I am just interested to see what others think about a friend of mine, whose behaviour I find hard to understand. DH thinks I should dump her but I've known her for a long time so I'm not sure what to do.
We both have young children and our boys are similar ages, so we try to get together as often as we can with the kids. Her dh and my dh also get along quite well so we also tend to have dinner together every few months.
The thing about this friend is that she is very unreliable and frequently cancels at the last minute, even if she has arranged the meet-up herself. Nine times out of ten she will say that her children are sick, and I've come to the conclusion that if this is true, her children are actually sick a lot more often than they are well. Her dh once told me (in a joking manner) that sometimes he hears her on the phone making excuses to people for why she can't do something, and he can't believe some of the c**p that she tells people.
Anyway a couple of weeks ago I invited her, her dh and their children to my son's birthday party, which was just to be a gathering of family & friends at our home. She said (quite happily) that they would come, and asked what she could bring - I told her she didn't have to bring anything but she insisted on bringing some drinks and biscuits, so I agreed. A couple of days before the party, she phoned me and said they were looking forward to coming and mentioned again that she was bringing something. So, on the morning of the party, she rang me and said "Oh guess what, xxx is sick with a vomiting virus, so we can't come." I was a bit put out as my initial feeling was that she was making an excuse not to come, but I suggested that she could bring her other child along if she wanted, and leave the 'sick' one at home with her dh. She reluctantly agreed and when she turned up later with her daughter, she handed me a bag containing the drinks and biscuits and said (in an off-hand manner) "Here's the food you wanted me to bring." Considering I never asked her to bring anything in the first place, and only accepted because she insisted. A short time later I asked her how her son was, and she said "oh he's better now." ??? Quick recovery, I thought - only took a few hours.
When I said to dh later that I couldn't understand why she is repeatedly unreliable, he commented that if it was his friend, he wouldn't put up with them anymore. He said that I should try to look for the 'message' in her behaviour, and that she probably cancels because she simply doesn't want to be there. But why would she go through the whole 'charade' and still maintain contact if she didn't want to. By the way, I have 'let her know' at times that I haven't been very happy about being let down at the last minute, but it doesn't seem to change. Generally I am quite laid back but I'm sure she knows that I don't like it when she does this. Sorry for the long rant, gets it off my chest anyway..