AIO for asking my friend not to lie poorly to me?

I’ve had this friend for 1.5 years or so, we mainly rock climb together, which has been great. She reaches out 1-2 times a week to climb, but often when I try to hang out with her in other contexts she’s flaky or just isn’t honest with me.

I’ve noticed a trend lately where I’ll ask her to hang out in a group setting and she’ll cancel the day of, saying she’s very sick, her throat is closing up, she can barely stand up because of her back etc, but then first thing in the morning she texts me asking to climb.

It bothered me a bit more when she did this on my birthday a few months ago.

I brought this up to her saying that I’d really like to hang out in other contexts and that I’d appreciate if she’d communicate things a bit better because it’s confusing for me when she says she’s sick but then isn’t too sick to climb the very next day.

She told me it’s just the way she is, which I can accept (I have tons of friends that don’t like social settings so we mainly just hang out 1:1), I just didn’t like the callous nature of what she said. If we’re just climbing buddies that’s fine.

The way I see it, if she can’t make, that’s fine. If something comes up, that’s fine. If she doesn’t want to, that’s fine. If she feels awkward being honest and needs to come up with an excuse, that’s fine. Just commit to your excuse I guess so I don’t feel like an idiot for telling her “no worries, feel better soon!”

I didn’t hear from her for a few months and I didn’t reach out because I felt that the ball was in her court. I reached out to her a week and a half ago saying I was worried that I lost her as a friend because I hadn’t heard from her.

She finally responded today and said “I haven’t heard firm you either lol” and told me that I set expectations that were unfair to her. She said that she’s not the right friend for me. Did I overreact?

I guess I’ve lost her as a friend and should just move on, which is a bummer because it’s hard to find consistent climbing partners, but I guess that’s fine. I’m just a bit shocked and confused. I do a lot for my friends and would have responded very differently had I been in her shoes.

Posted Mar 5, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC · edited

43
Loading comments…