Normal from a friend or weirdly controlling?

[InTheColdColdNight]

I have a friend, let's call him Adam. We're not amazingly close but hang out occasionally, he's naturally quite a secretive person and doesn't like me discussing anything about him with mutual friends, which I am fine with. Through this friend I have met another friend, let's call him Bill. I have only ever spent time with Bill when I have also been with Adam.

Adam asked me to organise for him and Bill to do a class that they are both interested in. It's quicker for me to do it as I have the connections and so I agreed. To register them, I needed Bill's phone number, which Adam gave me. Once I had registered them, I text Adam and I also text Bill to tell them some info. I guess I didn't need to text Bill as Adam would have passed on the information, but I like Bill and thought it would be friendly to tell him directly. Bill thanked me and we didn't text again. After this, when talking to Adam, he implied that he wasn't happy that I had text Bill and said there was no need to text him. Strictly speaking, it's true, I didn't need to text him, but equally I didn't see it as being problematic.

The course assessment was supposed to be Tuesday, but they got the day wrong and didn't turn up. Adam was very apologetic and asked if I could rearrange it for another day. I agreed and contacted the organiser to get another assessment day. The organiser replied with another potential date, so I text Adam to see if that date would work. It's now been 24 hours and although he's been on WhatsApp he hasn't read my message.

I don't know how much Bill knows about me rearranging the assessment but I don't want him to miss out on the class just because Adam is - for whatever reason - not responding to me. This isn't the first time he has ignored my message for more than a day. I need to respond to the course organiser and I don't want Bill to miss out, but I know Adam won't like it if I text Bill again. My idea was to text Bill, ask him if he can make the date, organise it for him and then text Adam to say that if he still wants to do it, he will need to organise it himself as I can't wait indefinitely for him to respond. I don't want to seem petty by not organising it for him, but I'm doing him a favour and he can't even find the time to say "that date works for me, thanks".

I'm too in the situation to be able to tell if he is being unreasonable by not wanting me to contact his friend or if I am being unreasonable by texting him when I know Adam is uncomfortable with it.

Why are you organising this? Adam sounds like a dick in every possible way. I would respond very clearly saying any comms and changes to the course are between them and the course provider, just remove yourself from this madness!

Stop talking to Adam and have an affair with Bill.

Some men must have a radar for women who will act like skivvys for them.

Are you all teenagers???

he's naturally quite a secretive person and doesn't like me discussing anything about him with mutual friends

I got stuck here. Why doesn't he? What's he done? Red flag waving

It is, I know. It was supposed to be a quick one off, which then dragged on when they missed the assessment but because he was so appologetic, I said I'd rearrange. I didn't relise at the time that he would treat me like this.

Thank you for everyone for spelling it out to me. I genuinly couldn't see if it was ok for him to not like me contacting his friend because he seemed so sure of himself about it. The treating me like his PA is the icing on the cake. Lesson learnt. I'll be distancing myself from Adam.

This made me laugh. I much prefer Bill to Adam.

Adam can go fuck himself.

Two grown adults can't organise a course for themselves, don't bother turn up, then demand you rebook it for them, then one blanks you. The other you have been barred from speaking to.

Does that sound remotely sensible to you? Just ignore both of them. They can arrange their own classes that they fail to show up for.

Definitely start texting Bill more!!

Yup!

Cant they organise their own classes? Bloody hell. Adam sounds a right pita.!

The insanity continues. After the exchange earlier, I text Adam again to confirm if it was just he who was available at that time or both he and Bill. He read it and didn't reply. After an hour I text Bill if he is free for the assessment (this coming Tuesday). He replied "thank you so much for all your help". I said "no worries, but are you available Tuesday morning?" He replied that he and Adam are already booked in for an assessment on Monday morning.

I then text Adam and he said there'd been some confusion and yes, they were booked in on Monday, but he can do Tuesday instead (as if that's some kind of favour to me). I told Adam I had had enough of this insanity and said I don't want any more to do with it. All this would have been avoided if he had communicated more than the bare minimum to me and actually told me they were trying to organise it as well. It's like they didn't believe I was capable of organising it and so also tried to do it themselves.

I emailed the course director and said that it seems like Bill is already booked in for Monday, so can he be taken off the list for Tuesday. The director said there are no assessments on Monday.

It's quite a difficult system to navigate unless you know what you are doing, which is why I said I would do it for them. They are both going to do a two hour round trip on Monday to do...I don't even know what.

I don't know if I should email the course director to cancel Adam's Tuesday assessment, I haven't passed on all the details to Adam yet as it's been such a mess. My thinking is that if he is going there on Monday, he can sort it out himself.

Text Bill explaining the confusion and tell Bill you're handing over to him and Adam to sort it out. Then don't do anything else.

I second that 😂

Contact the course director, and after you’ve apologised profusely for dicking him around 🙄 tell him you’re out of the picture so he’ll need to confirm details directly with whoever he thinks is attending.

Then text Bill and Adam - “there seems to be some confusion over days/dates, anyway you’ve got all the info you need to sort this directly yourselves, see you around”.

Sounds like you are over-rescuing people.

'Helpful to the point of interfering' sounds close to what you are doing.

In future, just give the Adam the phone number of the course director and say contact them yourself there.

What course is it?

Sorry, I must have missed the part where Adam was employing you as his executive assessment. What is the pay like?

How are either of these men going to pass this course if they can't even book the course for themselves, arrange assessment times or turn up on the correct day? Is this course being ran by The Muppet Workshop? Just leave the pair of them to it, stop relaying messages and let them either sort it themselves or fail.

Bloody hell.

What is the course?

Just leave them to it. Tell them you have been advised there is no course on Monday, this is the email address of the course coordinator, sort it yourselves.

Why are you so involved?? They both sound like idiots. Bill might be the more pleasant idiot, but they sound as dim as each other. Pass the info to them both, then forget it. They’ve cocked it all up and they can sort it.

I wouldn't even do that.
Just leave it completely.
They think they are going to do something on Monday, leave them to it.
Then leave them to book it for a third time.
Getting involved with this nonsense links you with their incompetence to the course organiser, which if they are a professional contact you don't want

And I'd be tempted to cool off the friendship with Adam too, he sounds like a complete dick.

OP, for the love of God, can’t you see you’re creating this situation, with all the trotting around after two incompetent adults?

Just let them both get on with it. You’re devaluing your own time and effort by behaving as though it’s somehow your job to liaise between two grown men, one of whom is spectacularly ungracious, and a course director who’s probably now thoroughly tired of you because of all the chopping and changing.

I’ve said YABU but not because of the texting. Because you’re running around after two muppets. Let them organise their own course fgs.

And we can all see that. So can Adam. Therein lies the problem.