Always fun to see a group of your friends

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mean girls in my neighborhood did this. The Queen Bee kicked me out and I later saw social media posts and tagging for weekend parties to which I was no longer invited.

I unfollowed them all to avoid seeing the posts and set about nurturing friendships with non-aholes.

Queen Bee kicked out a few other people after me and even shut off access to her children to those people’s kids! Their kids had been friends and now the left out kids wondered why they could not see their friends at these gatherings.

I felt miserable yet did feel a bit better when I learned I was not the only one kicked out.

I basically cut out every woman “close” to her to save myself the mental anguish.

Queen Bee moved away. Another woman moved away.

The problem took care of itself.

Play the long game. You will win.

+1. Something similar happened to me. Unfortunately, the queen bee hasn’t moved away, but I made new friends who no longer treat me poorly. I also cut off those closest to her. I didn’t need to hear them say what a wonderful person she was after I’d watched her exclude my children from being able to hang out with their friends because she had a problem with me.

[Anonymous]

This happened to me several times over the course of several years in my early/mid 30s and it was really hard. Not with one group, with several. I was just kind of on the fringes of multiple groups and not really a core part of any of them and it was a really isolating time. The kind of situation where I'd be invited to the wedding but not the bachelorette, or I'd get invited to someone's birthday party or Halloween party but not to a girl's night or even just a random night of drinks or dinner out.

And yes, I invited people out. I hosted parties and reached out to people to go out in smaller groups. And people would come and I think have fun. But it never got reciprocated in the same way and I stayed on the edge of everything.

Eventually I moved on. I now do have a group of friends, but it's not a girl group. My DH and I have a small group of friends that includes another married couple and then two single people (one woman and one man) we've known a long time. During Covid, that became our core emotional support system and we had regular video calls with them and really cemented that bond.

I am much happier with this group than I think I ever would have been in any of those groups of women I used to be on the fringes of. I think it suits me better. I like the dynamic with men involved, and with a mix of people who are married and who aren't. Sometimes I just get together with the other two women. Sometimes my DH and I just go hang out with the single guy friend. Sometimes the two married couples get together. And so on. I don't know why it works for me and those groups of girlfriends didn't. But I guess everyone eventually finds their people.

[Anonymous]

Living in a new state (I haven’t lived in DC anyway since 3 moved ago!), I’m so much happier.

This stuff was happening a lot. There was a group. You could tell they’d be like, “who’s going to come to X tomorrow night? Michelle, Sarah, Susan, Britt.” And the same people all the time, and my name would have never come up that way.

If I was ever included it was larger, larger events. Like “invite the whole neighborhood” events, or we all see each other at the soccer end of season party. Or, I’d see people individually.

It made me take a huge self esteem hit, temporarily. I say temporarily, because it made me stronger to stop caring. I only think about it now as a lesson learned / an experience. I see them as awful people, and not the kind of people I’d want to hang with anyway.

But I didn’t get invited to the exclusive stuff ever. And not even once. A woman and I moved in at the same time. The one woman became queen bee’s best friend forever right away. They were so close. Me, and my family, were never invited one time to get together. Not even get to know you.

One time, after getting to know queen bee a little, it was her bday. I texted, can I drop off a little something. I didn’t intend to stay. She invited me in, so I was like, “cool we’ll get to know each other even more.” Then the best friend also-new woman came over. “Hey i brought you your favorite drink order. Happy bday. I know you so well!” Then they started to talk to just each other!! I excused myself, but again, I didn’t even want to be there long. Why would they do that to me? Truly bad people.

The whole thing has changed. People have all moved again. But I still see her sm posts showing her with a new tight group. So I know she’s still doing it.

[Anonymous]

Op, these people aren’t your friends. Focus on finding your people. And turn off social media.

[Anonymous]

Op, I was the long poster 2-ish posts up.

Re-reading your OP, I do feel your pain. I’ve been right there.

Everybody who feels this way, just remember—keep trying! Don’t give up! If people don’t welcome you with open arms, sometimes they also feel socially awkward. If you’re new, time usually makes it better. A year in, and you keep being bold and keep on trying, thing will be different.

[Anonymous]

Yep.
My friends were in their girls trip and wondering what constellation they were looking at. So they called my husband for his expertise. I was sitting next to him.

[Anonymous]

OP, pretend you didn't see it. Now, time to work on yourself ~ sit and give serious thought to who, in the group, you prefer. With whom would you like to develop a deeper one-on-one relationship? Work on that.

Don't make, as your goal, to be part of the group, that group, any group. If a group develops naturally, over time, fine.

[Anonymous]

OP give us more details

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mean girls in my neighborhood did this. The Queen Bee kicked me out and I later saw social media posts and tagging for weekend parties to which I was no longer invited.

I unfollowed them all to avoid seeing the posts and set about nurturing friendships with non-aholes.

Queen Bee kicked out a few other people after me and even shut off access to her children to those people’s kids! Their kids had been friends and now the left out kids wondered why they could not see their friends at these gatherings.

I felt miserable yet did feel a bit better when I learned I was not the only one kicked out.

I basically cut out every woman “close” to her to save myself the mental anguish.

Queen Bee moved away. Another woman moved away.

The problem took care of itself.

Play the long game. You will win.

Glad you got out but WTF with the middle school level drama? How does any set of adult friends even have a "queen bee" who has the magical authority to "kick out" anyone from anything worthwhile? Why do the children have to be friends with the children of the queen and the others in the Very Special In-Group? Don't women and their kids have more than one source of friendships? It's all such immature bulls**t. I'm in the DC suburbs and we never had these social cliques, queen bees, kids used as little pawns, etc. that I read about in this post and in others on DCUM.

OP, if your so-called friends don't invite you to something, either use your words like an adult and say, "I saw you on social media and am frankly disappointed I wasn't invited," get new friends, or get off social media.

[Anonymous]

If this was "a" group of your friends, well, don't you have other friends? Do things with other friends. This nonsense about groups of women feeling they should be doing everything with a certain social group and feeling wounded if not invited every time, is just that -- nonsense. Hurts, sure, but now you know you're not as inside this group as you thought you were. So what, if you have other friends?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mean girls in my neighborhood did this. The Queen Bee kicked me out and I later saw social media posts and tagging for weekend parties to which I was no longer invited.

I unfollowed them all to avoid seeing the posts and set about nurturing friendships with non-aholes.

Queen Bee kicked out a few other people after me and even shut off access to her children to those people’s kids! Their kids had been friends and now the left out kids wondered why they could not see their friends at these gatherings.

I felt miserable yet did feel a bit better when I learned I was not the only one kicked out.

I basically cut out every woman “close” to her to save myself the mental anguish.

Queen Bee moved away. Another woman moved away.

The problem took care of itself.

Play the long game. You will win.

Glad you got out but WTF with the middle school level drama? How does any set of adult friends even have a "queen bee" who has the magical authority to "kick out" anyone from anything worthwhile? Why do the children have to be friends with the children of the queen and the others in the Very Special In-Group? Don't women and their kids have more than one source of friendships? It's all such immature bulls**t. I'm in the DC suburbs and we never had these social cliques, queen bees, kids used as little pawns, etc. that I read about in this post and in others on DCUM.

OP, if your so-called friends don't invite you to something, either use your words like an adult and say, "I saw you on social media and am frankly disappointed I wasn't invited," get new friends, or get off social media.

I’m in agreement with this, and I’ve posted my experience here tonight. So I’m on the same page as you.

When you write about “I saw you.. and frankly disappointed.”

That’s where it gets tricky.

Everyone can hang out with whoever they want. So I’d be left out, and sitting there like, well, we’re all free to choose our invites. I surely wouldn’t want someone mad at me for limiting my dinner party to 5. Sorry, gotta choose somewhere.

But, there’s more behavior that makes it questionable, and you can’t call them out directly.
-such as the lady above who said they called her husband
-never trying out a new friendship with a newbie
-seeing another newbie and inviting them right in as though they’re sisters—and still--never inviting another new person
-tagging private parties on social media (JUST TEXT each other your pictures. Which was the method you used to privately invite each other)
-playing other crazy games

[Anonymous]

I would call them out on social media. Why stay silent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yep.
My friends were in their girls trip and wondering what constellation they were looking at. So they called my husband for his expertise. I was sitting next to him.

. I am SO sorry that happened to you. Thoughtless bitches.

[Anonymous]

Wow I'm 35 and going through this right now. I feel like I'm friends with a lot of women but they're all very close to each other and I'm not. Part of is that a lot of them are one and done and I have three, and I work and they don't. I think they assume I'm busy and don't invite me to stuff. I'm trying to invest in new friendships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yep.
My friends were in their girls trip and wondering what constellation they were looking at. So they called my husband for his expertise. I was sitting next to him.

I’m so sorry. They are next-level jerks.