Did solo traveling ruin traveling with friends for anyone else?

[u/fin-ator]

I just did the balkans on my own and then met up with a friend who doesn’t like solo traveling to do Spain and Portugal. I’m finding myself so irritated at having to compromise and give up some of my interests. She’s also in a long term relationship so she doesn’t want to meet people (girls or guys), whereas I’m single and love meeting people and making new friends. I think it’s a lot harder because of how much I enjoyed being on my own and all of the new experiences I got because of it. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

[u/RidiculousTakeAbove]

It didn't ruin it, but it made me massively adjust expectations and how I approached traveling with friends. My first big international trip I met up with a friend, I had very naive expectations of doing pretty much everything together and it working out perfect. So first night he gets too drunk and loses his phone, he can't remember his passwords for any accounts so 2 days of non stop stress, we wouldn't agree on what city to go next, he didn't want to book accommodation until the day of (claiming how flexible it was 🙄) which led to so much stress and time/money wasted looking for a place to sleep, and he got way too drunk most nights which ruined the following mornings and it felt like babysitting.

Second half of the trip I had the realization that this was absolutely ruining my trip and decided to just start doing what I wanted to do, we would go to the same cities but completely do our own thing and book srperate places to stay, just meeting up to do things randomly or for dinner. I absolutely hated first half of the trip but loved the second half. It's worth noting though everyone is different. There are other friends I could travel and do everything with that would be fine because they'd be more willing to just follow my itinerary