Need help in how to deal with a social situation from sons school

[Anonymous]

OP, you can request to have this thread removed. I think you can do it by clicking Report and sending a message to the site moderator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP. I think I know who you are.

Ok, so is she right? Has she been kind of ignored until now that her son is a "big man on campus"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think OP started the problem with these women, but I do think it is petty to continue to dwell on the slight from 4 years ago. They are the parents of her son's friends and her spouse wants to go. She's not agreeing to marry these people, she's agreeing to eat one meal with them. Go, give it a try, and if they aren't nice to you, don't get together with them again.

+I do think it's a good thing to do for your son, make an effort with his friends' parents and good for you to have a sense of them since presumably he spends time at their houses etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do people really have random valium just sitting around the house somewhere? Like, someone in your house has a prescription for valium for, what, your nerves?

I am still annoyed by the people in this thread who are basically gaslighting OP and telling her, e.g., the "prejudice started with you, not with them. If you expect to be rejected it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy." It's insulting. Whatever. No valium here, but I'll drink a little wine and mellow out.

I suggested take my a Valium. A glass of wine would work. The two are interchangeable in my mind. I drink wine (and nothing else) several times a year. I take a Valium two times a year or so for vertigo, so yes I have a script. The point is to breath and calm down. Will all this matter in 5 years? Probably not. Not trying to gaslight. OP needs to balance her emotions with rational reason. No ones gonna die here. This is common human behavior she's experiencing. She can either ignore it or play along. All the gnashing of teeth and angst is taking up too much space and energy in her life.

[Anonymous]

OP, going could really help your son. I got into an Ivy League college because the local interviewer was the law partner of the father of my best friend in high school. I happen to know that I would not have gotten in otherwise. In fact, my friend's mom called my mom to tell her that I'd gotten in before the acceptance letter arrived. I got my first job at a firm through connections and I got my next job by hob nobing with the CC set in the Hamptons. Connections matter.

[Anonymous]

Oh let's be real, shall we? None of these ladies is going to get OP's son into an ivy league school. What's at stake here is more like, can he date their daughters? Go on ski weekends with their sons? Should they be invited to the graduation BBQ? And could her son do all of these things without her going to this dinner? Yes. Because he is a great kid, yes.

I think PP had a good point that if you don't go they might gossip about you. And I think it could be liberating to go just to empty out some of the bad feelings about these people that remain after this time. But I don't think these ladies will ever be your real friends or have any special powers that should cause you to suck up to them. Be polite, but yourself. You owe them nothing but politeness.

[Anonymous]

Hi its OP here, amusing to read the different perspectives. I do need to clarify a few things-

The woman who rescheduled her luncheon WAS invited to my home and DID RSVP that she was coming. This was not a stop by for a quick cup of coffee as someone implied but I set up my dining room for 12 and ordered brunch type foods, put out my china, etc......

No one made the effort to reschedule in fact almost all except one cancelled via email! The 3 that came were not part of that circle to begin with and 2 of those women I am quite friendly with.

There have been other event/snubs much more recent but at least 5 or 6 incidences, I am not going to go into them because its very likely someone from the school is reading this post and I dont want to implicate (dramatic sounding) anyone more than I have.

But I do stand behind everything I have said. The more I have thought about this I have urged and supported my husband to go but I really am not interested in going.

Thankfully between my education and my husbands career we have a healthy number of connections at schools for my son down the road, which hopefully he will not need to rely on very heavily at least. I might be many thing but above all, I am an authentic person and simply put have no interest in playing this social climbing game or putting on false pretenses for the sake of having a connection in the right place down the road....no thank you. I think we will fare just fine. I appreciate all the input though (the rush to judgements not so much) but I understand and respect everyone is entitled to their respective.

[Anonymous]

The woman who rescheduled her luncheon WAS invited to my home and DID RSVP that she was coming. This was not a stop by for a quick cup of coffee as someone implied but I set up my dining room for 12 and ordered brunch type foods, put out my china, etc......

No one made the effort to reschedule in fact almost all except one cancelled via email! The 3 that came were not part of that circle to begin with and 2 of those women I am quite friendly with.

Oh man, I was right! Those ladies were SO RUDE to you. It's like that birthday luncheon lady was making a power move specifically to exclude you. I would feel such disbelief merging into anger. Like, oh NOW you want to be friends with me? Seriously?

Also I would just like to say to the PPs who were making up elaborate fairy tales defending this circle of ladies as misunderstood nice people who had vomiting kids at home and busy schedules: do you see how wrong you were? Sometimes rich people are mean and exclusionary. Sometimes life is like that. Get your blinders off and stop attacking the victim and telling her she should have kept trying or it's all in her head. You are part of the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The woman who rescheduled her luncheon WAS invited to my home and DID RSVP that she was coming. This was not a stop by for a quick cup of coffee as someone implied but I set up my dining room for 12 and ordered brunch type foods, put out my china, etc......

No one made the effort to reschedule in fact almost all except one cancelled via email! The 3 that came were not part of that circle to begin with and 2 of those women I am quite friendly with.

Oh man, I was right! Those ladies were SO RUDE to you. It's like that birthday luncheon lady was making a power move specifically to exclude you. I would feel such disbelief merging into anger. Like, oh NOW you want to be friends with me? Seriously?

Also I would just like to say to the PPs who were making up elaborate fairy tales defending this circle of ladies as misunderstood nice people who had vomiting kids at home and busy schedules: do you see how wrong you were? Sometimes rich people are mean and exclusionary. Sometimes life is like that. Get your blinders off and stop attacking the victim and telling her she should have kept trying or it's all in her head. You are part of the problem.

OP here while I agree to be fair I think some people in general are mean and exclusionary. That is fine, thank goodness I have a solid "inner circle" and realized I would do just fine without anyone who is not genuinely interested in me. My son is free to socialize with anyone he wold like like and I have always instilled in him to respect himself as well as others which is what he does.

Up to now my lack of connection with some of his friends parents has been just fine, so why change a good thing. Its working.

[Anonymous]

OP, did not have time to read through the posts, but my feeling is that you take these women MUCH too seriously, especially by your initial description. They are not as perfect as you think and you spend too much time thinking about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi its OP here, amusing to read the different perspectives. I do need to clarify a few things-

The woman who rescheduled her luncheon WAS invited to my home and DID RSVP that she was coming. This was not a stop by for a quick cup of coffee as someone implied but I set up my dining room for 12 and ordered brunch type foods, put out my china, etc......

No one made the effort to reschedule in fact almost all except one cancelled via email! The 3 that came were not part of that circle to begin with and 2 of those women I am quite friendly with.

There have been other event/snubs much more recent but at least 5 or 6 incidences, I am not going to go into them because its very likely someone from the school is reading this post and I dont want to implicate (dramatic sounding) anyone more than I have.

But I do stand behind everything I have said. The more I have thought about this I have urged and supported my husband to go but I really am not interested in going.

Thankfully between my education and my husbands career we have a healthy number of connections at schools for my son down the road, which hopefully he will not need to rely on very heavily at least. I might be many thing but above all, I am an authentic person and simply put have no interest in playing this social climbing game or putting on false pretenses for the sake of having a connection in the right place down the road....no thank you. I think we will fare just fine. I appreciate all the input though (the rush to judgements not so much) but I understand and respect everyone is entitled to their respective.

OP You might want to quit while you are ahead (unless the whole thing is fiction) Much too easy to figure out who you are.

[Anonymous]

OP You might want to quit while you are ahead (unless the whole thing is fiction)

At this juncture, I think that's the case.

[Anonymous]

I would like to hear back from the PPs who were so wrong in their elaborate defenses of the mean rich ladies. Do they admit they were wrong or is there some new alternate reality they would like to construct whereby the rich ladies are still the heroes of this story?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

OP You might want to quit while you are ahead (unless the whole thing is fiction)

At this juncture, I think that's the case.

Yeah definitely don't believe the OP brought out her fine china to an event she previously referred to as having people over for coffee. One step too far! And now this doesn't ring true at all.
But it did have all the trappings that gets this site going: rich women with blonde hair hair that are skinny and therefore bitchy, haves versus have nots, RSVPing, and popularity.
Good one!

[Anonymous]

OP sounds perfectly genuine to me. If you're having 12 private school moms (some of whom have previously been snooty to you) over to your house for brunch and coffee, were you planning to use mismatched coffee mugs and paper plates? The wedding china might be the only thing she's got a dozen of or that isn't all chipped up.

Why is it so hard for some people to accept that the blonde lululemon ladies with summer houses might be mean to an outsider? Somehow it's easier to believe the whole thread was a sham than to believe that? I grew up as the poor kid going to a private school, so my blinders that such people exist are long gone. Not everyone. But certainly there are mean little circles like this. It's not in OP's head. And congratulations and good job, OP, for not getting caught up in it all and raising a strong, smart kid!