AIBU protecting my time rigidly like this?

To be fair I work 7 - 3 from home so it is a lot easier for me

I don’t like going out on work nights as I have a really stressful job which means I just want to veg out in the evening. But I definitely make exceptions as otherwise I would miss out on lots of enjoyable things. Quick drink with friends. Local comedy or music. I absolutely inwardly groan when I need to go out on a work night, but I think it’s worth it every now and again. You need to be a bit looser OP.

Aren't the OP's kids at uni?

I have a friend like this and they also have a new boundary about not buying a birthday card or present from anyone (money isn't the issue), it is a bit hurtful to the group especially those closer to her. Friendship to me is a bit about making an effort, it's not just take, take, take and your own boundaries.

The framing of the AIBU in the original post is off (to me).
I never meet my friends to please them.
I meet them because it pleases me to see them.

So even when I have gone out when I am knackered or have things on my mind I'm not doing that to be a people pleaser.

That's me knowing that I always come away from an evening with them feeling better than when I arrived. I might have to be the first to leave or I might be tired the next day. But the benefit outweighs the negative.

I do turn down invitations when they dont work for me. I just dont need a rule about it.

Horses for courses etc.

I started fiercely protecting my time, energy and putting myself first at 42.
Something just clicked.
I don't have children, but still one elderly parent in a different country and obviously a husband.
Absolutely YANBU!

Tell them you have a lover who takes up all your time and energy...

🤗

I don’t think it’s an issue if you’re seeing each other at weekends- I didn’t pick up that you were doing this.

Haha!
Im exactly the same and always have been.
I work in a very busy job with yapping all day.
Week school nights?
Absolutely no way am I going out.
Home by 5pm, bath, dinner and TV.
Bed at 10pm latest
My social battery is totally flat by then

I’ve ring-fenced my Sundays for years and refuse to book anything on that day with anyone. I felt quite guilty and furtive about it at first and used to make excuses, but I’m now completely honest with friends.

The friends who were really demanding about intruding on that personal time, interestingly, are the friends with whom I lost friendships for different reasons. I think some people can’t help but read it as a personal rejection, even if it’s nothing of the sort.

I could understand the unhappiness if a friend of yours was unable to ever take weekends off and you wouldn’t meet them halfway, but if they are equally happy to meet on weekends then there shouldn’t be any problem. Keep on doing what makes you happy!

If I’m honest I’d also be thinking that it’s surprising that you’re not considering work being a bit of an issue if you never go even for a quick drink Monday- Thursday. You may really love your job and I get that but it does seem a bit extreme. I’m absolutely not a party animal and my job can be brutal but I’m happy to do something social one night a week (by this I mean dinner and a couple of drinks and bed by midnight latest).

I don't think it's extreme - it's just different preferences, surely?

I really need my weekday evenings too - some people can just constantly go from one thing to another with no downtime, to me that's living hell.

But, I do sometimes do some things during the week, I just need to pace myself. So I say to myself I will do one evening a week MAX (doesn't have to be every week). Would something like that work?

I guess if you can see your friends on the weekend, then there's not too much wrong with saying you just don't go out on a school night, but if you are largely taken up with family stuff at the weekend then it seems you won't see them very often? And you do need to feed friendships if you want to keep them.

So you conveniently ignore the bit where I said "weekends" - which OP says includes a Friday night?

There's nothing "shit" about keeping work nights for yourself and seeing friends at weekends and on a Friday. If that makes me a "shit friend" then meh, so be it.

You say yourself you have separate friendship groups. So by ruling out evenings, it could potentially be weeks and weeks before you meet up with a particular friend when juggling your family time too. You want it all on your terms.

I think you have to accept that some friends wouldn't be OK with that and if you're happy to take the risk, carry on as you are.

I also don’t agree that saying if you needed me I would come really cuts it. It’s all the little social contacts that can help us- not necessarily the big disasters. Sometimes I don’t even realise I’m stressed or pissed off until I’ve gone out and had a laugh, then I think god I really needed that!

I don’t think you are being necessarily U but I do think you need to beware of the consequences. It’s become a bit too fashionably to fetishise being antisocial, and in fact can lead to MH problems in its own right. If these are good friends it would be a shame to lose them.

Personally I find weekends very difficult so if my friends took your stance the friendship probably would end up falling away. I’d also be a bit hurt you couldn’t occasionally make an exception.

If I’m honest I’d also be thinking that it’s surprising that you’re not considering work being a bit of an issue if you never go even for a quick drink Monday- Thursday. You may really love your job and I get that but it does seem a bit extreme. I’m absolutely not a party animal and my job can be brutal but I’m happy to do something social one night a week (by this I mean dinner and a couple of drinks and bed by midnight latest).

OP, maybe there’s a slight compromise position here? I worked hard to create a circle of friends and hobby groups, and sometimes it takes a bit of effort to maintain things. Be a bit careful here

I can't remember the last time I went out on a week night or the last time I was invited. All my friends and family are also at home every week night relaxing and meet ups are at the weekend

This is an interesting thread. I’m like you OP but tbh I DGAF if people don’t want to see me at ALL as a result of protecting my precious time!

I have about five really close friends, two of whom live in the same city but two live on another continent! Another lives about two hours away. Then another ‘outer inner’ circle around that, iykwim.

Basically my point is: we don’t need that many truly great friends to nourish us, particularly the introverts among us. I would find weekday meet ups pointlessly tiring and would - do - avoid them at all costs. You do you bae.

Agreed. I have a friend who will only do Sunday afternoons and it is so annoying because that's the bit of the weekend where all DS's sports etc are done and we can finally all just sit down and watch a film or play a game. So we don't meet up all that often. If she suggested a Tuesday after work I'd be up for that. We just arrange our free time differently.

This is so dismissive and self centred - so I'm having a bad divorce and want to meet up and share the problem, lean on my friend for support and im supposed to wait for a bloody bank holiday?!

There are some outstandingly shit friends on this thread!

If people are pushy and they don't accept a polite decline, and they are the sort of person who sees your no as a start point for negotiation, then just save your breath and go for the I don't want to. For some reason it's the only thing some people hear. I once ended up telling SIL that I didn't love her enough to get out of bed that early at the weekend when she invited us to a birthday breakfast at 8am shes a fucking psycho .

So that contact can occur on weekends, or bank holidays, or when OP has annual leave or a day off in the week.

I'm very glad my friends aren't as needy as some people on here appear to be.

Reformed people pleasers are so often on here complaining about losing friends since they stopped their people-pleasing ways, but I think you also need to take some responsibility for creating the dynamic in the first place. If you have spent thirty years, 'bending and flexing and keeping everyone happy' at the expense of your own wishes, you've trained people to expect that kind of behaviour from you.

They're not mind-readers. They don't know that you spent three decades hating weekday evening socialising, and only doing it through gritted teeth because you thought it was your job to accommodate other people rather than yourself.

So, obviously they are puzzled when you suddenly change and become completely inflexible about what you won't do.

And I think you need to lose the delusion that all women are people-pleasers. They really aren't. Your friends have probably prioritised their own wishes all along, and don't know that you haven't, and that your current position on weekday evening socialising is so completely inflexible because you're reacting against a lifetime of doing things you didn't want.