Cancelling friends at short notice because of a better offer is very rude...

[CarmellaSopranosKitchen]

Maybe I'm out of sync - maybe this is how we all socialise - but I'm interested in others' view points. If I make an arrangement to see friends - especially if it's been booked months ago and they've booked a babysitter - then I'd not cancel if I got a better offer to go out..elsewhere
I understand illness/ crisis and a surprise Uncle Rodney's 90th birthday party - but just wanting to rearrange because erm they've decided to do something else is really rude. Suddenly we've got a baby sitter booked (expensive and a rare treat), but all our ususal friends are now booked up, as are the best restuarants. It is also too late for a quick weekend away. Am I wrong to feel actually angry or should I be more chill... I actually put off other friends seeing us because of this. I won't cancel the babysitter - but am I unreasaonable to be very cross.

Or will all filter the flakes out and all have much nicer friends! The flakes can then all flake together.

I bend myself backwards to accommodate people don't do this. Just make arrangements, stick to them to the normal extent, and importantly stop arranging things with people who mess you about.

I don't have any conception of why people think this is socially acceptable, unless they are either ill or genuinely don't give a fuck about the other person.

I have dragged myself to a lot of get togethers when tired, pregnant, busy, navigating train cancellations, etc etc, because I despise flaking on people. Now I'm older and uglier I am very quick to bin off people who flake at the last minute.

I used to be quite friendly with DH's best friend's girlfriend. Years ago we all arranged to attend an event together as a four and on the morning she just didn't show up, had decided to go and meet other friends instead. I was left alone with DH and his mate, who had brought along another mate so as not to waste her ticket. I haven't spoken to her since!

People are so rude. I would not make any other arrangement.
Ops "friend" if you recognise yourself we all think you are a rude fucker.

Luckily I don’t have many friends who do this.

There is one who is now notorious to the extent that if she says yes to something we basically don’t bother booking an extra seat for her and just count down till she pulls out. Wouldn’t ever organise something with just her.

My niece has done this to me a couple of times. I am self employed so I book the time off to spend with her & then she flakes last minute which is then too late for me to get bookings in. I am short a couple of hundred quid but can’t say anything as it’s due to her anxiety. I literally cannot afford to make plans with her any more!

Good for your DH. How did the friend react?

@nomas he never even reached out. I messaged on the group chat that was me, Dh and friend which originally started as wedding organising chat. And nothing in return, no acknowledgement, no ownership, no apology. Again, rude.

Dh is the Godfather to both his children. We always used to travel to them as their children were younger but it felt nice that they were coming to us for once. It was the fact that he didn't contact us to cancel. If I hadn't reached out to his wife for food ideas for her children we would have expected them and what? They just don't turn up?

It is so rude. The things is I really liked them both but the way they flaked on us when Dh had to move mountains to reschedule meetings and take a day off work felt like a kick in the teeth.

I also ended contact with a long standing close schoolfriend over this sort of thing. He would regularly refuse to commit to meeting up when we were in the same area just in case he got a better offer, but the final straw was when his parents invited me to join the family for New Year's Eve one year and he then took up a better offer but didn't bother to tell anyone. I drove 90 miles after work in filthy weather; he went out just before I arrived and hadn't come back by the time I left the following morning. His parents felt utterly humiliated.

People that behave like that are disgusting. They never see that they are in the wrong either. I drop any friends that behave like that.

YANBU in this situation.

Flakey friends are not worth your time, and they certainly don’t care or respect your time and the fact you arranged a babysitter.

There are exceptions to the rule in my opinion, of course other than illness and childcare issues, I have had a friends cancel on me recently because one of her close friends booked a spontaneous trip home (she moved abroad) and the day we had planned to meet was the day that her other close friend asked to meet my friend and her husband. In this situation, I absolutely understood so you could technically say she had a “better offer” but in my opinion, she done the right thing seeing her other friend that she doesn’t get to see often

Yes, I absolutely agree with the general point, but arranging things months in advance is very difficult for some of us for different reasons, and creates different problems.

I’ve had this happen to me this week. We had a night booked for weeks, I sent a message a couple of days ago to confirm the time and my friend replied saying that she’d decided to go to her boyfriend’s instead. I’ve been there for her through severe depression, but since the new boyfriend we never see her. I’m on the verge of this being the final straw. It felt very hurtful after I’d gone to an effort to get the house ready etc.

I hate it when people do this, it's so rude. It's also annoying when people won't commit to an invitation in case they get a better offer 😒

I agree it's rude. We have a family member who leaves us hanging until the last min for same reasons. Last time they tried we just said knowing at the last min didn't work for us so we'd catch up another time.

I had a friend flake on other friends' New Year's Eve party. They were upset but didn't want to say anything. I pulled him up on it and he then proceeded to fall out with me, with an elaborate and unrelated excuse. They pretended that they didn't mind at all so as to stay in his good graces - he was very much Mr Queen Bee.
I no longer see any of them.

Spectacularly rude behaviour. Some years ago a good friend and I went to some effort to arrange lunch out for four, with two other friends. In all our diaries for weeks, and everyone had confirmed they would be there. Part of the point of lunch was to discuss something specific of interest to all of us so we'd carefully planned the date around everyone's availability.

Come the day, only three of us turned up and not until we were actually seated for lunch did the fourth person text just one of us (not even a group text) to say oh, she wouldn't be coming after all as she was a bit busy that day.

Going from four people to three people changed the whole dynamic of the event and meant that the particular planned discussion couldn't happen. It felt incredibly rude and inconsiderate, and I never included that person in social arrangements ever again. She really demonstrated that our time and our company wasn't of any value to her.

I think this is extremely rude. I have a friend who,I suspect,likes to keep her options open when we've got arrangements to do something. She always says 'I'll call you by X time if something comes up'. So far,she never has,but I do sometimes wonder what that 'something' could be. If it's an emergency,or she's taken ill,no problem. Cancelling because she's had a better offer would be the height of bad manners.

Sort of similar happened to me recently. Friends were organising a surprise birthday get-together for friend A. Found and arranged babysitter, all sorted. Friend A accidentally catches wind of the surprise very soon before the event, says no thank you, I don't want to. Cancelled babysitter. Suddenly Friend A has a change of heart and says OK to party.

I could have called the babysitter back (they were still available), but I just thought no – it was really insensitive to everyone's time and effort to flip flop. Friend A has no reason to cancel – they are are well, had no other plans, they are social etc. Just didn't 'feel like it'.

I dumped a friend for this. She told me she couldn't meet up one Saturday as arranged because she'd been invited to a party. She didn't even bother to make up an excuse eg 'I've got a stomach upset/headache/I'm tired after work and want a quiet weekend'. Nope. 'I've been invited to a party on Saturday so I'm going to that instead.'

I’ve stopped bothering with people over this type of behaviour, and I only make effort and invest energy into people who have decent manners. I have no shortage of friends - most people don’t think that sort of behaviour is acceptable OP, so I’m absolutely sure you won’t be friendless forever!!

I can’t stand it! I had similar with a friend recently, we’re beyond needing babysitters though. We’d discussed going to an event, we’d discussed a few things but could both make this one date. A couple of weeks later, I am not sure why I did this but I texted her just to confirm before I bought the tickets, she replied she wouldn’t be sure until just before the date but wasn’t worried it would sell out. I am going with a different friend instead, I’m not going to wait for her to decide if she has a better offer. Especially as I suspect that the better offer is likely to be the new man on the scene. My kids say mates before dates (and some cruder versions) but it’s obviously not transferable to 50 somethings who are recently divorced.

We were going to their house....for dinner...so no not really. They often come to ours so I was looking forward to visiting them for a change. We are trying to find somewhere nice for dinner - but all the good places seem booked. I don't want to cancel the babysitter as it's such short notice - and that's unfair on them. I've phoned around other friends but of course, such short notice.

Yes - people who claim not to see anything wrong with a certain behaviour because they’ve done it themselves. There’s a lot of that on here!

Yes, this is astonishingly rude. I think equally rude is people who cancel long-arranged plans because they suddenly decide they actually really need to have a quiet night. The most infuriating thing about those people is that they're usually really sanctimonious about how they 'need to put themselves first for once', i.e. they aren't feeling it and can't be arsed.