Should I fade this friend out?

[Thepontiacbanditsfurrydice]

Be as brutal as you like. Old friend who I love and our kids get on well but she has form for being very flaky with social arrangements. Reproducing what happened below. Keen to hear how others would react.

She and I had suggested meeting up with a third person this weekend. (We have all known each other 20+ years.) She messages us both suggesting dates. I provide availability. Third friend doesn’t respond at all. She chases a couple of times, no answer from third friend.

I message my friend offline saying “shall we just go out anyway without x if she’s not about?” Friend says yes, we decide to go tonight and decide to choose a venue today. I ask my partner to cancel after work drinks so he can be here with my 12 year old gets back from an after school club.

Message her an hour ago to check she is still ok. She responds: “Er, I am around but we didn’t hear from x. Might be too last minute. Shall we just wait until x is around?”

Maybe I am being insensitive but to me this feels like a real slap in the face. It says to me one of two things: “I am really disorganised” or “I can’t really be arsed meeting you on your own if x isn’t around so I won’t prioritise you.”

She has quite a long history of behaviour like this: makes people (not just me) feel that she is always on the lookout for a better (social) offer. She can also be very kind and is very good company but I am a bit tired of this.

I am not a fan of ghosting, blocking and flouncing and I get that life is difficult and people can’t always be held to plans so won’t be doing any of that. But it’s the strong sense of me being used as a social prop which has really pissed me off.

Would I BU to ignore her the next time she tries to arrange something?

That's really annoying and more so as she said yes to the two of you meeting up and then because she has changed her mind last minute thinks it's ok to mess the around. I have had flaky friends like this and it really pisses me off. I just wouldn't bother organising anything with her. If she does next time, agree to it, but don't change yours or anyone else's plan to do it. Or you could be honest and say 'actually you agreed that the two of us can still go out, so DH reorganised his plans so I could go. Thought we had an arrangement with or without X?' See what she says

She asked you a question - "shall we wait till X is around?"

I'd answer that by saying, "no I'd prefer to meet as we agreed, if that's ok with you?"

Then see what she says.

Hate people like this and I think most know someone like it. You aren't BU to ignore her next attempt at organising a night out but don't cut your nose off to spite your face if you enjoy their and the other persons company

Flaky friends are rubbish. It's so hard to get excited about anything if you worry you will be cancelled on. Could you slow fade? Also send the message suggested above from @calibansdream

What @@calibansdream said. If you decide to meet up again, make sure the arrangements are crystal clear and send a text reminder.

“ So we are meeting up at X on Y date at z time. I’ve booked a table. Dp is watching Ds so let’s go out to a club afterwards , I’m keen to make a night of it “.

Then I’d send a reminder a few days before

“ just checking we are meeting up on Saturday at 8pm at X with Emma and Sophie and going on afterwards to XXX club “.

Don’t leave things to the last minute and don’t be vague, if you know what she’s like.

Or stop meeting up if you CBA with her flakiness .

I'd ask her why she said yes to meeting up without third friend, if she didn't actually want to meet up with just you. I'd also tell her that your husband has cancelled his plans and you're not impressed with her backing out last minute. She hasn't even given you a decent excuse and has admitted she is actually free tonight. She's flaky because she's allowed to get away with it with no one calling her out on it.

Yes have let friends go due to flaky behaviour. Its not worth hassle planning stuff..

Don't ignore her OP. But you do need to address it. This kind of thing pisses me off no end. I would not rearrange anything for her, only give times and dates that you are doing nothing anyway when a cancellation would be easy. Msg to confirm and then on the day confirm again. You could just say sorry for all the double checking but the last few times you had to cancel last minute after I had made arrangements so I need to be really sure. Hopefully that will give her the hint. Good friends are hard to find so you might need to forgive this and work around it so you don't feel let down and angry with her. Ideally you could tell her straight out that it annoys you but I appreciate that's tricky.

If anyone could give insight into why on earth they do things like this please do!

I went back and said: “I thought we had agreed to go out just the two of us? It’s a bit annoying because (partner) has had to cancel a drinks thing but not the end of the world.” She came back with an annoying “sorry I thought better to do it with x but I can if you really want to?”

I am not going to press her on it if she doesn’t want to go: going for a drink out of a sense of obligation isn’t a great feeling.

She does this a lot and I have pulled her up on it many times. I think she’s naturally disorganised but it’s the fact she’s basically saying I can’t be bothered making time for you, even though I am actually free, if our other friend isn’t there. It’s pretty insulting.

Your friend originally said:

shall we just go out anyway without x if she’s not about?”

IF she's not about . You haven't heard from her. Your friend is concerned how it looks to go out without the other friend. Have you tried to contact other friend?

You were waiting to Friday to book the venue to give time for other friend to respond.

Don't wait until the day before to confirm times and venues.

I have ADHD and I always confirm with other people a few days ahead. You can't have been that keen to see her either if you hadn't confirmed the time and venue a few days ahead.

'If you really want to'?? OMG, she isn't keen is she?

It isn't nice for her to agree a plan (and that included choosing venue today) and then mess you about and limply deign to still come out if you insist. 🤨

There's only so much of that any person should tolerate before they are essentially sacrificing their own self respect.

So, I think in your shoes I'd take her company on my terms only and make no plans with her that could be spoiled by her flakiness.

So, group occasions - fine. Bump into each other in town - fine. Pin your weekend fun on her say so - nah, don't think so thanks.

I wouldn't ignore her to do it, I'd just not be available / find reasons to decline.

I bet your friend didn't mean to be disrespectful, though she has been. She probably wanted to have a night out with both of you rather than a one-to-one (the dynamic is different; doesn't mean she likes you any less) and vaguely agreed to a one-to-one without really thinking about it, then forgot about it.

Some people are vague and flaky about arrangements and others stick to what they have agreed and hate to let anyone down. Like you, I am in the latter group. When I have flaky friends whose company I enjoy enough to work around this irritating trait, I tend to take any arrangement with a pinch of salt until the day itself. So I'd probably ask my DH if he could be on standby to cancel work drinks that evening, rather than treat it like a firm arrangement.

But I have to like someone a lot to bother with all that! In the case of you and your friend, it was hurtful to say 'I can go out if you really want to' as though you were putting some kind of burden on her, and maybe you won't feel like putting yourself out to see her in future.

Flaky friends are for friend groups only. That is how I deal with them because you are never dependent on them turning up. If it isn’t a friend group friend then forget about meeting her alone.

OP, you’ve been friends for 20+ years, just tell her it’s inconsiderate to make plans and cancel (or make it very clear she wants to) because she isn’t taking the impact on you into account. Say if it keeps happening, you won’t make plans anymore. I personally find the idea of Ignoring/pretending not to be available, draining. I’m sure your friendship can handle some upset and disagreement, but you’ll likely feel resentful towards her if you aren’t being open with how this affects you.

Sounds like your other friend has enough of her if this is a regular thing. If it was a recent friend I would let her go but after 20 years I would say 'thats fine, I thought we'd said we were going out though. DH has cancelled his drinks. I'll ask him to reinstate his plans'.

I would then stick to that.

No I suggested we go out without the third person. My friend had at that point nudged the third person twice over the course of a week on a WhatsApp thread and once via text and had no response.

We would never feel the need to confirm a venue several days before we meet. On our last message she said “chat Friday about where to go”. It’s a casual drink in a pub, not dinner or anything.

My friend is far more relaxed than I am about arrangements and she would have thought it really weird if I had asked her to confirm a venue earlier. If I had texted her earlier in the week about this she would’ve felt I was harassing her.

The third friend is even flakier so I doubt she would care. Which was the irony for me: that my friend was holding out for someone who hadn’t responded to a single message.

Yeah we have kind of done that before though. It feels a bit last chance saloon.

You need to reply to her last message something along the lines of “what I want is for you to tell me you’ve changed your mind and not let me change other people’s arrangements for no reason. It’s not just me you’re messing around.”

I think she needs calling out on the behaviour and then yes, let the friendship fade

This is a really good reply.

In that case I'd respond to confirm you'd cancelled DH's plan's and that this is getting old, being messed around. You can say that in a good humoured but clear way, it doesn't have to be a huge drama (I've done so recently to a longish term friend, not 20 years).

Then I probably wouldn't block after 20 years but I would probably stop replying until/unless I received a proper apology and acceptance of her behaviour.

In that case I'd respond to confirm you'd cancelled DH's plan's and that this is getting old, being messed around. You can say that in a good humoured but clear way, it doesn't have to be a huge drama (I've done so recently to a longish term friend, not 20 years).

I’ve basically done that. It’s the same thing again and again. I get a wide-eyed “oh sorry did I inconvenience you?”

Then it all goes quiet and she gets back in touch a few weeks later to say “love to see you, let’s go out,” but is incapable of initiating arrangements or sticking to plans or introduces caveats at the last minute that make clear it’s an inconvenience to her.

I’m certainly not going to introduce any drama into the mix here. She’s an old friend and very enmeshed with my family and friendship group. And when you have her attention she’s fantastic. But I am not going to respond next time she tries to get this going. I find being made to feel like a second class option all the time pretty insulting.

How important is this friend to you? Sounds like she's got form for being unreliable. Two choices, work with it or not bother. You're unlikely to change this behaviour unfortunately.