AIBU to think my friend changed the goalposts

[StepCatsmother]

A friend needed to go into hospital for a small procedure and asked if I would be able to collect her after it and drive her home. I said I would, so long as when she had the date, I didn't have other arrangements already - she knew I had a week's holiday in October, plus a weekend away.

I hear nothing about it for a while, then on 7/10, while I am on holiday, she sends a message saying the procedure is in 6 days and that 'I have to stay with her overnight or she will have to stay in hospital'. This is the first time an overnight stay was mentioned.

I tell her immediately that I don't know if it is possible as the date of her procedure is the date my car has been booked for a service - this wouldn't have mattered based on the original request to pick her up as my OH was happy for me to use his car for this. However, it doesn't allow for an overnight stay as with only one car between me and OH, one of us wouldn't have been able to get to work on time the next day and being on holiday, neither of us could request the next morning off.

I tell her I will try to change the service date for my car, but remind her that I'm on holiday and may not be able to get a reply from the garage straight away (I reality, I think this bit was my mistake, I should have just said it wasn't workable at this point).

The garage could not move my service and I let her know that I cannot stay overnight. I offer to collect her from the hospital if someone else is able to stay with her. At this point it's 4 days before the surgery.

Long story short, she has a massive rant at my via message and is no longer talking to me. She says I am selfish and have let her down.

I do feel bad that I wasn't able to help & understand why she feels a let down, but that her reaction is OTT. I feel that giving someone 6 days notice of the need for an overnight stay when they are on holiday & can't really sort the necessary things out isn't entirely fair and she should have seen that herself really.

It feels like it should be a storm in a teacup but it's been a couple of weeks now and she is still not talking to me.

Am I a selfish cow? Have I gone totally wrong here?

I have had several surgical procedures for which I didn't require overnight attendance at home. I wouldn't presume that collecting a friend from the hospital might involve my packing my pyjamas and toothbrush.

There is a complete difference to someone's flight being 30 mins later..

To someone agreeing to ferry back from hosp... And then be expected to stay overbight ???

Several times I've acted as taxi to and from hospital for neighbours... No way would I want to /agree to stay overnight! That's a completely different level of help...

And also you're taking responsibility for presumably night time waking... And help with personal care.... Nope... Not doing it...

Honestly I’d do nothing, you’ve texted to ask how she is and she’s ignored you. The ball is in her court. She’s quite a new friend and you seem very keen to keep the friendship, but you’ve said another friend considers her to be very transactional and she’s dumped you and the first sign of you not complying. I’d be interested to hear her positive attributes.

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@yeahitsabadidea
We can disagree. But I still think it’s a poor “friend” who decides to renege on a promise of post surgery help only 4 days before because her car is in the garage. OP should have just said no from the start instead of saying yes and then pulling out at the 11th hour for a piss poor excuse.[/quote]
She didn’t renege. She couldn’t help with the additional expectations. It is not the OPs fault that their friend did not have the full picture but it is firmly with the friend (and yourself) for not asking the pertinent questions. A friend of mine has recently gone through major surgery and knew the exact expectations for care post surgery months prior to the surgery because she asked all of these questions.

@StepCatsmother

I guess she has a bit of form for unreasonable expectations.

For example, her boyfriend lives in another country and part of her recent crossness was that he could not come over to look after her for this procedure (again in circumstances where she could not confirm the date until the last minute).

She can be very direct about what she expects, and open in her displeasure when her expectations are not met, but I am usually able to respond without her getting this upset.

In the context of our friendship as a whole, it is upsetting as she was in my 'bubble' through all the lockdowns and had an open invitation to our home (her family are also in another country) despite at that time, her being a relatively new friend. I have never let her down before so I'm surprised at the stance she has taken over this.

You may be right that concerns about the procedure got the better of her.

You haven't let her down this time. The only thing you've done "wrong" is not to be much more explicit at the outset in terms of "I can do x, y and z, but not a, b and c. I cannot guarantee I can accommodate any changes your end and I cannot be available to discuss changes whilst on holiday. If you do not accept the Ts and Cs then jog on!"

If I’m doing an airport pick up, I always ask for the flight number. That way I don’t leave until I know the plane is in the air and the expected landing time.

If I was planning to pick a friend up from hospital and they changed the goalposts to an overnight stay as well, I probably wouldn’t be able to accommodate them so would give them the choice of making alternative arrangements or staying overnight. If a friend had the hump about my boundaries, they would stop being a friend.

I’d be interested to hear her positive attributes.

We have a hobby in common and she is easy to talk to / have a good natter with. I moved to a new area a year or so before lockdown in 2020, and she is one of the first 'local' friends I made.

I've never really needed to rely on her before, so I don't know how it would be if the situation were reversed, though all I would hope is that she would try her best.

I guess she has a bit of form for unreasonable expectations

I thought that might be the case

You've done your best, OP, but even allowing for pre-surgery nerves she's hardly handled this well
Fortunately you said she's quite a recent friend, so while it may be worth holding out a hand I would try too hard quite frankly

[quote LittleDandelionClock]@StepCatsmother

I am on the fence. I think she is being a bit unreasonable, and I don't see why she needs you to stay overnight, BUT the car service excuse sounds lame. There's no way you cannot change that. It's only a car service.[/quote]
Actually not a lame excuse at all. It's a nightmare trying to get car services at the moment due to COVID backlog. We spent 2 weeks trying to get our garage to get back to us and in the end my DH had to physically go in there during his lunch hour to pin them down for a booking. Our cars were on the verge of running out of MOT by the time we could get an appointment.

I'd like her to realise she shouldn't have been quite so rude to me, but that might be optimistic!

Ouch. That's your people-pleasing tendency, right there.

Your honest gut feeling is that she should not have been rude to you, could have accepted your help on the original terms, chose not to, ranted at you, is now petulantly ignoring you, & that you want her to apologise for the rudeness & resume the friendship.

That is all absolutely reasonable.

What is less reasonable is that you have this arse about face.
You are hoping that she realises she was wrong to be rude, will acknowledge that, & resume the friendship.
If your boundaries were more solid, you would be expecting her to realise her rudeness, acknowledge it, & only then would you be prepared to resume the friendship.

You are making the terms of the friendship entirely conditional on the friend's resumption of goodwill. You are prepared that she will not see how rude she has been, but are still hoping for the friendship to resume.

It's skewed thinking. You should have equal input into whether this friendship is salvageable.
With better boundaries, instead of hoping she would resume the friendship - with or without an apology for her rudeness - you would be expecting her to apologise, & not prepared to reinstate the friendship until she had done so.

You sent the last communication 2 weeks ago, & she hasn't responded. Yet you are still wondering if you should follow up with another apology? When you've done nothing wrong?
No no no - this is all back to front.
She needs to understand how rude & unreasonable she has been - or she's not your friend, she just someone who will allow you in her life if you keep delivering favours & tolerating rude, demanding behaviour.

Devils advocate - you don’t get much notice with surgery and she probably didn’t get told about the overnight until her pre op. So it’s not really her fault.

I think it's somewhere in the middle, tbh, you did nothing wrong but the people telling you how great a friend you are are being a bit ingenious as well - you were in the middle, prepared to do the bare minimum for someone (which is more than some people) but your excuse was lame and she was hurt by your indifference.

She could have stayed at yours, you could have reassured her an overnight stay wouldn't be so bad and you'd pick her up first thing, you could have worked with her to organise something or at least look like you cared. To let her down, over a car service, by text/WA message... that's like a shoulder shrug level of care.

You didn't do anything wrong, or right, like lots of life - own it instead of fishing for reassurance.

I also voted YABU.
My sis had surgery previously, was told she'd need help for a day or two. She needed help for a few weeks. They had totally not clearly informed her of the post surgery needs.
Often the hospitals assume you have a partner/significant other to help post surgery. It is incredibly hard if you are single and reliant on the help of friends.

I think your friend is probably hurt that in your world she comes second to a car service, and that you are not the friend she thought you were.

@LocoCoconanas

Devils advocate - you don’t get much notice with surgery and she probably didn’t get told about the overnight until her pre op. So it’s not really her fault.

Nobody is saying it is.

Telling someone the goalposts have moved & now they have to stay overnight with you despite having a valid alternative of overnighting in the hospital, ranting at them for not instantly complying, then stonewalling them for 2 weeks is her fault though.

That does not make a lot of sense, she’s local to you, so why couldn’t you just go home in the morning so your husband could have the car, or him taxi to you to get it.

Is that the issue, you’re local to each other ans she feels that th excuse of your husband not being able to access the car even though it would be local to him as not believable?

I think your friend is probably hurt that in your world she comes second to a car service, and that you are not the friend she thought you were.

& the OP is hurt that she - & her responsibility to keep her car roadworthy & legal - comes second to the small inconvenience of an overnight stay in hospital, & that her 'friend' has thrown the friendship away for it @sillysmiles

However, it doesn't allow for an overnight stay as with only one car between me and OH, one of us wouldn't have been able to get to work on time the next day and being on holiday, neither of us could request the next morning off

This needs further explanation. You are local to each other, why couldn’t you get up early and get the car to your husband or him get to you to collect it?

@LocoCoconanas

Devils advocate - you don’t get much notice with surgery and she probably didn’t get told about the overnight until her pre op. So it’s not really her fault.

A decent friend would realise this wasn’t what the OP was expecting and would add the caveat totally understand if this doesn’t work for you, I’ll stay overnight if you can’t stay over

Well I wouldn't be wanting to stay overnight with someone I hadn't known for that long anyway.

OP, of course you've done nothing wrong but I really wouldn't bother contacting her again, she doesn't sound like a great friend to me.

Presumably the friend only needs someone there because it's a GA, it's possible that she only found out for definite at an appointment a few days before but I can't believe it wasn't flagged up as a possibility before that.

No I’d not wish to stay either, and I suspect that’s the root cause of the issue here, the op hasn’t explained why if they are local to one another why the morning was such an issue, you just get up early and drive home.

Surely a service, you would have got the car back the same day. If you thought the garage might keep it, wouldn't one of you still be late the next day due to sharing one car.

She's right to be annoyed but not right to fall out with you over it.

Could she not have stayed at yours? This would have taken away the transport issue the next day

OP has said that service car was not available. Also depending on when people start work (I need to be in for 7am as an example), not sure the friend would have appreciated a 5am wake up call and lots of movement, calling taxis etc when she's recovering from surgery anyway. I assume she expected OP to stay there till a reasonable time in the morning, or most of the next day?

OP would have had to take a day off if the friend was staying at theirs. You can't kick out a recovering patient early in the morning! And not sure I would be comfortable leaving a friend I've known for only a year recuperating in my home with no one around. That's a huge caring responsibility for the last minute.

Staying the the hospital would have been infinitely better than all this faff surely!

@todaysdilemma

OP has said that service car was not available. Also depending on when people start work (I need to be in for 7am as an example), not sure the friend would have appreciated a 5am wake up call and lots of movement, calling taxis etc when she's recovering from surgery anyway. I assume she expected OP to stay there till a reasonable time in the morning, or most of the next day?

OP would have had to take a day off if the friend was staying at theirs. You can't kick out a recovering patient early in the morning! And not sure I would be comfortable leaving a friend I've known for only a year recuperating in my home with no one around. That's a huge caring responsibility for the last minute.

Staying the the hospital would have been infinitely better than all this faff surely!

But the friend didn’t need a wake up call, the op could easily either have got up and driven home early and left her to sleep or her husband could have got a taxi over, they are local to one another.

Re the car service, I always get my yearly service done on the same day as the MOT and ring up for an appointment about 3 weeks beforehand. This year when I rang the earliest appointment was the day it ran out (luckily it passed) and no chance of a courtesy car despite it being a main dealer. Like most things post covid, getting things like car servicing done is a lot harder.

And since someone is supposed to be accompanied for 24 h, unless the friend had her op at 7 am I'm not sure the OP could have left for work at 7 am!

I’d pick up a friend, or even acquaintance, from the hospital. For a few good friends I’d stay over if I could and if DH could have the children.

There’s one friend only that I’d agree to let my car run out of MOT and thus be without it for weeks for. And even then she wouldn’t ask me just to save a hospital overnight after a minor procedure.

If she’s being released same day it’s hardly going to be life threatening/require a long recovery. Why does her convenience/comfort (home instead of hospital) trump yours (being without your car for ages)?