Am I the one in the wrong?

[elevenspowers]

Arranged to meet a friend on the Thursday just gone and she forgot and made other plans. This is the second time she’s done this and although not on purpose it hurts.

She sent me an apology text on the Thursday and I didn’t respond to it until Sunday. When I’m hurt I try to give myself time to not be reactive, my text back was telling her not to worry and asked how her weekend was.

She usually messages back the same day but hasn’t acknowledged it yet so potentially she’s now annoyed at me.

i just don’t think I did anything wrong unless someone can enlighten me?

Aibu is strange. I’ll accept I shouldn’t have taken so long to reply but kind of seems like you’re trying to paint my friend out as she can literally do no wrong.

It was a generic “how was your weekend” I said more and acknowledged her apology.

You literally seem to think it’s ok for a friend to make plans with you but then not bother because they don’t see you as a priority and that’s ok behaviour by you? I wouldn’t treat any human being that way. (I don’t think that’s what happened in my situation btw)

How is taking a couple of days to enjoy time with my family and get over initial hurt being sulky or passive aggressive? I can put myself first and think actually I’m hurt and I’m allowed a couple of days to respond - but by your estimation her (potentially) doing exactly tgat too isn’t being sulky or passive aggressive? Odd.

She was wrong to double book again. I can see it feels your aren’t priorities.

But why can she not take some time to herself to process the fact that you ignored her apology for a few days.

Thats the point.

I genuinely think if I’d done a reverse and said

I made plans with a friend which I forgot about until she reminded the day before but I decided to go ahead with plans I’d made after original plans. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this but I did apologise. I text her to apology and she didn’t respond for 3 days and then said it was ok and not to worry and how was my weekend.

aibu to not respond for a few days because she didn’t respond to me quick enough?

Something tells me I wouldn’t be told YANBU!

I accept I shouldn’t have taken so long to respond so IABU for that - just in the past (not with this friend) I was quick to act to situation where I was hurt and probably should have taken the time to word my responses better. I’m just trying to improve on mistakes I made in the past.

That was rather the point I was trying to make though. The friend didn't know OP held off messaging because she wanted to make sure she didn't respond badly. OP is now annoyed at friend for doing the same thing, also without knowing the reason.

It’s good you are trying to improve how you deal with things. With that doesn’t mean the opposite of what you normally do, is definitely the right option.

Silent treatment is not ever going to produce good results. Intentionally or not, that’s what you did. You could have sent a quick message telling you feel hurt and saying you can talk in a couple of days. Irrespective of what you think people would have replied, these are the replies you got.

You seem really quite annoyed that not everyone agrees with you. But if you ask opinions, you get what you get.

No that makes sense tbf.

Oh but hang on - @elevenspowers‘ friend completely forgot their arranged meeting up. Pretty shabby behaviour on the friend’s part.

YANBU @elevenspowers and as you say, AIBU is weird. Your friend has behaved badly - twice. That’s shabby behaviour and an apology is the least you should expect from her. Taking some time to respond to her apology is fine.

I note that once reminded of your arrangements, she didn’t immediately reschedule whatever else she was doing to honour her FIRST commitment. That’s quite rude, as well as thoughtless (rudeness is generally thoughtlessness and selfishness).

You ignored her apology for days, so I’m not surprised she’s not in a huge rush to reply
to you. You clearly aren’t a priority to her, when she realised she’d double booked you for the second time she could have cancelled the other plans and met you instead but she chose not to. You sound like a back up plan so she’s probably just not giving the response time or you accepting her apology as much thought as you are. I probably wouldn’t bother with her again.

Come on now. Be honest even if only with yourself.
You punished her with the silent treatment for a few days & now you're whining that she's doing the same to you.
You sound like massively hard work Op.
she's better off without you.

I’m not annoyed at people not agreeing with me. It’s more the monster of aibu - that people pile in and just start insulting you no matter what you did - rather than giving constructive criticism. I also don’t think it’s fair to paint it in the light of friend did no wrong but everything I did was absolutely terrible. There’s clear fault on both sides.

But you are though, you said if posted in reverse you would get different answers. Not just the people who you feel have insulted you. Or don’t spent a lot of time on what she did.

You seem to have a strong opinion on what aibu is like, but still asked.

Point proven with the aibu. Someone sees a snapshot of your life and suddenly I’m “hard work” and friends are “better off without me” - so I don’t deserve to have people in my life.

I’m actually a good friend. I don’t need to list the reasons why because I don’t need your validation. Im also going to a friends wedding on Friday, visiting a different city with a friend on Saturday, a different friends birthday next Saturday and then a weekend away at the start of July to visit my friend in Barcelona. If I’m such a horrible person then I wouldn’t have other good friendships in my life.

Aibu is strange. I’ll accept I shouldn’t have taken so long to reply but kind of seems like you’re trying to paint my friend out as she can literally do no wrong.

Op, that's entirely not true. I said that she clearly doesn't prioritise you and suggested therefore that perhaps you're better off without her. d

You literally seem to think it’s ok for a friend to make plans with you but then not bother because they don’t see you as a priority and that’s ok behaviour by you? I wouldn’t treat any human being that way. (I don’t think that’s what happened in my situation btw)

YOu're being weird and defensive now. I didn't say anything of the sort. Again, I said she clearly doesn't prioritise you so perhaps this is not the friend for you. Surely the implication is clear - she's not a good friend if she's not prioritising you ergo, don't be friends with her?

How is taking a couple of days to enjoy time with my family and get over initial hurt being sulky or passive aggressive? I can put myself first and think actually I’m hurt and I’m allowed a couple of days to respond - but by your estimation her (potentially) doing exactly tgat too isn’t being sulky or passive aggressive? Odd.

You were hurt. Instead of telling her that, you chose to nurse your hurt in silence. I don't believe you didn't know that would be bothering her. She may have been in the wrong but her apology deserves either an acceptance or an honest response, "thank you but I'mr really hurt you've done this AGAIN so I need a little break." Instead, after you licked your wounds for a few days you pretended everything was fine.

I reiterate - I am not convinced this is a friendship you want to maintain. You can't be honest with each other. She forgets plans. You get passive aggressive. She retaliates etc. Neither of you are covering yourselves in glory here. And while I completely agree that your friend was the one who behaved badly first, your responses aren't helpful.

You must have known that not replying to her text for 4 days was sending a fairly clear message. And that it was potentially worrying and upsetting her. You were absolutely entitled to be upset with her, but just leaving an apology hanging for that long is actually quite cruel. I would think that most people replying to your post can imagine the sinking feeling she probably had as the days went past, and how much time she may well have spent worrying about it.
She was probably expecting not to hear at all, or to get a reply telling her that you were really hurt and angry. Instead, it sounds like she got a fairly breezy reply, telling her not to worry about it. She's probably now wondering what's going on and where she stands with you.
I would have been pissed off with being let down a second time. I took a big step back from a flaky friend who was prone to this kind of thing. But I think you just have to decide how much time you want to give her in the future and move forward accordingly. If these have been genuine mistakes, followed by genuine apologies, and you want to keep her as a friend, then leaving her hanging probably wasn't the best way to go about things - and might have got you both stuck in a slightly passive-aggressive messaging stand-off. It would probably have been better to leave it a day or so, and then reply with a message that was honest about being a bit hurt and needing some time, but making it clear that you're happy to move on - possibly also making it clear that you expected her to do the legwork involved in making amends. If you're not that fussed about her as a friend, then breezy and 'no worries' might have been the way to go, but fairly quickly, to avoid blowing the whole thing out of proportion.

You were hurt. Instead of telling her that, you chose to nurse your hurt in silence. I don't believe you didn't know that would be bothering her. She may have been in the wrong but her apology deserves either an acceptance or an honest response, "thank you but I'mr really hurt you've done this AGAIN so I need a little break." Instead, after you licked your wounds for a few days you pretended everything was fine.

I went away with my family and had an amazing time celebrating a birthday - I wasn’t “licking my wounds”. I was hurt. Took a step back from the situation and concentrated and what was important to me and my mental health.

I actually apologised in the text and said sorry for the late reply.

But I regret making this thread because I’m giving too much energy yo this situation and someone who doesn’t see me as a priority (there’s been other instances too). I’ll leave the ball in her court. I’ve acknowledged her apology and apologised in return. There’s nothing more I can do.

if she doesn’t want to accept then no response at all will make that clear and I’ll leave her to it. I’m not forcing anyone to so anything they don’t want to do - and according to one person on here I don’t deserve friends anyway so it’s win-win for them.

There are two things here.

You were absolutely right to hold off on a reply if you were feeling rightly angry. Many friendships are blown up with texts that were sent too quickly in the heat of the moment. It didn't need to take 4 days though, so from her POV you were annoyed and silent.

She is now doing the same in my view.

I would be reassessing my friendship with someone that had forgotten our meet up TWICE unless she has medical reasons for being so disorganised and useless. She has made you feel like an after thought in her life, and you deserve friends that make you feel better than that

I wouldn't be making any more effort with the organising things and ask her to arrange things next time ( and in future)

I have zero tolerance for people that make me feel crap, so she would on a yellow card and would be expected to step up if she wants to see you again.

Three hours - fine. Three days?

She hurt you & you wanted to hurt her back.

I would think that most people replying to your post can imagine the sinking feeling she probably had as the days went past, and how much time she may well have spent worrying about it.

Well, you know, perhaps the OP's friend shouldn't have ignored TWICE arrangements she had made with @elevenspowers

I am really surprised about the way posters have mostly focused on the OP's behaviour as rude & sulky, but not the behaviour of her friend - which has been very rude, thoughtless and basically quite cruel.

I wouldn't be in touch with this friend again @elevenspowers She's shown you the kind of person she is.

Forget the 3 days things

But I have a life .. a job … I don’t respond to texts within hours. If you have that kind of time then cool.

That's crap that she's forgotten your arrangements twice now, OP.

What sort of plans were they? Can you see how she would have forgotten, or were they definite?

Feels like you have been caught out on this one.

You replied slowly in part so as not to say something you'd regret- ok fine, I will buy that. But come on, a part of you was punishing her.

It is all a bit hypocritical. Also texting is anxiety making in these situations.

With most people I know, plans for a casual midweek meet up need to be confirmed by both parties the day before anyway, and everyone involved is very forgiving of double booking. If that happened and I sent another polite apology the next day and got a lengthy pointed silence, they’d get very short shrift from me when they did get back in touch. Life is busy and no, you’re not going to be your friends’ priority most of the time.

Forget the 3 days things

But I have a life .. a job … I don’t respond to texts within hours. If you have that kind of time then cool.

Why are you annoyed at your 'friend' for doing the same?