How do I kindly tell my friend that I don't want to spend an entire weekend with her? 😅 A close friend of mine is visiting my area this weekend and while I'm excited to see her, what I thought would be a day together has turned into 3 days of hosting her. When I heard she was coming to my state I of course offered for her to stay with me and she said yes for 1 night. Then she asked if she could stay a second night and I was like sure. Her plan was to arrive Sunday morning, spend the day in Boston or Salem, take the train to my city that evening, and spend Sunday night and Monday night with me. Well yesterday she's asked if she can come directly from the airport at 10am to my area and we spend all of Sunday together too. And her flight is Tuesday evening so ultimately that's almost 3 days of hosting her (it's a long holiday weekend in the US.) This wouldn't be an issue if she had originally planned this visit WITH me but she didn't consult me before choosing her travel dates. She just picked them and asked if I was free to meet up so I thought it was like her independently traveling and us connecting for a bit, not me fully hosting her for the whole trip. This just has me stressed because I was looking forward to a relaxing holiday weekend but this has morphed into something else that I didn't plan for or agree to. But I feel really bad telling her she's on her own for part of the trip. What arrangement could make sense here and how would you set this boundary and preserve the friendship?

Just say you didn’t account for her to show up earlier as that isn’t what you agreed upon and you won’t be able to get her in earlier. Stick to what you previously agreed to, you can’t just keep changing your days around because she decides things on a whim without communication.

I would just say you have plans for the Sunday. Even if your plans were to just potter about or do chores alone, those are still plans. You could even say that you’ve planned to get x or y done that day ahead of the work week.

Yeah you could say something like we had originally planned a day together and I was super excited to meet up with you. But I had other plans for my holiday weekend as well since it’s 3 days. And each time you call to change plans I keep having to adjust my schedule. I was happy to see you for a day. And maybe even 2 nights. But we had initially planned for 1 night. Now so close to the weekend you’re asking me to totally change my plans around. If you had mentioned this to me the first time around maybe. But I have plans this weekend and don’t want to keep canceling or rescheduling what I have to do. It’s too late notice. I was not planning on hosting you the whole weekend ??? Maybe something along those lines. Hope she understands!

^Personally this comes across slightly confrontational to me so I’d keep that in mind, she’s only asking anyway

Update I texted her that I planned to use Sunday to clean my house/get my life together if she'd be okay entertaining herself until dinner time and she said sure!

Yay!

@aurielle glad it worked out!