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Why am I still being hurt by these 'friends'?

46 replies

perhapsIexpecttoomuch · 15/07/2012 18:48

You know when there is something you really want to say to people in real life but doing so will just cause untold problems so you don't but it just really gets to you and you just need to get it off your chest? That's what this post is.

I have spent 6 years trying to make friends in the place we live. After one hell of a lot of effort, I can now say that I have a circle of 'friends'. By that I mean people I can go out with occasionally or have round for a coffee or call on for the occasional after school pick up and vice versa. One was even what I'd call a really close friend until a recent falling out (that's another story altogether).

In the time I have lived here, I have gone out of my way to open my home to these people. I've held summer parties, Christmas drinks parties, Halloween parties, spontaneous last minute 'just come round for a BBQ' affairs, after school get togethers for their millions of children, dinner parties and countless others.

In all that time, we have been invited to one person's birthday party, one person has had a BBQ and 2 bon fire night parties and one other has had a BBQ once. The rest have never done anything. They've probably invited me to have a cup of coffee at their house less than five times in six years. They always assume that if the kids are going to play together after school, that it will be at our house. They never offer to have us at theres. In fact their children even come up and say: can I come to your house? And the parents never say: don't be rude, you can't invite yourself. They simply stand back and wait for me to invite them. I stopped that about four months ago when I decided I was sick to my back teeth of always being the one to deal with the carnage and mess.

We're now moving - for countless reasons but the complete lack of reciprocation of friendship is part of it. We feel as though we have spent so much time making the effort yet never get anything in return. Despite knowing this and having lived with it for six years, it still hurts like mad.

We held a farewell party because patently know one was going to throw one for us and we felt it would be sad to leave without doing it one last time. They know full well that it is our last week here. Not one of them has asked what we're doing after the kids break up or if we'd like to get together so the kids can have a final play or offer to have us over at there house as ours is going to be full of packing boxes. They don't suggest let's go for a drink together to say goodbye.

I understand that perhaps they've already moved on. Perhaps they feel snubbed that we've moving out of the area. Perhaps they genuinely don't like us. But if they don't, they certainly feel comfortable helping themselves to our hospitality.

I don't know why this is upsetting me - I've known this about them for ages now (hence the move) but now that crunch time has come, it's amazingly hurtful that after all this time of spending time together they quite obviously just don't give a shit. In fact one of them even said the reason they'll miss us is because they won't have access to our garden anymore (they have a garden too).

Anyway, thanks for reading if you have got to the end of this long post. I just needed to say it and to lift the feeling of melancholy that I have

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monkeyspiss · 15/07/2012 18:51

I think you're expecting too much of people who are more acquaintances, than close friends.

And just because you are happy to entertain at home, it doesn't mean everyone else is. I could understand if they were holding events and not inviting you. But they're obviously not doing that.

"We held a farewell party because patently know one was going to throw one for us" leaps out at me from your OP. I cannot imagine being cross that no one has thrown a party in my honour.