You know how when you’re a kid, meeting up with your friends is easy and requires very little planning?
Yeah, not that way as an adult, especially when we only make it into town where they live once every few months. We have to drive two hours to see anyone, and I try to reach out days in advance to let people know and see who might be available.
My friends are pretty good about making time and being reliable within the time frames I give them. I can expect that if they say they’ll be available on X day at X time that they will be with maybe 1/2 hour of leeway (they have toddlers).
My husband’s friends not so much.
Some don’t answer until days after we were actually in town. Some are so unreliable it’s pointless in trying to meet up with them, usually because they’ve forgotten we’re coming or they think our schedule is as flexible as theirs? I’m not sure what the reason is, but no amount of attempting to plan will actually have them free during our time frame, and we spend time just waiting and waiting and fuming and burning time we don’t have because they can’t get their schedule straight.
Sometimes it’s that they want us to meet somewhere else. We usually try to meet at my husband’s parents’ house because then when I have to go to bed for work (we’re usually in town because of my work) I can do so without it becoming a fight and argument and everyone annoyed because things are cut short. Also, that lets us cook, something that is hugely important because of our food allergies. I don’t expect other people to accommodate our allergies, but if you want to hang out for 4+ hours we need someplace to prepare snacks, and your kitchen isn’t safe.
Sometimes they want to include people we don’t know. No, I didn’t come in to town to see random person I’ve never heard of. I came into town to see YOU.
It’s hugely frustrating.
Right now we’re in limbo between both sets of friends. My friends still aren’t back in town from the trip they took today. If he drives us both to his friends, we will have to cross town, then cross town back to drop me off with my friends, then cross town to see his friends, then cross town to pick me up. It’s ridiculous.
So right now everyone is angry, and I’m questioning why I even thought trying to see folks would be a good idea.
UGH.
Do you have logistics problems seeing your friends? How on earth do you work it out?
