I, F35, have a friend, F35. Let’s call her A. I’ve known A since grade school.
Her birthday is coming up and she wanted to go to a restaurant for a group dinner. I asked if she made reservations at the restaurant and she said yes. She said it was x day at x time for party size of x under her name.
For context, last year for her birthday, A planned a group dinner thing but did not make reservations. She picked a place that does not do reservations. I had recommended to her then to pick a backup. A mentioned she would and she would pick a place that does take reservations. I took her word for this. The wait at the first restaurant (the one that doesn’t do reservations) was over an hour wait. We then find out she did not make reservations at the back up restaurant. The back up was also more than an hour wait. The place we did ended up going to had a wait time of 45 mins. The time it took to drive around and call took approximately 90 minutes in total.
To make sure the past doesn’t repeat itself, I called up the restaurant to ensure the reservation were made, pretending to be her. I find out no reservations were made at all. The restaurant said they didn’t have anything under A name–not even for the week before or after. They also don’t do online reservations, so no possibility of that as well. I make the reservation to fix the situation.
A has mentioned in the group chat the reservation was made several times. This irks me as I know she did not.
WIBTA to call her out of this after the dinner? I don’t want to call it out before as it would make things awkward.
Don’t “call her out.” Talk to her privately, friend to friend. She is your friend, right? So you can just have a conversation and not a silly feud over this? Because the way you’re describing this, it sounds like you’re winding yourself up to rip her a new one, rather than having a conversation with your friend about a minor point of irritation.
It is weird that she’s telling everyone there is a reservation when there isn’t one, and it may be worth finding out why on earth she’s telling such an odd little lie, when it took almost no effort to make a reservation and she could have done it in just a minute or two herself. Maybe she’s trying to force everyone to hang out longer on her birthday because she’s lonely and you guys don’t get together much? Maybe she genuinely forgot? But come at this with genuine concern and curiosity if she’s your friend, not raining fury down on her.
ESH, but only because it sounds like you’re girding yourself for a major conflict instead of just talking to someone you like and care about.
I would just send her a private message letting her know that you took care of the reservation. When you called to confirm with the restaurant, they must have lost your info because they couldn’t find it. Don’t worry, I made sure it’s there now. You might look like TA to the friend but you were certainly NTA to the full group!
NTA. Some people need the call out to fix behavior. Or put in the chat the you made the reservation and leave it at that. No pointed fingers, just specific words.
YWBTA – if you want to remain her friend.
What is calling her out going to accomplish in this scenario since you’ve fixed the issue already? It will embarrass her. And purposely embarrassing someone won’t reflect well on you. If you want to keep the friendship, at most you could mention to her privately that you took care of it.
ESH. You’re being passive aggressive by not talking to her directly, and she’s an asshole for lying (assuming she is lying). You should talk to her directly about it. “Calling her out” is childish. If I were you, I wouldn’t even go to the dinner at all if you think it will be a repeat of last year.
Don’t say anything. But consider not attending. If you don’t attend, let her know you won’t be able to make it.
NTA but it is petty, especially if you do it in the group. If you want you can message her and say hey btw I double checked the reseervation and they mentioned they didn’t have any and don’t take online reservations. So to prevent any issues I went ahead and booked one for us.
Nothing more to say beyond that. No explanation or further discussion. All that needs to be said will have been said. Then move on from there.
Actually you probably should tell her just in case she actually does call and make a reservation. The way I wrote it doesn’t point fingers allowing her to save face, and the restaurant not get screwed.
I’d have put the reservation under my name so when she showed up trying to claim she’d made the reservation it would be clear she hadn’t. NTA
I would let her show up at the restaurant with everybody and not have a reservation. Once there was a wait time and you found that out, you can say hey give me a minute let me talk to the hostess.
Then pull the hostess aside. Tell her you have the reservation and you look like the hero. 😇
YWBTA
You essentially have two options now. Either you call the restaurant again and cancel the reservation you made, therefore having the restaurant embarrass her because she lied about having a reservation. Or you talk to her privately. Tell her that you don’t appreciate her lies, that you made her a reservation because you didn’t want to wait 90 minutes again and so on.
There is technically one more option: burnt ground
You could cancel the reservation, out her beforehand in the group chat that there isn’t a reservation, don’t go the birthday party and lose her as a friend. Whether that is something you want, is on you.
I’d think twice if I want to be friends with someone that lies to my face and wastes my time. But you do you.
‘She picked a place that does not do reservations. I had recommended to her then to pick a backup’
So if I’m understanding this correctly, you want her to have a reservation at a second restaurant, with the idea that if the first restaurant has no tables you can all go there? And if there are tables, you’d cancel the reservation at the second place.
If this is the case, I’m with your friend – I wouldn’t do this either. I wouldn’t lie though; I’d just say I don’t want to mess a restaurant around like that.
If you feel that strongly about how she plans her birthday, don’t go.
why don’t you be proactive and ask her directly now instead of after the dinner? that is the common sense move
Because this is reddit and we need to be as dramatic about these things as we can.