Friends visited locally and didn't tell us

[WestmorlandSausage]

We live in the lake district. Lovely village, we have plenty of space for people to stay and alway make people welcome and let them know that if they want to stay they just need to let us know. We are very easy going, probably to laid back/ walkovers.

Some really good friends (or so we thought) who live about 4 hrs away have just posted pictures on facebook that show they have been within 2 - 3 miles of us all of last weekend. They have even been in our favourite local pub that we take them to every time they come. DP considers the man in the couple to be his best friend and was going to ask him to be best man at our wedding the next time we visited them. TBF we don't know his GF as well as we know him (we both know him from university) but have stayed at theirs about 6 - 7 times and him at ours more times over the years. GF has never stayed but there has always been a 'genuine' reason why.

They didn't breath a word that they we coming into the area. They clearly don't actually like us do they? DP is gutted, I feel so sorry for him and a bit guilty as my suspicion is that it is me the GF has the problem with.

In fairness to them they have tried to hide that they have been here and haven't said where the pictures were taken but the locations are so familiar to us (being locals) that it is obvious.

I'm just annoyed that they clearly felt they had to hide it, if they had said we are coming to the lakes but probably won't have time to catch up then that would have been fine .... we were pretty busy anyway!

AIBU to tell DP to pick his second choice best man and cut the fuckers loose or should we man up and talk about it with them like grownups?

I get bollocked a bit from friends in London. I frequently go for meetings. It takes me 2.5 hours to travel to London - frequently the meetings take up to 3 hours. I don't want to get back home too late.

If I dare put a status update about traveling to a meeting or something funny on the way etc I get sarky comments like

"Ohh. Don't visit us then!" Or I get guilted with comments like "I know you're busy but I could have met you for coffee!".

I can't get them to understand that frequently, there's not even time for that. If I get a more flexible meeting I try to contact them and them they complain about short notice! Now I daren't post anything or tell anyone anything.

OP, I really think you're over-reacting
and over-thinking and you'll make your friends wary of you if you say anything.

I don't think yanbu either. I would be a bit hurt but that's because if I was visiting the area of a friend who I don't see often, I'd definitely suggest meeting for a drink or something. Even if I was on a romantic weekend break, I'd be happy to take a couple of hrs out (relieved probably! :))

But not everyone is like that so although it's easy to take it personally, the responses here show there's no need to take it personally and there are lots of reasons why someone would act as they did, including the girlfriend didn't want to see you.

I wouldn't cut them out yet. Just see how it goes with them.

Maybe they just wanted to do their own thing. Go and see places and do stuff without having restrictions on their time. Sometimes you just want to be able to be free to come and go as you feel like it. I know when i am on holiday I don't like to make plans. I just like doing things on the spur of the moment when the mood takes me and it can be annoying having to clock watch if that makes sense.

I can understand why this has bothered you, it's literally on you pr doorstep and they didn't tell you - weird!

I would just write on the picture 'I recognise that (whatever) in the background, hope you had a great time' and see what they do. If they reply saying sorry and explain then great, if they ignore it then you might be right to suspect something is up.

I agree with the OP actually.
If I go to London with work ( rare) I text my good friends who I usually stay with when I go for leisure and say I'm coming darn sarf but will only be there a few hours so won't be able to catch up.
Also, if friends who live a few hours away were in my village and didn't mention it I would think it was a bit odd.
They didn't have to spend time with you and it sounds like you didn't expect that but not mentioning it seems a bit strange.

I have often been in the area a friend lives and not visited or told them. I would only tell them if I WANTED to pop in to see them.
No one is under obligation to let you know where they are - or to HAVE to see you just because they are nearby. Doesn't matter if they are friends.

It doesn't mean you don't like someone just because you don't want to visit them on a particular trip. Perhaps they did not want to commit to something they may not have had time for!

"know when i am on holiday I don't like to make plans. I just like doing things on the spur of the moment when the mood takes me and it can be annoying having to clock watch if that makes sense."

This. Maybe it depends on the weather, their hangovers, what time they got to bed etc etc.

I think it is far odder and ruder to tell someone you're just down the road from them, but you aren't going to make time to see them. Why would you even think to do that? I'd never send a friend a text saying 'we're in your local, but we don't want to see you for a pint'.

it is a bit odd they did not mention, but there is a reason.

You are a bit intense, and not as laid back as you would like to be (who is?).

So the GF may find you hard work, and may not like you.

Hopefully this will not affect the friendship between your DH and his friend.

Rise above it.

I regularly go near where a friend of mine lives. If I don't have time to meet, I tell her. I think it's weirder that she finds out from someone else that I was down, as then it looks like I didn't think about her.

OP, I think they wanted couple time, but it's odd they went to your local. There's nothing strange about them staying somewhere different - even with the best host, it's not the same as having your own space.

Heh. Reminds me of the time my cousin travelled from the other end of the country to a work meeting in the same building I work in without letting me know. I bumped into him filing out of the building during a fire drill. The guilty expression on his face still makes me laugh when I think about it.

I agree with whoever posted up thread about clock watching. Sometimes it's so nice not to have to do this. I often visit places where friends live and don't visit, not because I don't care about them, but for a host of other reasons - maybe I'm busy, maybe it's a work trip, or maybe it's a family thing where making any other plans, even little ones, seems to complicate things too much

I would be upset too, though I would try to have a word with myself. They are entitled to go where they like, with whomever they like.

But your local pub? Where there is every chance they might bump into you? That seems an odd thing to do .

I suppose people just have different ideas of what's weird. I would try not to extrapolate too much meaning from it. The fact is they didn't try to hide the fact, so they weren't being sneaky or dishonest. It's definitely not worth de-best manning someone over.

OP, YANBU and I would feel exactly the same initially.

However, I think it's far more likely that there's an innocent explanation than a sinister one.

As others have said, I think they wanted to visit the area but wanted to stay in a hotel rather than with you, so that they could enjoy some couple time. They both knew that, if they told you they were coming, you would offer them a bed at your house and there would be an awkward conversation about why they didn't want that on this occasion.

Or they wanted an interruption-free romantic weekend.

Or they didn't have much time and had lots of plans and couldn't squeeze anything else in.

Also - just because they had a meal in your local pub doesn't mean that they stayed nearby. It's entirely possible that they stayed further away but spontaneously decided to drive out to that familiar pub one evening. For all you know, they intended to knock and surprise you but ended up deciding against it.

I think I would put a friendly comment on the photos - 'hang on, that pub looks familiar! Hope you had a great weekend' - and I'm sure they'll reply with a plausible reason that puts your mind to rest.

I'd be hurt, because if you can't make even that minimal effort for a friend, you're not much of a friend yourself

That isn't very fair, is it? Do we have to be tied to friends all the bloody time? To be fair, this is the kind of talk that wrecks friendships. I had a friend once who if you were less than 10 miles from her house, you were expected to visit. If you didn't visit & she found out (i.e bumped into you, another friend saw you etc) she sulked & got moody for days.

It all got very tiresome having to a] hide what you were doing b] make time to see her every time you needed to do something in the vicinity.

Seriously, this is a grown woman!! We weren't friends for long as you could probably expect, as she was too high maintenance. She still wonders why she has trouble keeping friends or developing anything more than casual acquaintances.

I'm a bit surprised by the number of people who think it's ok to virtually pass a friend's front door and not at least stop to say hello But why is it NOT ok to NOT pop in?

My friend passes my door everyday taking her kids to school, I would actually start to feel suffocated if she wanted to pop in every day!

Facebook is evil. It actually isn't, to be fair. It is people like op who make it hard work, or people who misuse it that make it seem that way!

But they did try to hide it - the guy didn't mention their plans to the OP's DH, even though they were on the phone lots that week, and the photos they posted were pretty anonymous, the OP says she only identified the pub because of a fitting in the background.

I do think this is weird, given there isn't exactly a lack of nice villages and nice pubs in the Lakes. Maybe they are just very conservative people who are bad at researching new places to visit??

"Ha ha ha! I have just won £20 from DH. I was SURE it was you we saw in the pub, but he said it couldn't have been!"

Why would you say that?! Surely if your saw your mate in the pub you would go up & say Hi?

If they wanted completely uninterrupted couple time, surely they'd go somewhere where there was no chance of bumping into anyone they knew?

Exactly! That's why it's weird.

And if you did go to someone's local anyway, why post anything on FB at all? Surely they would recognise it.

I have some sympathy with you OP. I had good friends who were working abroad so didn't see them much. They came back to visit family (about 12-15 miles from me) but stayed in a cottage literally down the road from me. They had young children and I didn't then, so could have popped over any evening for a quick drink even if they were busy during the day. I only found out when her mum, months later, said something to me and then she realised that I hadn't known that they were back in the country and staying so close. She was very embarrassed - I brushed it off but it was one of those moments when I realised that the friendship was actually not what I thought it was.

I'm from a scenic part of the world and I kind of understand the bewilderment about them not calling in when they're so close (which is a bit of a country mindset, and not something people in, say, Clapham, ever think about friends visiting London for the weekend - they just assume you'll be far too busy making the most of your minibreak) but I also totally understand the 'two hours out of our weekend making conversation with your friends, when it's going to take us FOUR HOURS to drive home' argument. It slightly changes the flavour of the weekend too - less about romantic coupletime and more about 'oh, let's drop in on your best mate and talk about people Shirley doesn't know very well'.

There isn't really a non-awkward way to send a text saying, 'we're here but let's not meet up, eh?' I can totally see why they just sneaked up and chanced it. Bit daft of them to post the FB pics though...

Some of you are talking as if these people HAVE to let the OP know what they are doing or HAVE to explain if they do not want to visit and why!

I do not have any friends who would react the way OP is doing. If I did I would probably drop them. I would also hate any of my friends to feel they were obligated to let me know their plans.

Why is it daft of them to post it on facebook? They went on a trip and put it on facebook - It really is not the OPs business how her friends spend their time.
They put it on FB because they had no idea that they had a friend who would see it as a betrayal. It was not about her.

You do come across as a bit needy OP.

Good friends of mine live in a very picturesque coastal town, I love going there for some scenic walks,for a bit of down time and fresh air from the big city. My friends are not really into the outdoor stuff and would rather spend their Saturday down the pub all day, something I would rather not waste my weekend doing. I dont dislike them at all, far from it, but there is a time for that, and on certain weekends I just like having some quality time with my wife without the obligation of having to pop in to say hi which I know would not be a 10min visit.

I'd be offended too! I think that if you live in a remote part of the country, where people only go if they go there intentionally rather than passing through, it is slightly different from living in a big city and there being many reasons why someone might visit there.

If it's a really good friend, I wouldn't expect them to visit our local and not tell us, then post the photos on facebook. I'm surprised by people who think this isn't a bit "off". If they wanted a quiet or sexy couples weekend why didn't they go somewhere else?

I'm not sure what I'd do in this situation but I'd definitely be upset.

I would never say the friends HAVE to tell the OP they are around.

I just don't get why, when there's a entire country full of beautiful places to visit, people who just want to be alone would go to a friend's local. It's weird!

I meant it was daft of them to post the pics on FB if they'd decided not to let the OP know they were there, and keep that can of worms closed.

But thinking about it, yes, that's a bit of a Mystic Meg leap in terms of imagining what the friends were reasoning...