AIBU to rethink old friends after they reacted badly to delayed flight and prioritising my family?

i think you should have told them immediately your knew you were not going to arrive at the time you thought that you needed to cancel and reshedule. I dont think saying your DD needed to prioritise seeing her GPs as a reason for cancelling,the reason was due to a missed connection you were delayed and therefore exhausted and needed to reshedule. Cancelling last minute unless unavoidable/emergency situation means you dont value the time of others. As a one off with an apology thats fine but if its a pattern of behaviour and happen regularly most people will object sooner or later.
I would apologise and explain your reason was you were exhausted/jetlagged and dint feel well enough to meet up . if its a one off and they are friends they will calm down.

This was my initial thought.

Is this the straw that broke the camel's back?

Oh OP 😬 if you were too tired just say that, it's understandable - the family comes first thing is ridiculous, you knew the plans when you said you would still meet them after missing your connection. The only thing that changed in that time was you were more tired than you expected to be, I think this is fine but you should have given more notice. However with the back story I think you're going to need to grovel or write off the friendships.

Really? And you’re blaming your friends for you straining their last nerve.

I don’t know about you dropping them, but I would drop you if you let me down more than twice. You have told them that you and your time is more important than them and theirs. Good for them for calling you out on it.

As a one off, a last minute cancellation after a delayed flight should be a minor irritation for your friends and it does sound like they overreacted.

But if this is the last in a long line of flakey and unreliable behaviour, then maybe they have just had enough.

The whole thing was poor planning.

You don't respect your friends Op.

Which is it.
you were too tired or family comes first?? (who you were about to have 2wks with).

When you said you d go straight to venue surely you told parents not to come to airport?

child tired is fine. And you too. Totally reasonable.

you claiming families come first is odd and just sounds like a weird defence from you that pissed them off. and that’s what makes you look flakey.

Well then, no wonder they were pissed off! 🤷🏼‍♀️

Instead of that long original post you could've just written

'I'm unreliable and often let people down. I cancelled on my friends at the last minute and they're pissed off.'

It sounds as though you genuinely tried to honour a commitment to your friends despite the circumstances turning against you, and you only realised quite late that it was beyond your capacity.

From your friends perspective, you said you could still make it and then changed your mind at short notice, and it isn’t the first time. But a 24-hour flight delay while travelling alone with a four-year-old is an exceptional circumstance.

Once you knew the connection had been missed, it would have been better to manage expectations immediately rather than reassuring everyone that you’d still attend and then later reversing the decision. I know in reality, you were navigating a stressful travel situation with a young child, and it’s understandable that you hoped you could still make it work.

I also wouldn’t have framed it as prioritising your parents and daughter over your friends. The real issue was that an extra 24 hours of travel had left both you and your daughter exhausted and no longer up to a social gathering.

I would apologise for the mixed messages and for cancelling at the last minute.

Beyond that, it may be worth reflecting on whether you sometimes commit to things before properly considering your own capacity and your daughter’s needs. You seem to have been trying very hard to make everyone happy, but the result was no one being happy, sadly. Sometimes the most realistic answer is, “I don’t know if I’ll manage that after a 24-hour travel delay.” And that’s perfectly okay.

You needed to have been really really apologetic, and given them more notice.

They had (from you general info) needed to make a change rideable effort to co ordinate a time they could all be together to meet with you, and instead of apologising you effectively told them their effort was being passed over and they were not a priority

Of course they were irritated (at best)

And you have doubled down by leavjng the group. What they said was that they would make individual arrangements to meet with you but couldn’t do another hard-to/arrange group meet.

But you have taken offence at that.

The problem is, OP, that, when you're flaky (or 'not known for being reliable') other people see that and are affected by it.

Your friends will give you some leeway for that because you're their friends. But you anticipatnthe flakiness and rather than seeing them being something you look forward to, it starts to become something you make parallel plans around to have a plan B. There is a stress around whether you're going to turn up or petnthem down again. It starts to become something that irritates. It's annoying rather than endearing.

It sounds like this was mentally a last straw for them. If you mess people about, eventually their patience will run out.

Your own bloody fault then 😂

And telling them you'd rather spend time with family was also probably a bit rude. If you'd just said you were all too tired from the delays, that would have been easier to get away with.

However, seeing as you're always unreliable, I'd probably not want to make plans with you again anyway.

Why didn’t you send your daughter with your parents and you get the taxi to the venue to meet them?

I knew it. Nobody reacts as strongly as your friends did if it's not a reaction to consistently unreliable behaviour. Do better, if you don't want to lose your friends.

Did you miss the connection because you were arsing about?

If you've got form for being unreliable they were probably expecting something to happen but you assured them no, I'll be there then flaked out at the last minute.

I'd be pissed off with you too.

I don't know why you think it's you that should be disappointed in them.

Your flight wasn't "delayed", you missed your flight due to bad planning. You twisted the truth to your friends to garner their sympathy, but...you essentially lied to them. Everyone knows that short connections barely work if you travel by yourself, but you're travelling with a family - what on Earth made you think you were going to make this flight on time?

In fact, this whole trip's fiasco comes down to your bad planning, and you leaving things until last minute. Such as clear communicating with your friends. Of course people are going to be pissed when they've gone out of their way to come see you, and you cancel last minute. I suspect this isn't the first time you're pulling stunts like this.

I wouldn't have reacted like your friends did though. I'd just meet with the others as planned and not bother with you again.

Ok, so this is the issue. Are you by any chance still trying to act as if you were single, childless and living locally, instead of the new reality - for example agreeing to do things but finding family life, distance means you have to cancel or was the unreliability from before you moved to the UK? How do you handle cancellations - is it last minute text or giving plenty of notice? That also makes a difference.

YANBU to have wanted to go straight home from the airport, but YABU to have waited until you landed to let them know.

Presumably they had all made space in their calendars, arranged childcare etc already so it’s frustrating. It can be difficult to establish a clear day between multiple busy people, so suggesting you meet individually makes sense.

You admit you're "not known to be reliable". In this case you missed the connecting flight which caused the 24 hour delay in arrival. You haven't given any good reason for missing the flight so I assume it was your own fault. You didn't communicate with your friends and then you told them you were going straight home with your parents instead of meeting them. Sounds like a shambles and I'm not surprised they're pissed off, especially as you've got previous.

I'm starting to doubt this thread is real as surely nobody can be self aware enough to realise they are flakey but also not understand why their friends are pissed off about it.

CoronaperonaShe said she’s not known for being reliable?**
I did miss that, however I did say I was with her ad long as she hadn't been flakey. She has shot herself in the foot !

McSpoot You couldn’t even be bothered to read the OP’s two posts, I guess
Correct! Now are you going to pull everyone else up who said similar to my post or are you just singling me out?

It was madness to think you could go from that length of travel to a dinner with friends, especially with a 4 year old. If you had messaged them immediately to cancel because your flight was late I think they’d have understood.

You know how hard it is to get everyone able to meet when you’re there and yet you admit yourself you’re unreliable. I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all for them to suggest you contact them to meet individually while your in country, much easier than trying to coordinate the group again.

I see this so often, the unreliable friend repeatedly messes people about and when they finally push back “the friendships over”. You need to be more respectful of other people’s time.