Social Question

RandomMrAdam's avatar

Who is in the wrong here?

Asked by RandomMrAdam (1655points) March 30th, 2010

Scenario starts like this – a friend of me and my brother from back home is in town for a few days. I text my brother earlier today around 1:15pm (I work til 5pm) asking him if he was going to make plans to hang out with our friend. My brother says “yeah” and doesn’t really elaborate. I texted our friend on and off until about 4:00pm. I didn’t hear anything back from my brother, and my girlfriend asks me if I want to BBQ, so I say sure. My brother makes plans to hang out with our friend and invites another friend of ours as well but doesn’t mention the plans to me (later says he assumed I wouldn’t go as I already made plans to BBQ he found after asking my gf) Should my brother have at least told me about the plans so that I could have at least made a decision, or is it proper to not ask since he knew I had made other plans?

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21 Answers

The_Idler's avatar

How hard would it have been, for him to do you the courtesy of asking?

lucillelucillelucille's avatar

If you told him you had already made plans with your girlfriend,why should he ask you?

WestRiverrat's avatar

Sounds like your brother asked your GF when he couldn’t get ahold of you. Let it go, it isn’t worth tearing the family apart over.

The_Inquisitor's avatar

It doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but if you were upset that he hadn’t told you about it, maybe you could just ask him to at least let you know the next time around if another situation like that occurs again. Really, there’s no need to blame anyone.

liminal's avatar

doe this mean you no longer have plans to hang with your friend tonight?

stardust's avatar

He probably should’ve asked you out of courtesy, but it’s probably not worth getting into an argument over it. If it’s upsetting you, I’d mention it for future ref.

PacificToast's avatar

I think this is a small misunderstanding that shouldn’t be dwelt over.

davidbetterman's avatar

You and your brother obviously have history. Same in my family. We would sometimes fight over who got to be with one of our friends and who wouldn’t.

You should forget all this and plan on seeing your friend later or tomorrow. It is childish and silly.

By the way, what does your friend have to say about all this?

Jeruba's avatar

It sounds like both you and your brother need to work on clearer communications. No one is in the wrong (and you don’t have to put someone in the wrong), but you didn’t do yourselves any favors. He might well have thought that if you were making your own dinner plans, you weren’t all that interested in seeing the friend. A phone call instead of text and a “Hey, let’s see if Jake wants to get together for dinner” might have made it all work out better.

If there’s still time, why don’t you postpone the barbecuing and go hang out with your friend and your brother? Surely your girlfriend will understand.

RandomMrAdam's avatar

@WestRiverrat He said he never asked me (nor tried to get ahold of me because he thought I had plans) though he knew I had wanted to hang out with our friend. It’s not something that we will fight about for a long time or anything, I just thought it wouldn’t be too much to at least ask me so that I could have made a decision instead of him making my decision for me. My girlfriend knows that we could have rescheduled our plans for later in the evening or the next day since he will only be in town til tomorrow.

zophu's avatar

There’s no set-in-stone rule for things like this. Maybe your brother didn’t want to tempt you away from the BBQ? Maybe he would rather not have had you around for whatever reason? I’m not sure how the internet is going to help you anymore than you could help yourself by talking to him about it.

silverfly's avatar

I’d say you’re both at fault. Sounds like poor communication. But I’d also say that it’s not the end of the world. You might want to bring it up to your brother and explain your point of view to avoid similar situations in the future… Dr. Phil has spoken.

Exhausted's avatar

Your first phone call to him was an indication you were interested in his plans in reference to your friend. He was either rude or put you off because they didn’t want to include you. The mature thing for him to have done, regardless of what your girlfriend told him, was to tell you what he had planned and let you decide how you wanted to handle it. You know what that say when you ASS-U-ME…....

SuperMouse's avatar

Randommrdan should have at least touched base with to let you know the plans.

Jeremycw1's avatar

you lost me at BBQ haha

iphigeneia's avatar

Why didn’t you make plans with the friend yourself? Obviously you know your brother better than I do, but I know that if I were in the situation with my brother, his ‘yeah’ would either mean ‘yeah, maybe, soon, if I remember’ or ‘yeah, and I’d rather do it without you’.

You had a couple of hours to bring up the topic over text with your friend and while your brother probably should have told you about his plans since he knew you were interested, you could have easily brought yourself into the loop by not leaving everything up to your brother.

shatterpulse's avatar

The solution doesn’t have a clear cut answer. It more depends on how you feel. Do you think he didn’t invite you because he didn’t want to see you?! Or did he legitimately want to see you but had other plans.

lfino's avatar

I was going to say what @iphigeneia said about making plans with the friend on your own. If you get a weekend off, make plans to drive to your friend’s house for the weekend and then you can hang all weekend. And then since you’d be back home again, you can visit other people while you’re there too. Tell everybody in advance that you’ll be back for a couple of days, plan a party, and tell everybody to come by.

Pandora's avatar

If you are a close friend than he should’ve made it a point to give you the choice.
I don’t understand why you didn’t call your friend and invite him to your BBQ with your girlfriend unless your were not that close. In which case I would have to side with your brother being he probably figured you didn’t really care to see your pal all that much and he could excuse your missing him by telling him, he forgot to invite you or that you already had a date for the evening.

lynfromnm's avatar

I don’t think either of you did a great job of communicating. Your brother might have been courteous enough to let you know the plans with your mutual friend. An you could have said “Suzy and I are gonna barbecue, but we can change that if we can get together with Joe.” How else was your brother to know you’d still be available, when he knew you had plans?

Drop it.

JeffVader's avatar

Well, a courtesy ask would have been nice, but it’s hardly a matter of life or death. You got to have a BBQ after all.

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