Friends being cagey about plans. How would you react?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the responses. I am considering reaching out to the birthday person to ask why I wasn't invited because I just want to get to the bottom of it. It feels really hurtful and I want to know what I did. I will let you know how it goes. I know this may seem bold, but I feel like I need to be direct (yet polite).

Oh noooo don't do this. How awkward. Just back away slowly. You know where you stand with this person. What else is there to say about it?

+1 Don’t do it, OP. Let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the responses. I am considering reaching out to the birthday person to ask why I wasn't invited because I just want to get to the bottom of it. It feels really hurtful and I want to know what I did. I will let you know how it goes. I know this may seem bold, but I feel like I need to be direct (yet polite).

Do not do this.

No OP. You already said you were close to her so let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the responses. I am considering reaching out to the birthday person to ask why I wasn't invited because I just want to get to the bottom of it. It feels really hurtful and I want to know what I did. I will let you know how it goes. I know this may seem bold, but I feel like I need to be direct (yet polite).

Oh noooo don't do this. How awkward. Just back away slowly. You know where you stand with this person. What else is there to say about it?

I agree 100%! Op, get a therapist and talk it out for a few sessions. You'll feel better. Her bday was not about excluding you. It's ok to hurt about it but don't lash out. The outcome will not be some magical growing closer to this lady you said you were not as close to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're in a group, but as you say, you're not especially close. On her birthday, she chose to celebrate not only with this group, but with other friends with whom she is close. And who knows, maybe she could only reserve a table for 12 outdoors at this restaurant, or some other body-count restriciton.

You aren't close. You said it yourself.

Move on with your day.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the responses. I am considering reaching out to the birthday person to ask why I wasn't invited because I just want to get to the bottom of it. It feels really hurtful and I want to know what I did. I will let you know how it goes. I know this may seem bold, but I feel like I need to be direct (yet polite).

Oh noooo don't do this. How awkward. Just back away slowly. You know where you stand with this person. What else is there to say about it?

I agree 100%! Op, get a therapist and talk it out for a few sessions. You'll feel better. Her bday was not about excluding you. It's ok to hurt about it but don't lash out. The outcome will not be some magical growing closer to this lady you said you were not as close to.

+1
Don't ask her to explain why she didn't invite you. You say you're not especially close; you want to make her say, "I didn't invite you because I just don't consider you a close friend"? So that every interaction with her afterwards is super awkward?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in a social group with four other couples. The men hang out regularly, as do the women, and sometimes in a group. However, there's one woman out of the group with whom I'm not especially close, but we get along well when we see each other in these larger settings.

Last weekend, I asked these friends to hang out and everyone was busy but didn't say doing what.

Then my husband saw the guy "group" last night, and men being men and having no clue about social stuff, were open about the fun their wives had at this woman's birthday party. I guess she had a dinner at an outdoor restaurant and invited every woman in the group except me (and a few other women outside this group came too).

I am really pretty hurt. I'm inclusive and friendly. Would it have killed her to invite me? It just feels like a weird slight, especially as I include her in every group thing, and we all hang out as couples as well.

What would you think and how would you feel? I cannot tell if I'm being babyish or if I'm right to feel miffed.

If she invited people outside the group as well, then I think she was basing her invitations on people with whom she is close (which you acknowledge does not include you), as opposed to thinking that she is inviting this friend group and excluding you.

I don't think your other friends were being cagey, which suggests some sort of underhandedness; they were being polite not to mention something to which you were not invited.

I think you should feel slighted if she invites everyone in the group except you, but no one else. That is a purposeful exclusion of you. This doesn't seem like it to me.

+1

I see this less as she’s trying to exclude you and be mean and more as a sign that she feels closer to other people than she does to you. That said, maybe I’m immature but going forward, I wouldn’t include her in group plans if I were the one hosting or inviting. She’s shown you she’s not that into you, so why initiate spending any more time with her? You can be polite if others invite the larger group.

I think so too. I do wonder why the ones in the group who are your close friends were cagey with you rather than just be factual. Obviously they know that you and birthday girls aren't close. I actually think openness is less likely to cause hurt feelings.

Because they didn't want to hurt your feelings? Because some of us were raised that you don't talk about a party with someone who wasn't invited to the party? It's not like there was a crime and a big coverup. You weren't invited, so they didn't tell you about the party in advance. Would OP really have felt less hurt if she hadn't been invited and all her friends told her about the party? I doubt it.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know yet I would ask her directly why she didn’t invite you, but I think the best practice is to be direct with people. I teach my kids to be this way. If you feel you are in the group, it is not harmful to say ‘ I heard you had a birthday, would have loved to join in the celebration. Is there something ive done to offend you?’ And you clear the air.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in a social group with four other couples. The men hang out regularly, as do the women, and sometimes in a group. However, there's one woman out of the group with whom I'm not especially close, but we get along well when we see each other in these larger settings.

Last weekend, I asked these friends to hang out and everyone was busy but didn't say doing what.

Then my husband saw the guy "group" last night, and men being men and having no clue about social stuff, were open about the fun their wives had at this woman's birthday party. I guess she had a dinner at an outdoor restaurant and invited every woman in the group except me (and a few other women outside this group came too).

I am really pretty hurt. I'm inclusive and friendly. Would it have killed her to invite me? It just feels like a weird slight, especially as I include her in every group thing, and we all hang out as couples as well.

What would you think and how would you feel? I cannot tell if I'm being babyish or if I'm right to feel miffed.

I think the issue here is thinking of yourselves as a fixed group where every event is a package deal. Maybe the other woman doesn't it see it that way. She might have seen it as having friends that she sees in different settings and when it came to her birthday she wanted to invite her close friends from all different settings. I've had this happen where I'm in a "group" where there are people that think that everyone needs to be a part of every gathering and they get annoyed if two families get together instead of all four families. Or if two couples hang out with a different couple outside of the group. But in my case there were two couples that were friendly but not really good friends so it didn't always make sense to force everyone together for the sake of making sure the whole group is together. I would move away with only hanging out as a group and either start mixing others in at the events where you host or doing one-off things with individuals to build a stronger relationship.

This is the most reasonable response here.

+1

Frankly, it's weird to have such fixed rules about friendships. It's not like you're all in the same second-grade class. You're friends with these people -- you seem to think of it as a package deal, but maybe other people don't. They sometimes want to spend time with the people they are actually closer to without the bigger group. And that's okay! It's okay to have closer friendships with some people than others. And this woman apparently invited the people, both in and out of this group, with whom she felt close. OP wasn't under some illusion that they were close friends; she knew they weren't.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, it’s the coverup that implies something weird is afoot. Because if it weren’t weird, no one would have been cagey, they would have said ‘oh headed to Susies birthday let’s gtg next week’ The cagey friends are complicit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s trying to edge you out of the group. Proceed with caution.

How old are you? I assume most adults in their 30s or older don't have time for this kind of crap. A woman is allowed to invite your friends to a birthday party without inviting you. You can continue being friends with all your friends - and even her, if you want. It doesn't matter.

DP. I disagree with the PP who says you should assume this woman is trying to edge OP out of the group. I think that's a huge leap and making it will only make a somewhat awkward situation much worse. I agree with the many PPs who have said that it sounds like she just wanted to celebrate her birthday with close friends, which OP is not by her own admission.

But.

I'm in my 40s and want to state that I find this sort of behavior (trying to "edge" someone out of a group) more common among women in their 30s and 40s than it is with younger women. It has to do with the challenges people have in making friends as they age, and the way society sets women up for competition. My observation is that these dynamics emerge especially in your 30s as women struggle with maintaining a social life during significant life changes. I can't imagine one of my friends trying to exclude someone back in our 20s -- relationships were more easy and casual back then. People had lots of free time and it was easier to find things in common. Everyone was just figuring it out. I also found that people tended to sex segregate less back then, which I think helps avoid these dynamics.

Which is why I always find it funny when the response to these threads is always "oh my god, immature." When I was 24, something like this might have annoyed me but only because I would have been bummed to miss a fun night with my friends. I probably wouldn't have cared that this woman maybe doesn't like me AT ALL. I was confident in that oblivious way that young people often are (socially, I was insecure at work -- this reversed in my 30s) and had plenty of friends and while there was drama, no one even took the drama that seriously because no one took anything that seriously.

In your 30s, stuff like this becomes a problem. If your friend group stops inviting you out because one person has decided they don't like you and starts excluding, it's much more isolating and scary than it would have been when you were younger. You have less flexibility and opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. Plus, as in OP's case, you might be entangled with people in other ways (like her DH being friends with all their DHs, or your kids all going to school together) that can really up the awkwardness factor. I have seen stuff like this happen more than once to various people over the last decade or so, and it can be intense and sad, with lots of upsetting recriminations and hurt feelings. Check out that "Bad Art Friend" story if you doubt me -- everyone in that story is in their late 30s/early 40s. Lots of bad behavior, but sadly not unheard of for the age group.

These days I have learned to be thoughtful about group dynamics. I choose to be extra generous with my friends (erring on the side of being inclusive and being kind, always) and also giving people the benefit of the doubt when they seem to be excluding me. I have learned to keep my own company and worry less about whether others like me. I can be hurt by stuff like this but not let it impact my relationships. But it's easier now than it was when I was 31 or 32, much more insecure, much more reliant on my friendships for my identity and my sense of belonging in the world.

It is about maturity, but the idea that people make this leap in maturity in their 20s is wrong. Many people, like me, make it in their 30s. And it's common to have go through something painful to get there (I did). I also think some lucky people gain this knowledge as children, but that requires a certain kind of upbringing and parenting that many people from my generation did not receive. Many Gen X and older Millenials got to adulthood with a very damaged sense of self, and that feeds a lot of the needy, jealous, and competitive behavior you see in many of these threads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're in a group, but as you say, you're not especially close. On her birthday, she chose to celebrate not only with this group, but with other friends with whom she is close. And who knows, maybe she could only reserve a table for 12 outdoors at this restaurant, or some other body-count restriciton.

You aren't close. You said it yourself.

Move on with your day.

I agree with this. And have a similar friend group dynamic, OP. You keep calling these defined “groups” but this woman doesn’t feel that the “women group” is her inner circle, if that makes sense.

+1

OP thinks this is a fixed group; not everyone may feel that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, it’s the coverup that implies something weird is afoot. Because if it weren’t weird, no one would have been cagey, they would have said ‘oh headed to Susies birthday let’s gtg next week’ The cagey friends are complicit.

Complicit in what? I would not tell someone that I was going to a mutual acquaintance's birthday party if that person wasn't invited. I was raised that it was bad manners to do so.

[Anonymous]

+1

Frankly, it's weird to have such fixed rules about friendships. It's not like you're all in the same second-grade class. You're friends with these people -- you seem to think of it as a package deal, but maybe other people don't. They sometimes want to spend time with the people they are actually closer to without the bigger group. And that's okay! It's okay to have closer friendships with some people than others.

Exactly. This "group" or "package deal" is a very strange cliquey concept. It sounds like OP has a deep fear of being excluded.

The people responding that others are cagey are looking at it exactly wrong. They were raised like others mentioned to not talk about things to which others are not invited. THAT is rude. Not "being direct" and talking about an event to which someone else did not attend or was not invited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're way overthinking this OP.

This. I can’t get over all the people who would be upset about this. OP, you said yourself you aren’t close to her. Who cares if she doesn’t invite you to her birthday party?! Don’t blow up a nice group over something so silly.

The birthday girl blew up the friend group by not inviting OP. Put the blame where it should be.

Bullshit. OP admits that she isn't close to the birthday girl. Why should she be invited to her birthday party? Does an informal group of friends mean that if one person is invited that everyone has to be to everything for all time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, it’s the coverup that implies something weird is afoot. Because if it weren’t weird, no one would have been cagey, they would have said ‘oh headed to Susies birthday let’s gtg next week’ The cagey friends are complicit.

Or the friends knew that OP would of course over react, so they didn't want to mention it. It is rude to talk about social events in front of people who aren't invited in my book.