I have a friend I’ve known for about 12 years. We met through a mutual friend, but our friendship is definitely independent; partly because F1 still lives near to our home town and, while I go back every six weeks or so, F2 probably only goes a couple of times a year.
F1 almost never visits me, despite her brother also living in the same city, but because I go home pretty regularly I’ve always accepted it makes more sense for me to go to her. She’s usually keen to meet up if I initiate it, but I can’t remember the last time she tried to make arrangements.
I went on a trip with F1 and F2 last year. F1 proved to be a bit of a pain. If we went sightseeing, she complained we were trying to cram too much in - why couldn’t we just take it easy and stop for drinks etc.? Yet at the end of the first day she was worried we’d wasted time and wouldn’t get to see everything 🙄 F2 confided in me afterwards that F1 had moaned al the way home (I was on a different flight) and that she’d had enough. She said she wasn’t going to contact F1 again because she was sick of it, and that F2 probably wouldn’t even notice because she always had to be the one who kept in touch anyway.
I understood F2’s viewpoint, but personally didn’t want to fall out with F1 over something that seemed trivial at the time. But since then I’ve looked more closely at the friendship and realised F2 is right about how one-sided it is. F1 is happy to meet up if I organise it, but if I don’t, nothing happens - not even a message asking when I’m next coming up. Last Christmas I let her know how long I’d be around and she told me she’d be in touch about meeting up. She never got in touch, until she noticed I was back in London - then it was ‘Oh, so you’re not around for new year?’ (I’d already told her I wouldn’t be.)
This year I’ve realised how many of my friends (not just her) expect me to do all the organising for anything social. I asked her if she was free over Christmas and she said ‘Yeah, I’m around; let me know what’s happening’. It didn’t seem to occur to her that SHE could make something happen. I decided I wasn’t going to push it further and, sure enough, she hasn’t been in touch.
AIBU to think that it doesn’t have to be one-way traffic all the time? Yes, I could have chased her to make arrangements. But I always do that. I always come to her instead of vice versa. And I’m starting to feel like it’s my turn. WWYD?