To think this isn’t cliquey?

What effort do you think the other people in the class are making?

If you had been invited out on mums nights out for three years and never gone, at what point would you consider it acceptable that they could go out without you?

From what you have posted, not cliquey in the slightest! And I say that as someone who experienced the year group from hell/full-on Mean Girls parents

Do you invite the whole street every time you meet up with a neighbour you get on well with?

When you pop round your sisters for a catch up, do you invite every relative you have?

If you meet up with an old uni pal, do you invite everyone who was on your course?

When you go for lunch with your colleague who you are most friendly with, do you invite the whole office?

If you go out for dinner with your husband, do you put out an announcement on your social media inviting everyone you’ve ever met if they would like to join your date night?

Of course not, that ridiculous. People are allowed to hang out with their friends without inviting the whole world. People have friend groups and are allowed to hang out with their friends……… since when did having friends become a clique? Are we all meant to invite everyone to everything we do?!

Sounds reasonable.

Just make sure you make the effort to invite anyone who is making an effort to turn up to the larger events? I'm terrible at making friends and desperately want to, there have been times I've begged all kids of favours to get childcare so I can attend a large meet up only to have noone talk to me and then I see them meeting up separately regularly and that does hurt. As long as you are not doing that it's reasonable. And to be honest you don't own anyone friendship anyway so can have your clique without the big meet ups if you wanted it's just nice to notice others who are making an effort to make friends

Do the people who don't regularly go to the large events know how few people go? They might each be assuming there is a good turnout of everyone except them!

I'd be tempted to respond that "It was lovely to bump into you the other night! As you all probably know, there hasn't been much turnout to the larger events for quite a while. As we were the ones who did regularly go, we naturally became friendlier and yes we get together sometimes. Does that make us a clique? I hope not!

Anyway, even if we are a clique, we are not cliquey, and would love if more people wanted to join us and it would be great to see more people at our events! "

Primary age is the window to make local friends once they are at secondary it rarely happens as minimal overlap with other parents. My own parents in their 70s still socialise with the school gate parents as do we.

I'd post in the group that anyone is welcome to join the clique ! Just let us know you are coming - all are welcome but equally it's not compulsory.

Also, by some people’s mindset where does the expectation of openness end? My parents have a close friendship group of eight (now seven: one died) that started at a sports club about 40 years ago. They all go on holiday together. Should they still be open to new people joining? From the sports club they no longer have anything to do with or from some other place?

Honestly, some people will accuse pretty much every friendship group of being a clique if they're not part of it.

I've made friends with a mum at the school (our kids aren't friends or even in the same class). I mentioned to someone else one day that I was meeting my friend for a drink and she was outraged and said 'I didn't know you two meet for drinks, where's my invite?' Bizarre.

I’m sorry - did you not say your friend wrote on the mum’s WhatsApp group inviting everyone out?

Why would she invite everyone out if she doesn’t even attempt to talk to them in the playground? Do you all really think people will want to join an established group of friends on a night out who otherwise make zero effort to get to know them?

She sounds very immature. The transition from open invite social to small group of friends is a natural one. Look at uni: everyone goes to the freshers parties. Friendship groups form.

I would reply saying what you’ve said in your original message. She’s probably projecting her issues from feeling intimidated by the popular girls back at school and whilst that’s sad for her it’s not your problem.

As you have described it this is a group of friends who met when your children went to school. It would be a clique if you were recruiting people while excluding others because they didn't fit into an aestheic and using that power to influence the community to do the things that only you want to.

There is a lot of harm when you are purposefully being excluded, but there is ALSO harm when you repeatedly decline or also don't show up to when you have accepted invites.

This is madness. Of course small group friendships form. Is she genuinely saying you can't organise anything unless you invite the whole class!

I struggle with the difference between a clique and a friendship group, TBH. If you have a group of friends, why do you HAVE to be open to/proactive about others joining? Being polite to others, I get — so if you’re all in the playground, and there’s someone standing on their own, I’d absolutely say hello — but that doesn’t mean I’d invite them to our next wine night or whatever it might be. I guess if I got to know them over time, I might suggest it to the rest of the group — but no one has an automatic right to join a friendship group…

My DC are at secondary now but at primary, I had a group of friends I’d chat to at drop off/pick up, and I’d see them outside of school. We’re still friends now although all our DC are at different schools. There were several other, similar friendship groups that existed. And I’d say hello to people who weren’t in my immediate friendship group, and vice versa. We’d also arrange — and attend —whole class get togethers. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

Your only mistake was to continue the invitations after that.

I think you and your group of 6 have done nothing wrong.

Not sure if it’s helpful or not to share a similar story, but I’ve been in a position that reminded me of this. There was a WhatsApp group of about ten of us women from work. We are teachers so don’t see loads of each other in work, staggered lunch breaks/most of us spending lunch time in our classrooms working through etc, but we would chat often on our WhatsApp group. About a third of the group are mums so v busy with their families, another third weren’t hugely social and didn’t like going out too often, and then there was three of us who were always keen to meet up and do things. A lot of our social events (around 6 a year, not overly frequent) we’re pushed by the three of us. And we always found it SO hard to mail plans down as we’d put suggestions out there for activities/dates etc just to be met with non committal responses. We got fed up of flogging what felt like a dead horse, and organically just started hanging out as a three, and we could do this FAR more often, which was really nice. We didn’t think we were doing anything wrong as we were still very active in the WhatsApp chat, but just stopped pushing to arrange events. So then for about six months, nothing happened socially as a group of ten, but the three of us did quite a lot. But then one of the girls from the bigger group (who we didn’t see much socially) confessed to me that a separate group had been made without us, and a few of the girls were really pissed off with us for forming our own clique and not inviting them anymore. I thought this was ridiclous as we had always tried so hard. And after that the friendships never really repaired. But us three are happy and social so 🤷🏻‍♀️

I would love to be able to invite someone to the cinema like that, and I'd like to be invited id probably not do it though. Fair play

To the previous poster - are you having a laugh saying they need to book tables with extra seats? How shitty is that to restaurants in the current climate to book large tables on the off chance some people you hardly know will turn up, and how crap for the people that bother to turn up.

I don't know what planet some people live on.

She is a trouble maker.

You are entitled to have a separate WhatsApp group.

friendship forming takes work from everyone, I had to work at it when we moved here, it’s not easy and at times I felt like I was single asking someone on a date by saying “fancy doing something together” but sometimes in order to get what you want it requires a level of discomfort, but with the understand the end product is worth it.

Oh I hear you. We moved literally from one end of the country to the other when my kids were almost 4, and 1.5. I had to make a huge effort to get to know people at the preschool, threw myself into various committees and accepted invitations to events I knew were really not my thing because everyone else was going. It does take sustained effort both ways. Yes you'd sometimes speak to someone and it would go nowhere, but then you meet a really nice person. Still see two of my playgroup mum friends regularly and that was 18 years ago since we moved.

People do not want to put themselves out there. They expect everyone to stand around chatting in a big massive group, and for there to be sentries posted to pull people into the conversation. And then get the hump when people just talk to folk they already know, or speak to a randomer, and start bitching about cliques.

Fwiw I think you sound really nice and if I lived near you I’d have loved to join your clique friendship group. 😁

People often seem to slag off extroverts while still expecting us to do the hard yards of approaching them, asking questions, making conversation, inviting people to things, including everyone etc just in case.