Back in the hayday of messageboards I posted that I was willing to host anyone at my flat in London for an event that was happening that October. I've gone to events with these people a bunch so I'm close to a number of them and have met them loads of times. Weeks go by and no one bites. I go on with my life.

Week of the event I find out some friends who aren't involved in my online life announce they're throwing a birthday party at the hotel near the event and invite me. I live in the city already so thought I'd just visit the hotel and head home, they insist I sleep the night so they don't have to curfew me with shitty Docklands Light Railway.

Day of the event one of my closest online friends calls the offices I work at to get me and says they were on a train to London with a friend and wanted to know if my offer was still open. When I said I'd made alternate plans she lost her rag at me for offering a place and trying to worm out of it last second.

I was caught in a bind so I had to book a hotel room for a single night to accommodate my friend and her friend for the night and not miss the party I'd planned to be at.

I think the thing that pisses me off is not the last minute nature of the assumption I'd still be open without confirming anything, not the fact she called the business I work for to get a hold of me, not that I was 150 pounds out of pocket, that she didn't ask permission to bring a person I was not familiar with or that she was already mid-transit when she tried to contact me---

It was the fact she blamed me and got angry at me for all of that. In her mind I was the asshole. Hell, she'd probably think I was an asshole for thinking badly of her in that situation.