Rude to tell someone you passed through their city without calling?

[Anonymous]

^the Op (not friend)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Similar to PP, I had a friend come to DC for several days (4?) with her husband and child for spring break. She told me afterward and said something like she knew I'd understand not meeting up. Um, no, not really. I would have been happy to meet them at one of their stops on their itinerary rather than making them take time out to meet up with me. In your situation with it being such a short stop, you're probably ok mentioning it, but if you don't think it will come up again or you'll slip, then I wouldn't.

Same here with nyc. I guess she did not value my friendship enough. We're not friends anymore for other reasons. It' s for the best.

[Anonymous]

I can understand not getting in touch, but have never understood why people tell you they had come to town but not gotten in touch. The WORST though is when they get advice on where to stay, etc., but the don't bother to see you.

[Anonymous]

then not the

[Anonymous]

I think one can text--"hey--passing through your town on our road trip. I just wanted you to know we are thinking of you and wish we had more time to see you. If you're free and flexible, we can let you know which park we end up in to run the kids out. If not, let's definitely try to see each other". Boom. Life isn't so hard, folks.

[Anonymous]

I think one can text--"hey--passing through your town on our road trip. I just wanted you to know we are thinking of you and wish we had more time to see you. If you're free and flexible, we can let you know which park we end up in to run the kids out. If not, let's definitely try to see each other". Boom. Life isn't so hard, folks.

+1

[Anonymous]

No, it's not rude. I'll be in Seattle this summer and I have no plans to stop and see my two cousins, their children, or their grandchildren. I have places to go and things to do.

[Anonymous]

My work sends me to my hometown for meetings now and then. I may be able to fly in a night early or out a morning late, but that leaves one meal to have with a friend OR my family. I don't normally broadcast I'm there because of that.

[Anonymous]

When I travel, at times, I end up in towns with people I know. I look at my schedule and decide if I have time to visit people. My sister thinks this is the most horrific thing she heard of.

As an example, our father winters in the space coast of FL, my FIL, on the west coast. When we visit my FIL, we fly into the west coast; this winter, is was early Feb. I DID NOT VISIT MY FATHER. At that time, I did not have explicit plans to visit my father, but had a notion that I would visit later in the winter. I went down about 1 month later; then, I did not visit my FIL. (family did not visit father; DW and my father hate each other).

[Anonymous]

So some of you think that a person can never drive through town X ever again w/o contacting old friends/family members to let them know that they are driving through town X and offering to meet up with them.....Sorry, that is plain ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Just mention in the email that you hope to head back in the future with more time so you can get together.

[Anonymous]

Not rude to not get in touch if you couldn't make it work but why oh why would you then tell someone you didn't get in touch. That aspect to me is the wrong part.

Don't email and tell someone you were a mike away but didn't get in touch. What message are you really wanting to send them? How is that information in any way a good thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm shocked that people get offended over this.

Me too. It sounds as though Op was truly just passing by and stopped briefly on her way to another destination. No way would I expect a friend to call me under those circumstances. Nor would I necessarily want to drop everything I was in the middle of to dash over to meet them for maybe 15 minutes before they had to get back on the road....

Me, too. I have a cousins and an aunt and uncle in Charleston. We vacation two hours from them in SC, but I feel no need at all to get together with them while we're on vacation. We drive 8 hours to get to the vacation condo and the last thing I want to do is drive 2 more hours during my vacation to see them, but that offends them. They do come "home" from time to time where the rest of the family and I live, but they don't always let everyone know and that's fine with me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This actually caused the end of a friendship for me. My friend from Florida, who I hadn't seen in awhile, came to the DC area to visit another one of her friends, was here for three or four days, and didn't call me or suggest lunch or anything, even just to see each other for an hour or two.

I found out later when she casually mentioned seeing something around here, I think it was the leaves changing or something. Like, "The leaves were beautiful when I was up there visiting my friend Trudy in November."

I was kind of stunned, called her out on it, she said she didn't have time, or whatever, but it was lame.

It was a long distance friendship at that point anyway, but you know, FB friends or whatever, but that was the end of it for me. I didn't make a big deal of it, just backed off and stayed backed off.

For what it's also worth, I've been back to the town in FL where we knew each other a few times since then and wouldn't let her know I was coming or that I was there if my life depended on it.

Thinking about it now (it was like five years ago) I guess the friendship must have been kind of weak anyway at that point for it to be over so easily for me.

I think you were the problem. Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't mention it. You were within a mile of her and didn't think to email or text to see if she wanted to stop by on a coffee break and give you a hug? How often do you seeeachother? I would be pretty offended.

On the other hand, I live in Arlington and am not really offended when people I'm not super close with don't reach out. There's so much to do here and I don't live in the city anymore. But it definitely signals the end of a friendship.

Sometimes you're in town for a very specific purpose - a wedding (and all the pre wedding stuff), to help a sick/hospitalized relative or friend, maybe you're there to attend a funeral and support grieving family/friends, etc. Your days may be booked and you really may have zero time to get together with anyone.

I would be really sad if a friend assumed the worst of me and held something like that against me. I would tell them that I was in town and why I was in town. I would hope that they would understand that I had no time to get together for chit chat - even though I would have loved that.

Of course I would totally understand if someone was in town for a specific purpose and had no free time! But it sounds like OP was just hanging out at a playground, letting the kids run around and grabbing lunch etc. Even if she wasn't able to estimate the exact time she would be there, she could have given the friend a heads up and then texted when they got there. If it didn't work out, no biggie. But since it didn't happen, she should just keep her mouth closed about how she was less than a mile away and didn't think to reach out.

You guys are so high maintenance.

Imagine the possibility of your friend being equally high maintenance.

"What is this? My FB friend Suzy literally just texted me that she's at the park and is grabbing lunch with her husband and kids before heading to Dollywood. Um, WTH am I supposed to do with this information? Drop everything and meet them? It's 12:30 on a workday! I don't even know how to respond to this."