When a friend's friend has died

Backstory, this is the last post I made:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7352905

I did as people suggested, backed off a bit, and he seemed to increase his interest in me. Of course I still mean platonically, but he was just generally being nicer in his messages and he said he really wanted to meet up with me as we haven't met up in a while.

So we arranged to meet up on Monday, we made a dinner reservation, and it's one of these places where they take your card details and charge you if you don't show up. I made the reservation. He was even messaging me regularly saying he was excited about seeing me.

Then on Wednesday this week he messaged me saying he has to accompany a family member for a hospital appointment on Monday afternoon, so he has to cancel our meet up. I was a bit sceptical but then he sent me a photo he'd taken of his relative's appointment letter (redacted, just to show the appointment date) and seemed really apologetic and asked if we could reschedule.

We rescheduled to Thursday next week, I changed the diner reservation, and again he seemed excited about it.

But then two days ago he messaged me to tell me one of his other friends suddenly died. It's absolutely true, and I feel awful for him,but since then he's been very distant to me and not talking much, and definitely not mentioning our meet up.

I understand completely, of course he must be devastated and he's grieving, he needs time and patience. I definitely don't expect him to be thinking about me or our meet up. The problem is I don't know what to do about the dinner reservation. I feel as though asking him if we're still meeting up on Thursday is very presumptuous and he might feel as though it's really obvious that he's not going to be coming. On the other hand though he hasn't said he's not. I just doubt he'd be in the mood to socialise given the circumstances, but I don't want to bring it up. I can't afford to lose the money on the dinner reservation though so I need to know one way or the other, but how do I ask him without making it seem like I'm making this all about me?

Reply 1

unknownforever

9

The thing is he will be grieving more likely and when you're going through that process you forget about other stuff and everything else seems to go out the window. So the chances are, his forgotten about the dinner or not even sure himself what to do.

Same time you need to know. Beet thibg would be ask him so you're not making assumptions. You could ask him how he is, reflect empathise his going though a difficult time and ask then . Maybe something like " how r u? i know you prob havent given this thought but with our meeting up that we'd originally planned, would you like me to cancel it for now, as i understand your going through a difficult time.

Reply 2

Anonymous #1

OP

Original post by unknownforever

The thing is he will be grieving more likely and when you're going through that process you forget about other stuff and everything else seems to go out the window. So the chances are, his forgotten about the dinner or not even sure himself what to do.

Same time you need to know. Beet thibg would be ask him so you're not making assumptions. You could ask him how he is, reflect empathise his going though a difficult time and ask then . Maybe something like " how r u? i know you prob havent given this thought but with our meeting up that we'd originally planned, would you like me to cancel it for now, as i understand your going through a difficult time.

Thanks for the advice. Turns out he still wants to meet up, but he says he's counting on me to take his mind off things. I hope I can live up to his expectations there, I'll have to just keep talking and talking.

When a friend's friend has died

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