Flaky friend/ host who wont commit

[KateMiskin]

Well, with all the other posts about flaky friends, I thought I would air my own dilemma. But please note it's in Chat, not AIBU, so no need to be nasty.

I have a very longtime friend from university. She has recently moved to a beautiful European country with her husband and has been asking me endlessly to visit. No children. I agreed to visit for a few days but I made it clear that I won't be staying with her and won't be expecting her to chauffeur me around. I like my own space and I sense it will be better for everyone.

So far so good. She agreed November would be a good time. But we cannot agree on a convenient date. She travels a lot and appears to be always travelling. After a lot of back and forth I asked if I should come in early December..No response. I then sent another mail asking her to let me know a convenient time. No response to that either.

I should just scrap my trip, yes? I am disappointed as I was looking forward to it and I deliberately went out of my way to be no trouble.Don't suggest I call. We never call as she travels so much and our body clocks are at opposite ends of the scale!

I think it makes a difference if you have been waiting for her to get back to your last messages for a few hours or a few weeks.

But either way you are correct to note her flakiness could be a potential problem.

If she lives somewhere that you would like to visit anyway and would be happy if you didn’t manage to see her then maybe go ahead.

If she lives in the arse-end of nowhere and you are worried about how her flakiness might dominate your trip and your feelings when on holiday then maybe not.

Either way I hope you have a good trip somewhere.

Oh, I have been waiting several weeks. She's always been scattered and it seems to have got worse in our fifties. I don't think I want to visit if she's not around so I might go elsewhere.
I really hate how everyone has become so flaky.

yeah I hear you.

Sorry to be morbid but if you're both in your 50's and haven't heard from her for several weeks could she be unwell? Has she been active on social media etc?

I would just message her and be more direct. "Dear x - I would still love to come visit you in x place but I probably wouldn't be visiting by myself without the purpose of catching up with you. Can you confirm if you still want me to visit and if so what dates so I know you'll definitely be around for a catch up while I'm there because i know you're travelling a lot. If you're not sure if your plans we can just catch up when you're next here and maybe try and do it again in the future. "

Or something similar.

That way you're being clear that while you don't want to be in her hair, she is still the reason for the trip and you need to know she's committed to it before you commit.

I’d not be up for visiting if she can’t get her arse in gear enough to reply myself.
id be saying that you won’t be coming and we can try again next year.

if you still want to try to arrange it though you need to be more direct, don’t give her the space to put it to the bottom of the pile because other things are taking priority.

send something like, I hope you are ok I haven’t heard anything from you.
I know we are all busy but I don’t want to arrange travelling to your country on short notice so do these dates work. If I don’t hear from you by <insert date> then I won’t be coming and we can rethink about it at another time.

depending on how close you are you can gently tell her that her not messaging you back is annoying and ask why she is at you to visit but then when you actually say you will she won’t respond for you to arrange it! But that’s a different, separate conversation to the one above.

Sorry to be morbid but if you're both in your 50's and haven't heard from her for several weeks could she be unwell?

Is this because as soon as you turn 50 you become old and infirm?

If it's somewhere you want to go, just book and say 'I'll be around on X dates', if not just sack it off for somewhere you'd like!

No sadly it's from personal experience. I thought my long distance long time friend had ghosted me, it turned out she was actually in hospital having intensive chemo, which didn't work.

Update: I managed to speak to her on the phone. She was perfectly fine; just been travelling. She still says she wants me to come but can't commit to a date, so I have just said we will do this next year.

I think I will go away with DH instead; I can at least pin him down to a date.

So tired of modern day flakiness.

Came here to empathise.
As other threads have said it only takes a second to respond.
I’ve found a few friends to be rude by not getting back re arrangements
I always get bk to folk out of courtesy.