I think I'm being mean-girled -- what to do?

[Anonymous]

While on a walk with one of my kids, I ran into two former friends this week who completely ignored me, but spoke to my son. It was such a strange, unsettling experience, having these two women treat me like a non-entity, even as they chatted up my child.

Unfortunately, I see these women frequently because our kids are close friends and go to the same school. I don't want to be treated like a non-entity each time I see them. For one, it's a really creepy feeling. Also, I think it creates a poor model of behavior for all of our kids.

What to do? How do I ask these women to stop mean-girling me? To be clear, I do not want to be friends with them again. I just want them to treat me with the same level of basic decency that one would extend to any other person, i.e., acknowledging my existence.

For background, I don't want to restart a friendship with these women because I just can't forgive their callousness when one my kids was hospitalized after undergoing a horrible, traumatic accident. After the accident, neither of these women reached out at all -- no phone call, no text, no email -- to check on my child's well-being, even though our kids are very close friends. All of my child's other closest friends and their parents reached out at least in some small way. But neither of these women did anything at all, and I just can't be OK with that.

I'm not sure why they dislike me so much. It might be because I stopped hanging out with them in favor of some closer friends, but their behavior seems a bit extreme for that to be the reason. I'm in my 40s and I'm unused to dealing with this kind of awkward social stuff. I could ask them why they won't acknowledge me, but I don't want to open up this large discussion with them to repair the friendship.

Do you have any ideas about how to make our meetings civil without trying to restart the friendship? FWIW...I try to make eye contact and start talking with these women a bit. But they cut off my efforts by letting their glance gloss over me as if I wasn't there. Spooky.

[Anonymous]

You sound high maintenance and needy. They're better off without you.

[Anonymous]

I mean...it feels like you probably Mean girl-ed them first??

[Anonymous]

Grow up. They were nice to your son. Why would they need to talk to you? You sound highly judgemental, dramatic and insecure. I hope you're a troll.

[Anonymous]

Did you say hi to them?

[Anonymous]

So you froze them out rather than saying "hey it hurt my feelings that you didn't check on Larlo after his accident " but now you're upset that they in turn are now freezing you out?

[Anonymous]

You started it.

[Anonymous]

Jesus Christ. Life is short. If two women are bringing you this much stress and tension, cut it off and don’t look back. Treat them like you’d do all the other 20 strangers at park/school/store...having these people in your “life” is only hurting you. I doubt they are in a conundrum about how to handle you when they see you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You started it.

OP here. I never froze out these former friends. I spent more time with other friends with whom I happened to click a bit better.

But in some tween-ish way I guess you're right that I started it. It just seems like my now ex-friends' reaction is over the top. Maybe there's something else going on.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you started it. A friend did that to me when I didn't reach out to her when her DH had a brain aneurysm and ended up in the hosptial for emergency brain surgery. I didn't reach out to her because I didn't know-didn't hear about it. When I called to chat about a month after the incident (we didn't talk all that often when we would get busy), she was super pissed because it had been so long, and basically yelled at me and then hung up. Uhm, ok...I didn't know, what was I supposed to do if I didn't hear about it?

If yo didn't tell your friends you were upset, and then find out why they didn't call--or if they perhaps did and yo udidn't get the mssage, it's pretty immature of you. Adults will get to the root of a problem first.

"Highly traumatic accident" is subjective, btw.

[Anonymous]

Just speak directly to them in a normal and casual way next time. "How have you been? How is Larlo enjoying the 4th grade?" Just a few vague niceties about the kid. Don't bring up the past, don't get personal, and you don't have to be friends again. But anyone can speak to someone else in a civil way.

If they completely ignore direct questions, well, that's weird.

[Anonymous]

I feel like you have very little self awareness, OP.

[Anonymous]

If you don't want to have a relationship with them, why do you care if they talk to you. I would love to NOT have to talk to other parents at my kids school. Love it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like you have very little self awareness, OP.

OP here again. You're actually right -- I have always had trouble understanding how some of my behavior impacts others. Ever since I was a teen I've tried to carefully read situations and behave kindly, knowing that I need to work harder than others to be "normal." But sometimes (maybe many times) I get things wrong.

[Anonymous]

You don't want to be friends again. They gave you that. Small talk can lead back to friendship.