen and nod occasionally. I left work early, rearranged things and turned down another offer (important client event).

She arrived and said ‘so nice to see you Ponti but I’ve only got 45 minutes as Steve and I have the Smiths coming over for dinner but I didn’t want to let you down so I’ve squeezed you in’. What? You invited me out? Why make it seem like she’s the one doing me a favour? And why are you having cosy dinner parties with your STBXDH who is apparently a shit and whom you suspect is having an affair?

I always had something else on after that when she ‘needed to see me urgently’.

Similarly friends who pitch up and say ‘oh Katie is coming along too, she called me just now and wanted to meet so I said to come along as we were just having an informal catch up’. What? Who the fuck is Katie? Turns out Katie is a friend from a specialist hobby and is also having relationship woes so you spend all night listening to horse riding anecdotes and the poor behaviour of her DH who you’ve never met. Why the fuck has Katie’s needs trucked out our planned get together?

If someone did this to me i would never arrange anything with them again. It is narcissistic and selfish in the extreme.

I have a friend who does this blending after firm plans have been made. It is very annoying. Eg come for dinner, we can go for a walk in the afternoon, and go out for brunch/lunch the next day. By the time the dinner comes we've been asked to arrive later afternoon ( so no walk) and told that Sue and Johney are coming for lunch so could we be gone by 10 so no brunch. So I make firm alternative plans around what I know the reality will be. And I feel better for doing that.

I've had friends like this. Note 'had'. I was her if no one else was free friend or she would make arrangements, might just be a drink, maybe some food, and then another friend would make a better offer so she see them instead.

This type of behaviour drives me mad. It’s so rude. But I do think some types of people just don’t mind being cancelled on as it excuses them to have a quiet night in. Which is often the reason they cancel on others, just don’t want to go out. So many people seem so antisocial these days.

I’ve had a doozy this week…. Have organised a weekend away, in another COUNTRY for my husbands big birthday… friends asked if they could come…
3 days before, just, sorry, made a hash of the flights, won’t make it afterall
im in shock I tell you!

Most people are selfish and self-centred I’ve found…

I absolutely love your analogy!

One of my supposed best friends of 35 years cancelled coming to my 50th birthday to go wild water swimming. It's the 3rd important event she was supposed to be coming to and cancelled a few weeks before. She can't quite get why I don't want to make alternative plans.i was very hurt but it has made for some amusing jokes.

YANBU- it's very selfish behaviour. Especially when people know full well you've had to make childcare arrangements which could cost money etc.

I had this before, got so sick of it that I have faded those flaky ones right out. Best thing I ever did- the friends that I have left now are ones who are lovely, reliable and caring.

Funny thing is, the flaky ones all suddenly started inviting me everywhere once they realised I was fading them. Too late I'm afraid.

People are so flaky these days I’ve even had someone cancel on the day of a concert, that I was treating them to, with an absolute bullshit excuse they couldn’t even be honest and say they just couldn’t be bothered. It was in our own town so no travelling involved apparently I wasn’t understanding enough and our friendship didn’t recover.
On the other hand I had to cancel something last minute at the weekend because I had emergency surgery on the Friday morning, My friend was obviously absolutely fine about the cancellation but I felt guilty because it’s just not something that I would normally do.

My "friend" and I had arranged to meet this summer. I was half way through a 3 hour drive to get there when she cancelled. Thought it might have been to do with her child so I wasn't too put out. Later saw she just met up with another friend that day instead. I haven't made any effort with her since!

Nah. I don't tolerate that sort of nonsense, and I have plenty of friends.

There are at least two piss-takers who I refuse to invite here.

This happened to me once and I never forgave the person concerned.

Friend asked if he could bring his gf and their friends around as they had been let down. "Dont worry we will bring wine and pizza." So I went to the cashpoint, bought more wine, fruit and cheese. Later same day friend rang to say its all off as his father had invited them out for a meal. It had not occured to him to tell his father they already made an arrangement. When I let him know how rudely he had behaved the excuse was "You have some very old fashioned ideas. The world is changing you know. Anyway we were bringing our own food" "Yes the world may be changing but good manners are never our of style".

Soon afterwards I received an invitation to his wedding. I deliberately changed days off with my deputy so she could attend a function. I could truthfully decline because I was working. No gift from me, not even a card.

Yes, this is astonishingly rude. I think equally rude is people who cancel long-arranged plans because they suddenly decide they actually really need to have a quiet night. The most infuriating thing about those people is that they're usually really sanctimonious about how they 'need to put themselves first for once', i.e. they aren't feeling it and can't be arsed.

Yes - people who claim not to see anything wrong with a certain behaviour because they’ve done it themselves. There’s a lot of that on here!

I can’t stand it! I had similar with a friend recently, we’re beyond needing babysitters though. We’d discussed going to an event, we’d discussed a few things but could both make this one date. A couple of weeks later, I am not sure why I did this but I texted her just to confirm before I bought the tickets, she replied she wouldn’t be sure until just before the date but wasn’t worried it would sell out. I am going with a different friend instead, I’m not going to wait for her to decide if she has a better offer. Especially as I suspect that the better offer is likely to be the new man on the scene. My kids say mates before dates (and some cruder versions) but it’s obviously not transferable to 50 somethings who are recently divorced.

I’ve stopped bothering with people over this type of behaviour, and I only make effort and invest energy into people who have decent manners. I have no shortage of friends - most people don’t think that sort of behaviour is acceptable OP, so I’m absolutely sure you won’t be friendless forever!!

I dumped a friend for this. She told me she couldn't meet up one Saturday as arranged because she'd been invited to a party. She didn't even bother to make up an excuse eg 'I've got a stomach upset/headache/I'm tired after work and want a quiet weekend'. Nope. 'I've been invited to a party on Saturday so I'm going to that instead.'

Sort of similar happened to me recently. Friends were organising a surprise birthday get-together for friend A. Found and arranged babysitter, all sorted. Friend A accidentally catches wind of the surprise very soon before the event, says no thank you, I don't want to. Cancelled babysitter. Suddenly Friend A has a change of heart and says OK to party.

I could have called the babysitter back (they were still available), but I just thought no – it was really insensitive to everyone's time and effort to flip flop. Friend A has no reason to cancel – they are are well, had no other plans, they are social etc. Just didn't 'feel like it'.

I think this is extremely rude. I have a friend who,I suspect,likes to keep her options open when we've got arrangements to do something. She always says 'I'll call you by X time if something comes up'. So far,she never has,but I do sometimes wonder what that 'something' could be. If it's an emergency,or she's taken ill,no problem. Cancelling because she's had a better offer would be the height of bad manners.

Spectacularly rude behaviour. Some years ago a good friend and I went to some effort to arrange lunch out for four, with two other friends. In all our diaries for weeks, and everyone had confirmed they would be there. Part of the point of lunch was to discuss something specific of interest to all of us so we'd carefully planned the date around everyone's availability.

Come the day, only three of us turned up and not until we were actually seated for lunch did the fourth person text just one of us (not even a group text) to say oh, she wouldn't be coming after all as she was a bit busy that day.

Going from four people to three people changed the whole dynamic of the event and meant that the particular planned discussion couldn't happen. It felt incredibly rude and inconsiderate, and I never included that person in social arrangements ever again. She really demonstrated that our time and our company wasn't of any value to her.

I had a friend flake on other friends' New Year's Eve party. They were upset but didn't want to say anything. I pulled him up on it and he then proceeded to fall out with me, with an elaborate and unrelated excuse. They pretended that they didn't mind at all so as to stay in his good graces - he was very much Mr Queen Bee.
I no longer see any of them.