Woman’s Friends Decline Birthday Trip for Being Too Expensive, Then Book Vacation to a Different Destination

A young woman turned to Reddit for advice after clashing with a close friend over a birthday trip that fell apart.

The 21-year-old college student explained that her friend “V,” 22, had long talked about wanting to visit Asia at the end of August for her September birthday.

“She had mentioned her desire a couple of times here & there but never actually initiated planning until the beginning of June,” the woman wrote, noting that such a late start made organizing a big trip difficult.

V eventually created a group chat and sent out flight options, but according to the post, “plans didn’t go much further from there.”

Two weeks later, the poster said she tried working out the logistics herself, as she is applying for dental school and needed to budget carefully.

“I calculated the trip would cost at least $2k USD and I ended up telling her that would be out of my budget,” she explained, suggesting a Caribbean getaway instead, since it would be more affordable.

V was “pretty upset” and canceled her birthday trip entirely. When mutual friends “C” and “M” proposed that the group still go to the Caribbean, the woman agreed it “would be a good idea.”

Because of pricing and schedules, C suggested the first weekend of September—which happened to fall on both V’s and C’s birthdays. “We thought it would be a fun way to celebrate everyone’s birthdays,” the woman said.

However, the chosen departure flight landed on V’s actual birthday.

“I texted V to ask her if she had plans on her birthday and she said ‘I don’t have an answer at the moment.’ I told her I didn’t want to miss anything if she was celebrating,” the poster recalled. “She said ‘if you can’t make it, it is what it is.’ “

When M added V to the new group chat, V noticed the trip dates and was not happy. “She commented that we were inconsiderate, left the group & unshared her location with us,” the woman wrote.

The poster said she later texted V to talk, but after no reply, V eventually sent “an aggressive voice note saying I was weird for planning another trip on her birthday.”

She apologized and explained that the plan was to celebrate multiple birthdays, not take away from V’s. They eventually spoke in person and seemed “cool,” but since V never asked her to change the dates, she booked her flight anyway.

The woman also pointed out that V has “a history of poor communication skills,” which she has addressed in the past. She believed the conflict “could’ve been sorted (travel dates adjusted, etc.) if she had said how she felt more civilly.”

The drama continued when V later planned a birthday event of her own, sending invites after the Caribbean trip was already scheduled. When both the poster and C RSVP’d that they couldn’t attend but offered to celebrate the week before, V was upset.

In her Reddit post, the woman asked if she was wrong for sticking with the trip instead of canceling to attend the party. One commenter told her, “You’re not TA for not canceling the trip to go to her birthday party, but you could be TA for taking over her trip planning.”

The commenter added that when V dropped her original plans, it might have helped to reach out directly. “As you said she’s not a great communicator, but you’re her friend and you’re aware of it, so maybe you should have tried to communicate with her,” they wrote.

The woman admitted she could have included V more: “I think we could’ve def let her in on the trip planning since it was her bday too,” she said. But because planning the Asia trip was difficult, “we just figured we’d handle planning the new trip ourselves.”

Although they discussed the Caribbean trip after V left the chat, she acknowledged, “it could’ve gone better.” Now, with the vacation moving forward and V’s party left behind, the friendship remains strained.