Hi. I wonder if you can help me? I would like to know if I am being reasonable or not. Last week, my brother offered me two free tickets to go to the theatre yesterday evening as he couldn’t go. I will be reimbursing my brother in some way for the ‘free’ tickets as a thank you.
I live in the Midlands and the theatre is in London. On Friday, I text my friend who lives in the same town as me and invited her to come along with me. I had in mind that it would have been nice to go together and have pre theatre dinner and drinks. As it would take a few hours to get to London and park etc. going earlier in my mind is better than just going for the performance.
My friend accepted the invitation, only by needing to know if she could get a lift home and that she told me to meet her at the door of the theatre at 7.30pm. This threw me a little, as I was a bit confused by this as I had assumed, we would be travelling down together. However, after a series of texts, I then realised that she was already out in London with friends and had made dinner plans with them on Sunday. So, instead of getting a lift back with them, she would need to get a lift back with me after the performance. Essentially extending her time and mini break in the city. I did press her three times to see if we could meet earlier, so I could get more out of the evening, but she couldn’t. She could only meet me at the door. Eating or travelling alone wasn’t what I had in mind! But, that’s not the end of the world in reality.
However, this left me feeling rather disappointed. I had wanted to spend good quality time with my friend. If I’d have known that she was busy with other people, then I wouldn’t have invited her in the first place and seen her another day. Or better still, before she accepted the invite, I wished that she’d explained her plans before to see if that was okay by me. She essentially accepted the ticket, regardless of what I had in mind for the night and I was having to fall in line with her plans, by meeting her at the theatre. It just didn’t feel right to me.
I know that I would have been driving to London anyway, but from my perspective, it just felt odd to meet her at the door. I also wasn’t getting the full benefit from the theatre experience, but my friend was – she was having the pre dinner and drinks with friends before, then seeing me at a time to suit her, getting the free ticket and the lift home. It just felt more convenient for her than me. It just meant also that I was driving down to London on my own, paying for the fuel and parking to only get 2.5 hours in the theatre with my friend. It just didn’t seem worth my time or effort, given that I live nowhere near London. I was debating in my mind whether it was worth having the tickets and giving them back to my brother.
I then had to bite the bullet. I said on text in a polite way that I recognised that she was busy this weekend and I’d invite someone else instead. Explaining that ‘just’ meeting at the door wasn’t what I had in mind for us. She wasn’t happy with me and was thrilled initially to get the tickets. So, I invited another friend, who ended up paying for the parking and dinner to say thank you.
My friend wasn’t happy that I’d retracted the invite. But am I in the right or wrong? Should I have just gone along with what suited her and met her at the door like she wanted, regardless of what I had in mind? I hate falling out with friends but I feel that she accepted the ticket without thinking of me, who was giving her the ticket.
In hindsight, to have met my original friend at 7.30pm (then go through all the Covid checks), we may have missed the first half as the doors to the auditorium were closed and everyone was seated by 7.15pm. As the tickets my brother gave to me were second row the front in the stalls, this is a further reason why we wouldn’t have been allowed in due to the disruption – this I know only in hindsight.
Was I being unreasonable?