Was it strange to ask on a Friday afternoon if she’s free on a Saturday ?

[blueshuh]

I reached out to one of my DS friends mums on a Friday evening, as my DS asked me to ask if he could see his friend the next day at a fun fair.

I texted the mum saying :

’ hey. Totally short notice, but Jonny asked if Jo wanted to come to the funfair that’s in town ? ‘

the mum replied the next day saying :

’ This weekend ? We can’t, busy with XYZ ‘..

they’re just 5, so any play dates involve parents.

I guess because I didn’t explicitly say ‘ tomorrow ‘ or ‘ this weekend ‘, she double checked that’s what I meant.

but surely I did mean that ?

how would you have taken my text ?

I know, it’s totally not a big deal. I’m not upset about it. I’m just a bit bored and wanted to see how others would read it.

I read it like ‘ omg you’re asking me on a Friday about a Saturday? ‘..

Yes you do need to be clearer in your initial texts - it’s pretty basic protocol to always state which date and time when asking to arrange something with someone over message. Most adults know this!

I think you’re overthinking things. In the same way you said you hastily sent a message, she just pinged a message back to you without thinking too much about the wording. I regularly suggest doing things on the spur of the moment and have friends that do the same, and I am sure many of us have said something along the lines of what this mum said.

Normal response - it gave you the opportunity to say 'Oh, no, next weekend' if she'd misunderstood, rather than just saying 'We're busy' when it might have meant next week and not today.

It's like when you tell a kid they're going to the beach - you tell them straight away that it's next week to avoid them getting upset that they aren't going right now - or you tell your DP on Thursday that you'll be working late Monday so he doesn't think he needs to ask a favour of his boss so he can pick the kids up in a couple of hours.

Assume they aren't psychic and give people the information they need - What, where and when - not just what and where.

She was literally just confirming this weekend? We're busy. But if I caught wind someone was whinging about me on MN for a simple text, little Johnny definitely wouldn't be going to the fair with them, because they sound like one of those "hard work" friends.

The other thing is, I’m often in a hurry doing a few things at once and needing to reply to a couple of messages. I don’t agonise over them and assume the other person isn’t either. It kind of worries me when I see someone is!

No, it's not strange. What's strange is that you're over-reacting enough to post about it.

OP appears to be an overthinking looking for reassurance. What was this post in aid of?

I had to re-read what you wrote about 6 times to even register the ‘short notice’ bit. I think most people reading that message in their brains skip over the intro and focus on the question. So what went ding, ding, ding in her brain was, do you want to go to the fun fair? And then she would have started to think about when it might be happening and how busy they are. She won’t have re-read it and registered the short notice bit and realised you meant a specific imminent date.

I think if you said, do you want to go to the fun fair? Sorry, I know it’s quite short notice. Then she probably would have still clarified what day, but she would have realised you meant in the next couple of days.

That said, you obviously do need to plan in advance with this friend because she did already have weekend plans, which wouldn’t be unusual for most people on a Friday.

Her reply is fine, I just think adding ‘apologias’ would’ve been more polite. And possibly offering an alternative date to meet up.

I also think your initial message was fine.

Guess what time you send it at as could be 'now' if it was sent while fun fair open that's what I'd think
Ah well sometimes people have stuff organised can't do last min other times people delighted to get last minute invite so think all fine no need change much for next time other then clarify day

Not to be critical but if we're telling about clarity, I don't think that exchange is very clear either. "It opens at 12" doesn't answer the question "when are you going?". I wouldn't know whether you meant "we're going at 12" or "we've not agreed a time yet, it needs to be some time after 12"

Don't worry about it though, text is a pain in the arse way to communicate, this kind of thing happens all the time. As long as people reply promptly to clarify, it's all good.

If the funfair’s on for several weeks it’s impossible to know when you meant.

This is the most bizarre overreaction to a complete normal interaction

Someone clarifying is not an insult. This poor woman probably typed out a 2 second reply. I don't think anything needs to be learnt from this, I think it's a completely normal way of sorting out when each other is free to meet

Are you bored as this really doesn’t seem an issue whichever way you look at it?!

you are totally overthinking, I wouldn’t worry x

Well done!!

you got there in the end, hopefully this will help you going forward. Just remember other people aren't inside your head and lots of things are subjective! Short notice means different time periods to different people & in different situations. Be more specific!

Nothing wrong with asking at very short notice, as long as you accept people might already be busy!!

Hope you have fun!!

Yes this, if you are in the position of over thinking what others say to you it might be best to not too it may make you appear too intense to them even if you think they dont realise

She might well have said yes if they weren’t busy, but they already were. That’s not a function of unacceptably short notice - they just had plans already.