Me (25M) and my friend (25M) of roughly 22 years went to visit our other friend over the summer. We had a connecting flight in a major airport that was cancelled. As soon as the flight was cancelled, I gave my parents a call in order to help me find another flight home. I had work scheduled the next day that started at 7 am, and it was about 7 pm at this point with a ~2 hr flight ahead of me. My friend was aware of this.

I spent about 10 minutes on the phone with my dad as he searched other airlines for available flights. My friend was walking the terminal with me and did not make any calls to his folks. Multiple flights had been cancelled due to air traffic control issues at our destination. My dad was able to find two tickets on a flight that left around 10 pm, but one of them was in first class and costed about $700. I asked my friend if he wanted to split the cost of the 2 tickets ($500 per person), and he said no, so I asked my dad to book the economy class ticket for me. I parted ways with my friend to get to my gate (a ways away because it is a large airport), and told him if he needed any help finding a flight to give me a call.

My friend eventually did find a flight (he actually wound up getting home before me) and we texted during the night. I got home at about 1 am and made it to work the next day. I could have taken a sick day or called out, but I had been in this job for about 3 months and figured doing this after a vacation would be a bad idea. A few days later, my mom got a text from my friend’s mom, who has had a friendship (albeit drifting) with her for the past 20 years. She told my mom that her son had felt abandoned in the airport, and because of this, she did not want to be friends with her any longer. I tried to think of anything I could have done over the years to contribute to this, but I could not.

I texted my friend the next day to re-explain my reasoning behind getting the first flight I could (work the next day) and apologized for anything that I did to make him feel uncomfortable or abandoned. As a fairly seasoned traveler (solo road trips, cross-country flights on a plane alone), and a generally more independent person than my friend, it didn’t really occur to me that I was “abandoning” him, and I told him this, in more gentle words. He accepted my apology and told me there were no hard feelings, but since July, I have felt tension. He is a good friend of over 20 years, and I am seeking to understand if I really did something wrong, or if this is more so a clash of personalities. I’ve received assurance from my parents, brother, and another friend, but am looking for something more unbiased.

EDIT - when I texted him, he confirmed that he did feel abandoned when I left, but said no hard feelings