The not knowing

Rach91 said:

Does anyone else get anxious when they don’t know what’s what? 

I used to be like this a lot and to a degree I still find the instinct kicking in from time to time when I'm working on something that has a significant predictibility challenge.

I learned to practice mindfulness as it is tremendously effective in situations like this.

My approach would be to stop focussing on what I am doing / need to do and think outside myself for a bit - realise your friend is in a difficult situation which is probably stressful for them (and probably going to be very expensive) and consider if in the context of things if my worry about the meal is actually important at all.

I would continue with the meal prep up to the cooking stage and wait until I heard back from them. Make a few "what if" plans on whether they will be coming or not and see if one soultion could work for all - eg cooking a stew type dish instead and reheating it or freezing for later use.

Personally by looking at the big picture it really helps me realise the anxiety is normally a bit of a selfish approach from me (not always though) and thinking of the other person gives me the options to work with to keep myself occupied while I wait for a response.

With practice this can be scaled up to deal with much more challenging situations (I now can run big property renovations projects which have a lot of unpredictability in the early demolition stages where you discover what is actually behind the walls / floors etc) and where you have to deal with other people lots.

It isn't simple to do it but the results are worth it in my opinion.

I’m glad it’s not just me and I’ve spoken to my friend. They fixed part of the issue but sadly he had to take his car to the garage to fix the main issue garage isn’t open on weekends so tomorrow has been postponed until next week but I’ll be seeing him in the week as well as I go over his house in the week for a few hours and he comes over mine on Sundays it’s our routine and it works really well. This Sunday he hasn’t got his car and I don’t drive and Sunday bus services forget about it absolute nightmare. 

Maybe a good solution (I think already mentioned here) is having a plan B. 
in my case I was always anxious about not having enough topics to talk about with the person I was going to see, or not having any topic at all. I felt like I had to plan in my head what we would talk about, how I should start the conversation etc. I hardly ever plan anything, usually it’s someone planning things like holidays for example. Since long time I didn’t meet anyone outside my family, so I almost forgot the anxiety and planning the conversation in my head. 
for me transition is always an issue- if I’m with someone (sisters for example) and they plan doing something, then they wanna go somewhere, it’s always very unpleasant when I have to leave the car, ho into someone’s house etc and especially if I don’t know how long we would stay there. 

Yes, I believe it's a strong autistic trait and I hate it too - you're not alone.

Why don't you plan to still make the broth, then freeze it if it's not used?

I hope your day goes well.tomorrow.

In a word - yes.

I don't think it's fare to say things like "control freak" but the ability to be able to control my future is important, the sense that anything could happen is really discomforting.

Do you think you could make an executive decision about tomorrow (if you've not heard yet), and just say - he IS coming, and prepare then for the day as if he is. Should someone else happen later on which changes  that, then make a decision should that happen?