To think my friend is ungenerous in only buying herself a concert ticket?

[LoisLaneKent]

My long term friend lives in the opposite end of the country and comes to stay once a year. Likewise I stay with her once a year.

Over the years one of our main shared hobbies has been going to gigs together. Last year she booked a gig in my city and asked to stay with me. I said yes but felt a little irked she didn’t either get me a ticket or invite me too. But I left it.

This year she said she wants to see a band in my city again. I suggested I may also want to go depending on finances (this year has been tough for me which she knows). She’s now told me she’s bought herself a ticket and asked to stay with me. AIBU to think this behaviour is a little ungenerous?

If she has other friends in your area why not suggest she stays with them? I sort of get the impression that she’s using you for cheap accommodation during her visit.

You need boundary’s

Lots of people travel a long way just for 1-2 days. She’s not special.

why can’t she stay at the other friends houses also?

You don’t owe her just cause you went to the Same uni

if you wasn’t living there she’d book a hotel. Let her do that.

she’s using you..

Well.......a friend who uses your home as a free hotel so that she can go to a concert with others/on her own???

It doesn't sound like a great friendship to me

However if you are happy that the friendship is good, then that's fine

Why do you go and stay with her ?

I love how you put that. Her “friend” invited herself, asks to stay a week in her home. She won’t live on air. What’s the getting she won’t take her friend for dinner/buy couple of bottles of wine either?

id be fuming if someone treated my adult child that way

She’s using her…

Socially awkward my bottom. 🤣
she was bold enough to to invite herself to stay at OPs house for a whopping 7 day’s

I think this is good, but I suspect in her mind she sees buying concert tickets as separate from a host gift, particularly as you have stayed before at hers.
If you don’t get it out of your system, I would still let her stay, but dial back the hospitality a bit - after all you have said you are skint.

But what is stopping you from saying “that sounds great, i’lll get a ticket too”? What is stopping you from simply going too?

If you want to go to the gig then you can buy your own ticket. You already visit each other in each other’s cities and she looked after you on your last visit - cooking meals and taking you out. Reciprocal arrangements are in place. I wouldn’t be expecting her to fork out £50 for me to go to a gig too.

Is she going with other friends?

Does she use you as a base and not really spend time with you? Does she go to the gig with other friends? Do you feel welcome to go along? Is it seated so you would need to get tickets together?

Either she’s using you as a base but not wanting to do stuff with you which is rude or she’s laidback and assumes if you want to come you will get a ticket yourself. I wouldn’t expect to be bought a ticket but I would expect to be included/invited.

You already have a reciprocal arrangement and she was a very generous host.

She invited you along.

She’s not in any way taking the piss.

You want to go with her to gigs. It sounds like she sees the visits as not having to spend all your time together. This is easily fixed if you simply say, I’d like to come with you next time to a gig.

However, if you only want to go if she pays for you, then you are the CF.

This.
Plus 5-7 days is too long

With friends I’ve known for years and it was a group I knew they liked I’d most likely say, X is playing, shall we go? I might buy their tkt as a birthday present say….or we’d each buy our own. I’d also definitely pay for dinner or a take out. If I wanted to see a band they didn’t like I’d feel incredibly awkward just staying and popping out to see the band, and super awkward if it was a band they did like!

it’s weird.

Am I missing something? You visit each other once a year and the host provides accommodation and food. I think that’s already a fair deal, so don’t understand why people say she’s a CF for not buying you a ticket in return for accommodation.

Other than the ticket issue, do you enjoy visiting each other? If the answer is yes, telling her she can’t stay at yours would be cutting your nose to spite your face.

Tell her your busy that week and shell need to find other accommodation

Does she go alone or with other people…? Maybe you’d be a spare wheel?

My reading comprehension skills must be up the swanny this morning because I’ve re-read your OP and

she didn’t invite you, you had to ask. She ignored it.

previously, she didn’t invite you and you said you’d like to have been either invited or bought a ticket.

so I see it is not necessarily your expectation that she buys you a ticket.

However, I think this may be where the ambiguity /issue lies.

So just tell her. “ next time, I’d like to be invited to any gigs you go to while staying with me, and I absolutely don’t expect you to pay for my ticket”

My understanding from the title is that OP thinks her friend is ungenerous because she didn’t buy a ticket for OP.

Yes, you’re right. From the title but not the OP.

It seems ambiguous and OP needs to clarify.

These are 2 separate issues.

If you want to go and see the band, buy yourself a ticket.

If you find it cheeky her asking to stay at yours, and then doing her own thing, don’t have her back to stay

She’s fully using you, but doesn’t want to spend meaningful time with you. Otherwise she’d invite you. Stop saying yes to her week-long stays.

If overnight, fair enough, but if she's staying 5-7 days does she contribute at all? Do you go to stay with her reciprocally? If not, I'd be unavailable when these gigs are on. She can get a hotel.

This.

Yes - just be direct. Say you'd like to have gone and next time could she let you know beforehand. If she doesn't suggest buying a ticket for you then, you'll at least know that it's not that she doesn't want to go with you.