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

I agree it's rude. We have a family member who leaves us hanging until the last min for same reasons. Last time they tried we just said knowing at the last min didn't work for us so we'd catch up another time.

I hate it when people do this, it's so rude. It's also annoying when people won't commit to an invitation in case they get a better offer 😒

I’ve had this happen to me this week. We had a night booked for weeks, I sent a message a couple of days ago to confirm the time and my friend replied saying that she’d decided to go to her boyfriend’s instead. I’ve been there for her through severe depression, but since the new boyfriend we never see her. I’m on the verge of this being the final straw. It felt very hurtful after I’d gone to an effort to get the house ready etc.

Yes, I absolutely agree with the general point, but arranging things months in advance is very difficult for some of us for different reasons, and creates different problems.

YANBU in this situation.

Flakey friends are not worth your time, and they certainly don’t care or respect your time and the fact you arranged a babysitter.

There are exceptions to the rule in my opinion, of course other than illness and childcare issues, I have had a friends cancel on me recently because one of her close friends booked a spontaneous trip home (she moved abroad) and the day we had planned to meet was the day that her other close friend asked to meet my friend and her husband. In this situation, I absolutely understood so you could technically say she had a “better offer” but in my opinion, she done the right thing seeing her other friend that she doesn’t get to see often

People that behave like that are disgusting. They never see that they are in the wrong either. I drop any friends that behave like that.

I also ended contact with a long standing close schoolfriend over this sort of thing. He would regularly refuse to commit to meeting up when we were in the same area just in case he got a better offer, but the final straw was when his parents invited me to join the family for New Year's Eve one year and he then took up a better offer but didn't bother to tell anyone. I drove 90 miles after work in filthy weather; he went out just before I arrived and hadn't come back by the time I left the following morning. His parents felt utterly humiliated.

@nomas he never even reached out. I messaged on the group chat that was me, Dh and friend which originally started as wedding organising chat. And nothing in return, no acknowledgement, no ownership, no apology. Again, rude.

Dh is the Godfather to both his children. We always used to travel to them as their children were younger but it felt nice that they were coming to us for once. It was the fact that he didn't contact us to cancel. If I hadn't reached out to his wife for food ideas for her children we would have expected them and what? They just don't turn up?

It is so rude. The things is I really liked them both but the way they flaked on us when Dh had to move mountains to reschedule meetings and take a day off work felt like a kick in the teeth.

Good for your DH. How did the friend react?

My niece has done this to me a couple of times. I am self employed so I book the time off to spend with her & then she flakes last minute which is then too late for me to get bookings in. I am short a couple of hundred quid but can’t say anything as it’s due to her anxiety. I literally cannot afford to make plans with her any more!

Luckily I don’t have many friends who do this.

There is one who is now notorious to the extent that if she says yes to something we basically don’t bother booking an extra seat for her and just count down till she pulls out. Wouldn’t ever organise something with just her.

People are so rude. I would not make any other arrangement.
Ops "friend" if you recognise yourself we all think you are a rude fucker.

I don't have any conception of why people think this is socially acceptable, unless they are either ill or genuinely don't give a fuck about the other person.

I have dragged myself to a lot of get togethers when tired, pregnant, busy, navigating train cancellations, etc etc, because I despise flaking on people. Now I'm older and uglier I am very quick to bin off people who flake at the last minute.

I used to be quite friendly with DH's best friend's girlfriend. Years ago we all arranged to attend an event together as a four and on the morning she just didn't show up, had decided to go and meet other friends instead. I was left alone with DH and his mate, who had brought along another mate so as not to waste her ticket. I haven't spoken to her since!

I bend myself backwards to accommodate people don't do this. Just make arrangements, stick to them to the normal extent, and importantly stop arranging things with people who mess you about.

Or will all filter the flakes out and all have much nicer friends! The flakes can then all flake together.

Can you just go without them?

The funniest (but also amazingly rude and annoying) was my friend who once said he couldn’t do our planned thing together because this was the first night he and his girlfriend had had a night where neither of them had anything on and they wanted to spend it together. Obviously plans with me didn’t count as anything.

It’s massively rude and selfish, especially when it’s involved organisation like getting a babysitter and I would be very hesitant to make future plans with people like that.

Awful.
i think this is like when women do all the life admin and kinkeeping for their families and they’re told just let the husband sort his own friends and family out, this is sadly what happens

My DC agreed to play a friendly cricket match for a small team who did not have any spare players. The following week a larger club wanted him to play for them permanently in the league but I told him he had already made a firm commitment to the small club and I had agreed to drive him to and fro the match but I wouldn't drive him to his better offer because it would let down the entire smaller team who I knew struggled to get enough players. He could play friendly match for smaller team as he had agreed and switch to larger league club after the match . He played for the smaller team and came home saying he was glad he did because everyone was so nice to him.

I had a friend that did this to me a couple of times saying that her work or bf had arranged some thing last min - this was before I was a mum but Thursday and Friday nights are precious so I told her we couldn’t make any plans thueday-Saturday only on Mondays, unless she had written confirmation from both her boss and her bf that she was free that night.

I agree it is very rude. I stress to DC how it's not nice to do this and if they do this they will end up with having no friends. I think you need to find nicer more reliable friends. I agree people might need to cancel in an emergency such as illness or death in family but not for a better offer.

Not new. I had this with my NCT group. Son is now 20! We were the only ones in the group not to have grown up in the area. Every other couple had parents, siblings, family on tap to babysit. We had no one locally so a big deal for us to both go out together. Every time they all cancelled last minute. One time I had declined a friend's birthday party as we'd already agreed to go out with the group. Needless to say I can't remember the last time I saw theml

To me this is the height of rudeness.

Yeah that's annoying. I sometimes think it's not a great idea to arrange things too far in advance, as 'better offers' are more likely to knock out your plans (which may feel more disposable / provisional if arranged this way), but obvs you need fair notice when arranging babysitters and whatnot. So yanbu for sure.

Do they realise how scarce & precious your time off is?
Sometimes you have to hammer it home to them I've found.