The older you get, the harder it becomes to schedule hangouts with increasingly busy friends.

One man thought he handled a last-minute cancellation politely, but his friend’s ice cold response made him second-guess everything.

Read on for the full story.

AITA – For saying “I’m sorry to hear that.”?

I (35M) have been planning an outing with a group of friends for a while. We’re all busy, so a wine tour followed by dinner took some effort to schedule.

But then plans ended up changing last minute.

One of our friends (30F) texted me the day before stating that she was ill and not feeling well, so she could not attend.

No real issue for the group, as I ate the cost for her spot on the tour and pre-fix dinner.

He tried to keep his response cool and cordial.

I responded with: “I’m sorry to hear that. No worries, get some rest and feel better soon!”

No response.

It turns out, this was the wrong approach in his friend’s eyes.

Since then, she has ghosted me when I texted asking if she feels better.

According to mutual friends, she thought my message was callous? I currently assume she is just upset I didn’t reschedule the whole event, but that seems unreasonable to me since it took months to plan.

But he can’t wrap his head around why this is happening.

Has the saying changed and I am unaware of it? I’m so confused.

We’ll all be meeting again as a group.

I hate walking on eggshells around a person but don’t want to apologize for no reason either.

AITA?

Who knew “I’m sorry to hear that” was such a divisive thing to say?

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

Her response says a lot more about her than it does about him.

His friend really isn’t being near as grateful as she ought to be.

It was clear his friend was secretly expecting some sort of royal treatment.

This user offers a tough message to his dramatic friend.

He knew he meant no harm by what he said, but her reaction made it hard not to overthink.

If good intentions aren’t enough for his friend, then maybe it’s just time to move on.

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