To feel hurt about not being invited to party

I work with the elderly in a small community where (literally) everyone knows everyone. We have residents who went to school together and now they're in their late 90s. They REALLY struggle with newcomers. For example, one lady was actually an evacuee during WWII and has lived there ever since. Even now - over EIGHTY YEARS later - she is viewed as an "outsider". Someone who "isn't from around here". So, @Hillwalker try not to be too upset over this. I understand why you are, but it's not a YOU problem, it's a them problem. X

You’re doing an excellent job at missing the point. Thank you for explaining how mumsnet works but nobody said you weren’t giving your honest opinion, just that you can also carry kindness at the same time. It comes with emotional maturity. You’ll get there 🩷

Yes it was slightly harsh. He had 150 people there, so its not just close friends

Come on, the man is 80yo. So, factor in his kids and their spouses/partners, probably grandchildren and maybe their partners. If a family who all have kids early, add in great grandkids. Then there will be his siblings kids/partners, their kids/partners etc. So, for an 80yo you can well have a huge cohort of family/partners alone. Then there would be friends. OP sounds as though she is the acquaintance bucket so probably over the 150 capacity.

Small villages are Full of cliques. It's not as fri3ndly as you might think
Esp. if you're. Sa newcomer going Gun ho and diving into everything. Someone could be out to trip you up. Surely you must know the mechanics of NEWCOMERS . Imsorry this is life. Just be grateful no one ran off eith yohr Husband like happened to me. I put all this cr

Small villages are Full of cliques. It's not as fri3ndly as you might think
Esp. if you're. Sa newcomer going Gun ho and diving into everything. Someone could be out to trip you up. Surely you must know the mechanics of NEWCOMERS . Imsorry this is life. Just be grateful no one ran off eith yohr Husband like happened to me. I put all this cr

At 80 he's likely got a long list of people who play a significant part in his life. Some will be children of those people.
You might have been no.167... Close but no cigar.

You have a vacancy for a friend or two, when these other people don't.
It's sad, I'm in a similar position. It's ok to yearn for that friend even as you understand that Mrs so and so isn't the answer.

You need people in a similar position to you who have a gap that you fit perfectly.

i agree. He’s 80! He’s probably got kids, grandkids and maybe even great grandkids, not to mention siblings and their families, cousins and probably a shit load of friends accumulated over the years. A person his age could easily fill a hall with 150 people before even considering community acquaintances.

People don’t usually invite loads of folk from the community to their landmark birthday parties do they? I would expect it would be family (and his family might be huge!) and close friends. You might get on well and have taken part in community events with this person, but I wouldn’t expect to have been invited to his birthday party.

Do you know the 80 year old?

I threw an 80th for my dad before he passed. I wouldn't have known anyone new to the neighborhood. It's possible this was really not a neighbor excluded you.

I'm in a similar situation, having moved to a small village a few years ago. No matter how many times I host people at my house I am left out when they plan things themselves. It's just so lonely and hurtful.

A very lonely eight years. And people call Londoners unfriendly😂

Tbh, in such a static community with few new people arriving to live in the village, I would have thought it would be easier to welcome a new person and introduce yourself? It's not as if there's a constant influx which would make it tiresome to continually meet and greet people.

I'm not suggesting the locals should feel compelled to befriend anyone. It just all sounds very insular. I have a colleague who boasts that her family has lived in a village for hundreds of years "and we still call people who've lived here for 60 years incomers, they'll never be one of us". Ok.

I can see why you feel overlooked, you’ve put in effort and hope to be part of the community. I went to a friend’s party recently that her family organised. My friend kept asking is so and so here, what about this person ?? The problem was her family who arranged the party, did not know all her friends or how to contact them. So perhaps it was an merely an oversight.

Exactly this.

And yes it is upsetting OP when you put the effort in with people and think you are friends, then realise they think differently.

Wow how the other half live. How do people know so many close family and friends

Wow the level of overthinking and people banging on about the word wild on this thread really is the thing that's wild.

But they’re not ‘being unkind and exclusionary’. I had, as I said upthread, a very lonely eight years in a village despite being a friendly person and making all possible efforts, but I’m not blaming anyone who lived there for not befriending me — it was a village, not a club with obligations to make new members feel welcome. People had their own stuff going on. I wasn’t on their radar, partly, I think, because it was such a static community (the majority of other parents in DS’s class had gone to the same village school and stayed local, marrying local) that everyone already knew one another and just weren’t that used to encountering peiole to whom they had to introduce themselves.

@7isthemagicnumber, yes, even though it was within three months of the first Covid lockdown. Fortunately!

Wild in this context is an accusation of being weird, unbalanced or abnormal. It’s provocatively unpleasant.

Combined with the mischaracterisation of the situation and relationship it’s a deliberate attempt to make the OP feel stupid and/or needy. The subtext is how could you possibly think you’re friends with this man, with a dash of let’s laugh at the needy poster who wants to be included by the community she’s worked hard to integrate into.

if that’s the posters honest opinion, she’s entitled to share it but she shouldn’t be surprised when she’s called out on it.

This is typical village life. They won’t see you as a local until you have a couple of past generations buried in their churchyard. Many people think they can move to villages,join all the local clubs including the local council,start growing veg and horse riding,etc. It’s what all the “newbies” do and it’s often looked down upon. Doesn’t mean they won’t be friendly but you won’t be “one of them”.

What happened when you moved - are you settled in better now?

The other thing about being 80 is that your 4 years will seem like the blink of an eye. It's not that you have to have lived there all your life, but they'll have seen lots of people come and go and you won't have made it onto their invite list having only just rocked up when they're 76. They're clearly not short of people to invite from the rest of their life. And it really is their party, not a community event as others have said.

Comfort yourself with the fact that you probably didn't miss very much and try to do things for the enjoyment of them if possible. If you like the quizzing and WI etc, that's its own reward rather than needing validation by an 80yo who isn't really a friend by most people's standards.

You’re completely derailing the thread by constantly banging this drum.

My DM’s neighbour recently moved out after 29 years, I still think of her as the ‘new neighbour’ 😂 And DM socialised with her loads.

Give it time OP.