I feel for your husbands. I hope they have Loops. |
But then you leave out this person, that person, and another person. Everyone has multiple acquaintances and other friends in subdivisions. Do you think there are only 16 families at this entire school? |
What if it was a tiny school ? What it if were 20-40 families. Would you have an open invite or be selective? |
Yes, I've had similar experiences. There are a group of families in our neighborhood who all walk their early elementary kids to school and we often see each other on the walk or outside the school. They will often turn to each other after the kids go in and discuss going to get coffee or getting together later in the day or week. It's not even that I am desperate to be invited, and more that it always feels very awkward when they discuss these plans directly in front of me but have never once asked me to join or even asked if I was interested. It's just weird to be standing in a group of 3-5 women and have them all say to each other "let's go get coffee" and then look at you and say "well... bye!" I now pop in my headphones and make a call or put on a podcast after saying goodbye to my kid, and then just waive to them and walk away. I don't know why they never invited me but don't view it as a huge loss -- I have other friends. But it *was* awkward. I think OP's situation is different though because she is actually friends with a couple of the women. I'm not friends with any of these moms (and apparently they don't want to be, which is okay). If I was friends with one of them and they made these plans in front of me without inviting me, I think I would actually be hurt, not just uncomfortable. |
I think every get together should be sanctioned by the school. No women may meet for lunch or at any other time unless every family is included. Hopefully no single dad was left out of the winery lunch either. This is the only thing that would work for the "inclusive" posters. |
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 seems hyperbolic. My kid attends an elementary school with about 300 kids, but I don't think I've ever worried about an event getting too large by keeping the invite open-ended. People tend to self-segregate a bit, with parents of younger kids and parents of older kids not intermingling much. Plus some people can't make anything because they work a lot or don't have a flexible schedule. Or they aren't interested in socializing with school families. Or they would turn down this invite because they don't drink or don't like big group gatherings or whatever. I can't think of a situation where I would cap a gathering at 15 but freak out if it were 18 or 20, and I also don't think you'd have to -- these things work themselves out. Usually when I get together with more than a few people at once, the first thing that happens is that it's really hard to find a time that works for everyone and inevitably some people who are invited can't make it because how often do 15 schedules line up in that way? |
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. |
I have at least 20 friends in my contacts list that I could in theory invite to anything I’m going to at any given time. But unless they are part of the overarching friend group, I’m likely not just randomly picking friends to invite into a group do people they barely know. The 14 other women at the event probably also have a friend or more like OP they could have extended the invite to, but didn’t. Not being included in everything is a very basic part of life that most adults have managed to learn by now. Heck I even teach this to my own elementary school kids. They know that 2 of their best friends might get invited to a birthday party with kids they don’t know well. Or the neighbor they play with down the street may have a sleepover that doesn’t include them. All of this is totally socially acceptable and there’s no reason to make it weird or pout/guilt your friends the next time you see them. |
I’ve experienced this as well and the approach I’ve taken is just to wave and keep walking. I’m not sure where the linkages are with these groups but clearly it’s not being extended to me. And that’s fine. |
OP has narcissistic tendencies to think of course *she* (and not all the other friends/acquaintances of the people she doesn’t know) deserved an invite into this random group. Talk about thinking the world revolves around you! Also she has yet to answer our question about what sort of event she was planning and whether she has invited these 2 friends from her subdivision (along with every other tangential friend that she could in theory extend an invite to). |
You say these things “work themselves out” but I guarantee in the process of of emails and texts flying around there is someone (likely multiple someones) at the school who were not looped in to the plans. Unless you’re telling me the parents of all 300 kids were literally included in the planning then yes, you left someone out who knows a couple people at your event. |
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. |
. Man some of you desperately want to be invited to absolutely everything. It’s sad. |
I haven't read the whole thread. Did the person OP texted text her back? |