When someone asks if you're free on such a day and don't specify why

[Freeda3]

A friend has asked "Are you free next Sunday?" without specifying why. Now, she's done this before and I got roped into going somewhere I really didn't want to because she didn't say what it was until I replied that I was free. As it happens, I am busy next Sunday and told her so but still asked "Why?" That was two days ago and she never responded.

AIBU to expect someone to tell you in their first message why they're asking?

One of my friends do this. It’s always because they want me to do something for them so I say no first of all. Then find out what it is and make an informed choice as to whether or not I want to do it!

My answer is usually "Not 100% sure, need to check my diary, why do you ask?" and then if/when they respond I can decide if their request is feasible in my schedule. If they come back with a request for my time that I don't want to commit to then I always have the option of having checked my diary and not being able to fit them in.

Sometimes it will be that I have plans to use the day to get all my errands run so I'm "busy" but it's all jobs that have no fixed time commitment and can be done whenever, so if someone wants to meet for coffee/lunch then I can just adjust my errands accordingly but can't commit to a day out hiking; other times I might have the day earmarked for errands but only because it's my day off and have nothing else planned so if someone then says "I really need to get out, want to come for a hike?" (I live in the Lakes so we have so many walking trails on our doorstep) then actually the errands can wait because now I have plans.

Equally I might have plans that have specific timings so I might be free, depending on what they want. If I have a dentist appointment at 9am and a gym class at 11.30am if someone wants to meet for coffee in the afternoon then I am free, but I'm not free to take them to a hospital appointment, wait and then drive them back from the next town over at 10am.

A school mum does this to me, invariably she's looking for babysitting or a favour, I learnt after the first two times and now either say no or give a non committal answer - I'm not horrible but she never returns the favour.

So she's just messaged you to boast about her fab day? Urgh. I'd lose patience with this very quickly!

Ask Why? before you answer their question

To say yes is very risky…. I have a friend like this, if I say yes, the next question can be anything between ‘do you want to come with me to amazing XYZ event, free tickets including food and drink’ to ‘can you babysit my kids’. A gamble 😂😂

I would reply with "What time and what for? Don't have access to the car all day that day" or something similar.

If anyone asks me thst I reply with either why or depends....

I've had exactly this, but in a phone conversation, which I think makes it even harder than by text. A friend who I haven't seen a lot of for a while asked if I was free on Saturday night. I was pleased she finally had time to see me, and said yes - only for her to ask me to babysit her kids overnight.

Even now, though, I can't think how I could respond differently, given them I did want to see her so didn't just want to say I was busy? Next time, I'll go with, "I'm not sure yet", I suppose.

You reply "I'll have to look at the family/work/office/ diary to see what else is on. Give me an idea what you're planning".

I started saying yes but my car isn't got ghosted several times

Agree with only ever giving non-commital answers on response to a vague fishing question “Not sure yet, why do you ask?” would be my stock response. Much more straightforward to say yes or decline then.

Just say "yeah I'm free Sunday".

Then when she says "Oh great you can cat sit"

Just reply "I don't think that's going to work for me sorry!"

Boundaries people!

"Depends. What do you have in mind?"

I know what people are saying, but if someone says, "I'm not sure yet, why?", and the CF says, "I want you to babysit my kids", do you then leave it a while to pretend to check the diary before actually saying no? If I say no straight away, isn't it obvious I just don't want to?

Sorry to jump on this OP, but this happens to me a lot too! I tend to overthink things, and I do have rubbish boundaries!

It's ok to be free and still say you don't want to do something, but I get it, this winds up my OH. We have a friend who sends those innocuous texts. We're on a Whatsapp group so when I see them I try to reply first before OH does as I don't feel I'm being harrassed but he does, he says it feels controlling in some way. Maybe it is, I don't know, but there's a difference between someone trying to manipulate me and my behaving in a manipulated way, iyswim.

I have a friend who pulls this shit also.

Last time I got sucked in it was because she wanted to rope friends into an all day garden working bee. I backtracked at speed (I have significant health problems that mean I physically am unable to do anything like this) and she slagged me off.

I am pulling back from the entire friendship now.

I always lay out the perameters of what I am thinking. This weekend for example I said to another friend; 'I am thinking of taking the boys to the new pub for lunch on Sunday. Are you interested in joining?'. As it happened, no she wasn't. Fine. Tell people what they might be letting themselves in for is part of a normal social interaction IMO!!

I have a friend like that and it usually involves doing her done kind of favour if I am free.
I usually try to find out why first too

If she has form for this behaviour, and hasn't replied, it was probably something rubbish - if it was exciting she would have said

Yes, if she didn’t reply with something like, “too bad, I was hoping we could get together”, then she wanted you to do her a favour. it is manipulative.

Yup, that's annoying.

So to protect myself I say 'I'm busy yeah, why?'

Because even if I'm not busy I probably don't want to be.

I hate when people do that!

Say 'no'. On the off chance your friend says 'that's a shame because I've got a voucher for a three course meal for two at The Fat Duck, followed by a luxury spa session and I was going to invite you,' you then say 'that sounds great, I'll cancel what I'd planned'.

It just doesn't have to be horrible though. I don't get it.

Person a) are you free next saturday?
Person b) depends, what do you have in mind?
A) looking for someone to do my bidding
B) sorry I'm not available.

I'm guessing this isn't how it goes for a lot of people but i don't get why not.

I don't leave it hours and hours but usually the messages aren't back to back so it is entirely plausible that between the first message and their last I've had a chance to get my physical diary/schedule on my phone and check so can reply asap as to whether it's possible or not with a simple "Sorry, no can do I'm afraid, I'm busy after all" ... They don't have to know that you're busy sitting on the sofa eating cake, drinking wine and watching Netflix

If it is back to back messages I'd probably see what they wanted with a "Not sure of plans, what did you have in mind?" message. If it was something I wanted to do/was happy to help with I'd immediately reply with something like "That should be fine, I can't see anything in my schedule that day, so I'll book you in :)". If it was something I didn't want to do I'd send an immediate reply with something like "I don't have my diary/DDs schedule to hand, let me check and I'll get back to you asap" and and then a bit later on I'd send a "Sorry, checked the diary and I can't babysit on that day for you. Hope you manage to get something sorted!"

Surely you just reply "Why, what are you offering?"