Friends who cancel due to better offers.

[FredAgain]

Before Christmas I organised a night out with friends for end of Jan. They all said they could go, and it was in the diary. A week before the night, I messaged them and they all said they couldn’t now go for different reasons. These reasons ranged from I’m too tired (really, it’s in a week!) and a few people said they couldn’t go as they now had a dinner out, or were going to the cinema.

Again, organised a coffee with a friend for tomorrow, and she just bailed as she’s been invited to breakfast with someone.

I’m not taking it personally as I’ve seen these people do it to others but AIBU to say that if you’ve agreed to do something, you don’t blow out of it for a better offer? You tell the other party, “sorry I’m not free that night, can we do another?”. It’s not about the activity being better, it’s about respect for other people.

On both occasions I too could’ve done something else and I’m left with a cancelled night, morning. My time is finite too.

AIBU to say it’s rude to cancel because you have a better offer.

It's extremely rude, I've known people do it and what is FAR worse is when they're totally unapologetic about it, "oh I can't come anymore I'm doing xyz now."

One of DH's friend's wives used to do this when we'd made plans as a four, often on the day she just wouldn’t show up because she'd decided to go off and see another friend, leaving me to hang out with DH and his mate! I stopped bothering pretty sharpish. They don't sound like very nice friends OP.

I think I'd reply something like "oh, none taken"

Agree with this. I don’t think being ‘friends’ with these sort of people is good for your health!

I find it’s the person that just cannot commit to a date in advance as bad as the cancellers!
Me …am free We’d or Fri next week for lunch
Friend …doesn’t reply until following Tues , where shall we meet tomorrow?
Me …err am busy now because I didn’t hear from you last week.
Just rude and inconsiderate.

Yes it's rude. I might let it pass once as a one off or a couple more times if there seemed to be an apparently good reason but after that I couldn't be bothered with them.

One of my best friends from school is like that. She didn't drive (until quite late in life) and couldn't be arsed to sort out travel unless someone gave her a lift door to door. If we went to her house it was fine. If we met anywhere else she would usually flake. We usually meet as a group so it still went ahead and she still got an invite but flaked more often than she turned up. What annoyed me most was that she would always accept really enthusiastically and then shortly before just go completely silent and not even tell us she wasn't coming until one of us called her. She then moaned about "always hosting" when she saw us. Yes, because you never bother to come to anyone else's house! We're still in touch but I haven't actually seen her for years now.

Another friend had a big family that dominated her whole life. We'd arrange to meet and it would be hard enough to find a date as there were so many family birthdays to navigate. We'd fix one and then a couple of days before "oh sorry, can't make it, my in laws have asked to come and stay this weekend". Just say ... no? Gave up with her too. Who needs friends when you have family, eh?

I have down graded them to acquaintances now. If they organise something and I’m free, I’ll go. I won’t put off things important to me either like a swim I’m planning on doing, or an errand I need to run.

I was just a bit miffed about the coffee versus breakfast one. I thought she was a good friend, but I can see she is also quite selfish TBH.

There are a lot of people around whose small potatoes take priority over someone else’s catastrophe. Not sure if that’s too cryptic 😂