Anonymous wrote:Is this a private school, by any chance, OP?
OP—No. Fringe rural LCPS.
Is it your belief that if those other 2 families in your neighborhood ever do anything , even an activity that perhaps neither organized but were invited to, that they must include you?
How many knots are you going to twist yourself into to be "right" that OP is "wrong" about this?
You are so married to the idea that it is NEVER okay for a woman to feel left out or excluded, that when a woman says she felt that way, you are going to tear it apart until she admits she's the one in the wrong.
Why do you think you are like this? Why is it so hard for you to just think "yeah, I can see how that might have been uncomfortable for you"?
You’re weirdly worked up about one person’s comment. Take a break from the thread if you’re taking it that personally.
Nope, not worked up, just baffled by the commitment to the idea that OP is unreasonable here. I've never been in OP's exact position but I get why it was awkward and weird and didn't immediately jump to the conclusion she is overreacting.
Well, you seem oddly invested in the idea that these women went out of their way to exclude OP because she, along with many other schools parents, wasn’t invited. OP never did say if she was planning to invite every one of these women to the event she is planning at the same winery.
I never said I thought that these women went out of their way to exclude OP. I think probably it was either an accident (a text chain about the gathering and the people who might have invited OP either forgot to include her or were added to the group late enough that they didn't invite anyone) or maybe this is how OP found out that she wasn't as close to these particular women (meaning the group from her neighborhood she is actually friends with) as she thought.
I just agree that the incident would be kind of awkward and believe OP that it felt awkward in the moment. And I don't think it's weird she felt that way, as I can imagine a similar situation where I would also feel awkward. That's all. I don't think it was some giant conspiracy to exclude OP, but she *was* excluded (whether simply by accident or maybe a bit more purposefully, but probably not maliciously) and it's reasonable that she would feel the sting of that when it happened.
I think the people who are calling OP crazy or delusional or acting like it's totally unreasonable to feel as she did are protesting a little too much. You can empathize with OP without casting the other women involved as vicious mean girls.
But the incident wasn’t awkward and there was no need for anyone to feel awkward. No one did anything wrong.
She could have handled it like bumping into someone at the grocery store because this is essentially what this is. She happened to see a couple friends out doing something that didn’t concern her. A smile and wave is a normal response. Why be weird about it?
No, you are the one projecting facts onto this. OP said it was awkward, but you asserts it was not. She was there, you were not. She describes it as being normal at first when it was 4 or 5 women, but then a bunch more arrived and it became awkward. This makes sense to me, that as more women arrived it became increasingly weird that they were all getting together and OP didn't know anything about it. That is what OP describes and thus that is what I assume happened. Why are you so convinced her perception of this incident is incorrect? You weren't there so her word is all we have.
I'm not inventing any facts and just going on what OP is saying, I can empathize. You are imposing your own baggage onto it because you are determined to prove that OP misinterpreted a situation about which you only have OP's description. Why? You're tilting at windmills here and I don't get it.
NP. But…why would it be awkward for *people she’s not friends with* to get together without her? She doesn’t even know like 80% of the women there.
This. It is objectively not awkward to be excluded from a group of people you barely know. Add in the fact she seems gleeful about sending a follow up snark text and the resulting bus stop drama sounds like textbook BPD. I don’t take OP as a very reliable narrator.
This comment makes no sense. She knew about a third of the group reasonably well. It doesn't sound like the others were strangers, either, because otherwise how would she recognize them? If it was just two friends and then a bunch of total strangers, I would assume my friends were hanging out with the ladies from their barre class. But OP knew it was a group of moms from the school, likely because she knew 5 of them and had met the other 10.
The whole "these weren't her friends, they were strangers" narrative is something being pushed on OP but it's not what she said at all.
Not PP, but she is only actual friends with 2 of the 15. It’s insane to me that if I saw 2 friends, 3 acquaintances, and 10 women I didn’t know at all out to lunch together, that that would count as me being singled out and excluded.
OP here—I live in a small subdivision maybe 15 houses. Most of the moms (except for one) are moms from my kids classes. There was one mom that was not, but I know her as well. We had coffee together a couple of times.
Why are you trickling out information like this? You never said the moms’ kids were in the same classes as your kids.
NP, but I'm guessing it's because when OP posted the thread, her explicit goal was to solicit experiences from other moms who had experienced being left out of "cliques" and the like (I agree with people who don't think this was a clique but I do know what it's like to feel left out of a mom group so whatever).
It's only because a bizarrely obsessive group of posters started viciously ripping OP to shreds, putting words in her mouth, and accusing her of being delusional and unreasonable, that she has offered some additional detail. I don't think OP meant to make this an moratorium on her experience (which no one on this thread knows the nuanced details of but her), it just became that because some posters are weirdly obsessed with it. I don't know why, as we will never actually know enough to know if OP was "right" in feeling excluded. It might not even be knowable because we'd have to know the intentions and decisions of all 15 women. We don't. We won't. Let it go.
I just reread the first few pages, and I’m not seeing anything vicious. Maybe a little snarky and rude, but that’s the norm here. On the other side, we have posters calling the 15 anonymous women “b-witches,” “alcoholics” and “drinkers” simply for having the gall to get together, but I guess you’re ok with that.
A few posts, yes, but I've read the entire thread and even though I don't totally agree with OP's take on this situation, and really think she shouldn't have sent that text, I've wound up on her side because I do think people have been vicious to her. People have repeatedly called her delusional, self-absorbed, self-obsessed, etc. I did see the comments you are talking about but they are one off comments -- the people attacking (yes, attacking) OP have been relentless for over 20 pages. It is very weird and actually pretty ironic given the subject of the thread. I don't know that the women at the winery were a "clique," but I do feel comfortable saying some of the posters on this thread are mean-a$$ b***es.
This is why people are going back and forth. ^ People like this PP can't handle a disagreement or see things differently and out come the personal attacks. People don't see this as a big deal and that OP didn't read the situation correctly. Even the mod said that. Apparently that's a huge problem for some posters.
He also said:
“The immediate reaction from those responding was not to share stories, but rather to attack the original poster.”
“It is almost as if the entire DCUM had turned into a mom's clique and was determined to ostracize the original poster. The attacks on the original poster reached the point that they generated their own backlash.”
“But the reaction of most of the posters, who appeared almost rabid in their eagerness to attack the original poster, was far more overdone.”
“It appears that like fight clubs, the first rule of mom cliques is to not talk about mom cliques.”
He should have come back after the toxic crowd called the people who didn't take OPs side every name in the book and even the requisite "I feel sorry for your husbands". Really, the pot calling the kettle black.
Yes, and my personal favorite these days: slinging around the term "gaslighting". Every poster who didn't fully validate OP's feelings and her clique label -- even if they provided a reasonable explanation why not -- was a gaslighter.
Way to generalize. And wrong to boot. Goodness so many of you are such pieces of work.
If people are friends and get together without you, is that automatically a clique? I’m just trying to think of how many other people at the elementary school weren’t invited when only 15 out of a whole school went together. Unless it’s only 16 families in the whole school and OP was the one mom not invited, there’s no way to see this as a clique or that OP was being excluded.
Anonymous wrote:I once organized an outing with a bunch of kindergarten moms. My friend and I invited around 10 moms from the school that we liked. We couldn’t/didn’t invite 100+ moms. We invited the 10 moms we liked and were friends with.
Now my youngest is in first grade. She is in Girl Scouts. I am friends with some of the moms and hang out. If a group of moms who happened to have girls in Girl Scouts were out together and another mom who had a girl in Girl Scouts saw us, it would not be awkward for me. I am not friends with the other mom.
What kindergarten class has 100 kids? Under 20 more like average. In that case you are being an adult mean girl, no question.
Anonymous wrote:I once organized an outing with a bunch of kindergarten moms. My friend and I invited around 10 moms from the school that we liked. We couldn’t/didn’t invite 100+ moms. We invited the 10 moms we liked and were friends with.
Now my youngest is in first grade. She is in Girl Scouts. I am friends with some of the moms and hang out. If a group of moms who happened to have girls in Girl Scouts were out together and another mom who had a girl in Girl Scouts saw us, it would not be awkward for me. I am not friends with the other mom.
What kindergarten class has 100 kids? Under 20 more like average. In that case you are being an adult mean girl, no question.
My kids’ school has 4 k classes so something like 70-80 kindergarteners total. I assume pp was talking k moms, not just those from her kids’ classroom.
Anonymous wrote:I once organized an outing with a bunch of kindergarten moms. My friend and I invited around 10 moms from the school that we liked. We couldn’t/didn’t invite 100+ moms. We invited the 10 moms we liked and were friends with.
Now my youngest is in first grade. She is in Girl Scouts. I am friends with some of the moms and hang out. If a group of moms who happened to have girls in Girl Scouts were out together and another mom who had a girl in Girl Scouts saw us, it would not be awkward for me. I am not friends with the other mom.
What kindergarten class has 100 kids? Under 20 more like average. In that case you are being an adult mean girl, no question.
Now you know damn well there’s 3-5 classrooms per grade level at elementary schools. So yes, 20 kids per K class could easily be 60-100 total Kindergarten moms depending on the size of the school.
Anonymous wrote:OP was sharing her experience and how it made her feel. She wasn’t asking for your analysis of the situation but looking to see if others have had similar experiences. Some of you are so self absorbed and didn’t even read, understand, or care to, what the poster was looking to discuss. So why engage? To show anonymously your viscous selves and then smile to women you don’t like tomorrow at school pick up?
Get over it. OP never said her feelings were hurt, or she felt sad or left out. She expressed faux shock that a group could possibly be doing anything on a Friday without her and she's laughing about it. And know, we are not viscous. You might be, that's a weird way to describe people.
Project much?
Projection and hatred are real. I also suspect there are two or three people posting a ton of these comments. The phrasing and logic are so poor, that it is unlikely this is representative of a large group of people. I recommend these folks get themselves some real therapy to talk through unresolved high school drama and enter adult life with more self respect.
Anonymous wrote:Regardless of what the full details of the scenario actually were, it boils down to this:
If your first reaction was judgment rather than empathy, or at least sympathy, you are a part of the "Mean Girl" stereotype.
Sympathy for what? OP didn’t post about it making her sad, she explicitly posted to make fun of them and get others to pile on making fun of other women and the mom clique stereotype (which she gave zero information in her post that would make this a mom clique, other than it was a group of mothers).
Anonymous wrote:Regardless of what the full details of the scenario actually were, it boils down to this:
If your first reaction was judgment rather than empathy, or at least sympathy, you are a part of the "Mean Girl" stereotype.
I understand that some PPs were rude in their delivery, but why wouldn't it make OP feel BETTER, not worse, to know that the majority of those hearing about this encounter, including Jeff, do NOT think these women were a clique, mean, or exclusionary?
Anonymous wrote:OP was sharing her experience and how it made her feel. She wasn’t asking for your analysis of the situation but looking to see if others have had similar experiences. Some of you are so self absorbed and didn’t even read, understand, or care to, what the poster was looking to discuss. So why engage? To show anonymously your viscous selves and then smile to women you don’t like tomorrow at school pick up?
Get over it. OP never said her feelings were hurt, or she felt sad or left out. She expressed faux shock that a group could possibly be doing anything on a Friday without her and she's laughing about it. And know, we are not viscous. You might be, that's a weird way to describe people.
Project much?
Projection and hatred are real. I also suspect there are two or three people posting a ton of these comments. The phrasing and logic are so poor, that it is unlikely this is representative of a large group of people. I recommend these folks get themselves some real therapy to talk through unresolved high school drama and enter adult life with more self respect.
What's nice about "come on ladies let's make fun of other women"? Sorry you wanted to mock women for no good reason instead of point out to OP that maybe she misunderstood the situation.
Anonymous wrote:OP was sharing her experience and how it made her feel. She wasn’t asking for your analysis of the situation but looking to see if others have had similar experiences. Some of you are so self absorbed and didn’t even read, understand, or care to, what the poster was looking to discuss. So why engage? To show anonymously your viscous selves and then smile to women you don’t like tomorrow at school pick up?
Get over it. OP never said her feelings were hurt, or she felt sad or left out. She expressed faux shock that a group could possibly be doing anything on a Friday without her and she's laughing about it. And know, we are not viscous. You might be, that's a weird way to describe people.
Project much?
Projection and hatred are real. I also suspect there are two or three people posting a ton of these comments. The phrasing and logic are so poor, that it is unlikely this is representative of a large group of people. I recommend these folks get themselves some real therapy to talk through unresolved high school drama and enter adult life with more self respect.
Anonymous wrote:Regardless of what the full details of the scenario actually were, it boils down to this:
If your first reaction was judgment rather than empathy, or at least sympathy, you are a part of the "Mean Girl" stereotype.
Sympathy for what? OP didn’t post about it making her sad, she explicitly posted to make fun of them and get others to pile on making fun of other women and the mom clique stereotype (which she gave zero information in her post that would make this a mom clique, other than it was a group of mothers).
I didn’t read it that way at all. She was trying to inject some humor into the situation. I suspect if she had used some paragraph breaks, or said share with me one of your awkward Mom situation stories to make me feel better… it might’ve read differently also
Anonymous wrote:Regardless of what the full details of the scenario actually were, it boils down to this:
If your first reaction was judgment rather than empathy, or at least sympathy, you are a part of the "Mean Girl" stereotype.
I understand that some PPs were rude in their delivery, but why wouldn't it make OP feel BETTER, not worse, to know that the majority of those hearing about this encounter, including Jeff, do NOT think these women were a clique, mean, or exclusionary?
But a few were really rabid about it, created massive analyses about OP’s character and experience.
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