Cross with flaky friend

[NineOfNine]

I’m pretty sure that I’m being unreasonable to be feeling so cross about this.

But. I can’t rant about this in real life without it causing friendship problems.

I booked to go to an event about 6 weeks ago, with a friend. I’ll call her Anita. I was really looking forward to it, she seemed enthusiastic as well.
This event is in just over a fortnight.

Today, Anita messaged me.
A regular extracurricular activity that her DC go to has been cancelled for the week of the event.
Anita said this is a great opportunity for her and her DC to have a week away at CentreParcs before it gets busy in the summer holidays, and she’s really looking forward to having a fun week away with them. Her DH can’t go because he can’t get the time off work.

I’ve no idea what she’s going to tell school. She took the DC out of school for a week’s holiday last half term too.

Ironically, Anita was having a massive moan a few weeks ago about some mutual acquaintances being flaky with her when she was trying to organise stuff with them 🙄
And now she’s cancelled on me for a last minute break at CentreParcs 🙄

So now I’m feeling really cross. And rejected. And hacked off about having to either go to this event alone, or scrambling around trying to find someone else who’s both interested and available.
And I’m going to have to pretend I’m absolutely fine with this and not upset at all or Anita’s going to get really argumentative about it.

So, anyway. I’m going off to calm down in a quiet room and get a grip now ☹️

Pity op. I would feel the same. I find people suit themselves now.. and not always easy get someone free to go.

Please think that it is her loss. You don't treat anyone like that. Downright rude. Friends should build you up. Remove her control by not arranging future outings.

Remove her control by not arranging future outings.

This is pretty much what DH said. I think you’re probably both right. At least for outings that are anything more than a coffee after the school run.
The way I’m feeling right now is that it’d be difficult for me to trust she’ll bother to turn up in the future.

She basically doesn’t like you enough so just don’t bother with her.

Yeah, I guess this makes it pretty clear that our friendship meant more to me than it did to her.

Time to reassess things I suppose. And try to emotionally detach from this a bit more.

Did she at least acknowledge that you had plans that she now couldn't do?

Is it an event you could go to easily by yourself? What was the nature of the “event”? I mean like a band for a couple of hours or an art exhibition?

Anything more I think it’s a bad sign.

I pretty much guarantee she will do something worse in the future. Only a matter of time.

Did she profusely apologise? Offer to pay your ticket? Or make it up to you in some way?

If not I’d cut your losses. Move on from the friendship.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the nature of the event in case it gets too outing.
But it’s the sort of event where, while it’s possible to go alone, it’s got a social element to it that means it’s not nearly as much fun to go to solo.

Not much of an apology either.
The message from Anita was along the lines of “I’ve decided to book a holiday because xyz, so I won’t be able to make the event. Sorry about that”

Anyway. I’ve slept on it now. I can’t say I’m happy about the situation, but I’m feeling much calmer now.

She’s shown you an aspect of her self-centredness. I’d bet £20 she’ll do it again in some way, might be something more distressing than an event ticket. I’m obviously speaking from my experience here though.

Sometimes people change plans for good reasons - but a genuine apology is still the right thing. Flakiness is part of some people’s personality, for whatever reason. Is she flakey in other ways? Are there things you like about her that make you prepared to put up with it? Or other things you dislike? Do you feel able to be honest and be yourself in her company?

Anyway, whatever the reason for the flakiness, the problem with that is that trust starts to go goes and without trust what you have is ….

@Mary46 ” I find people suit themselves now” - well put

At least she gave you a few weeks notice though. Annoying, but much more infuriating if she had let you down much closer to the event, or just done a no-show! So it could've been much worse.

That said, I wouldn't be rushing to make any important plans with her again!

Disappointing yes. This puts me off doing stuff with friends this flakiness/cancelling.. then nobody free to go