AIBU to ask a friend’s guest not to join private breakfast?

I stopped her by saying it was a private conversation & I would join them later.

How do you know what OP’s exact words were? These were not in the post. She could have said exactly what you suggested and h the boorish one would still have got upset.

I suspect the bully label is because you’ve made it obvious previously how you feel about this woman? I doubt your friend would have used it if it was a one off event.

YANBU!!

If it was two people from the group then sure, maybe it was confusing. It wasn’t though!

She could have just come and said hi and suss it out, then you would say something like “I’m nearly done, see you in a bit” but her attitude was to just intrude on you and sit down, though not surprising owing to her usual behaviour! She made it awkward, not you.

I would try and call or meet up with the intro person to explain, she has likely heard a very different story of events.

Yes, you are a bully.

You could have worded it better, ‘oh, the coffee meet-up hasn’t started yet, I’m just finishing up with (friend)’, where will you and the others be sitting?’

I would add a message getting it all out in the open and explaining. Very straight forward. 'Is this about me not inviting you to sit with my other friend and me yesterday? We were having a bit of an intense and private conversation before the group meet up with you lot. Maybe I could have phrased it differently but I was a bit flustered - no intent to offend!'

Then if she complains further you can just thumbs up the message or something equally dismissive/ pass agg but at least she can't moan about you to anyone else.

You were not unreasonable but she clearly has taken offence and maybe you did say it in an abrupt way.

That's what I think.

If a friend walked out when I was expecting to have coffee with them, I think the conversation at the table with the rest of the group would be what's going on? Is she okay? Do you think she's ill? Has something happened? Just got bad news? One of us text her quickly just to ask if she's okay.

The fact no-one did that, no-one asked OP what had happened or if she's okay and hours later there's a message in the group chat about bullying makes me think that's exactly what it is. The fact no-one has privately messaged OP to say 'what the hell is this weirdness in the group chat about bullying?" or said that on the group chat either, makes me confident everyone knows its about OP and agree.

I've never in my life heard a bully have any self awareness and agree that they are one. It's always blustery well okay I might do x, y and z but that's not bullying, bullying is...whatever definition they make up that doesn't include their behaviour.

Which is what OP is doing. As well as wanting to respond 'fuck off' to the group chat.

Genuinely learned something today thank you!

I knew the word boorish but have never realised that the word boor was a standalone word as well.

If I saw someone from a group with a person I don’t know, mid meal and twenty minutes earlier than the meet up time, I wouldn’t just sit down. I’d say hi and ask if I could join, but I wouldn’t just assume it was part of the coffee meet up if it was so much earlier and people were eating when it’s normally just coffee. If I’d arrived twenty minutes early then I’d have been expecting to sit by myself in the first place, so if they said “no” I’d get it, be slightly embarrassed at my lack of social nous, apologise for interrupting and then go and read my book/scroll or whatever I’d planned to do, not stomp off in a huff and bitch about it.

Op could have been a bit nicer about it, but it isn’t “bullying” and the “women standing up for each other, sisters forever” message would really piss me off. It only ever seems to be used when someone starts standing up to someone that is generally a bit of an arse and expects everyone else to listen to them.

Leaving without joining for a bit was a bad idea though. That’s let it fester and created a her vs you scenario. You should have just gone and sat down once a few others arrived, apologised for being late and said your friend had asked to meet up to have a chat about something personal, then changed the subject back to whatever they were talking about.

It isn’t weird at all to choose the same venue so you avoid unnecessary travel time.

If you arrived for coffee and you saw one person you knew you were meeting, sitting with another person you didn’t know, would you sit with them? That seems odd to me.

No, it's boor. A boor is an insensitive, rude person.
A bore is...well, boring.

No - boorish means coarse and bad mannered. Oiky like.

Trouble is not dullness but domineering and rude behaviour.

No, look it up.

YANBU. I would just tell her you were having a private conversation with your friend who is not in the group. I think the woman who tried to join you is very thick skinned. Talk to the others.

Of course she can do whatever she wants, and take the consequences of her actions. In this case the consequence seems to be at least some of her friends viewing her as a bully. I’m not sure your proposed message to intro friend is going to help with that…

Surely it's 'bore'?

misses point of the thread

You think she's a bore, wonder what she thinks if you OP?

Quite.

Honestly. I don’t know how some mumsnet commenters survive the day. OP can meet whoever she wants, whenever she wants, wherever she wants and she was absolutely within her rights to tell this boor to go away!!

OP, I’d be blunt with your original intro friend and say this woman is overbearing and upsetting the dynamic. Has anyone ever tried pulling this new woman up when she gets overbearing?

I think if I'd arrived early for coffee and saw two people I was meeting already there, it wouldn't occur to me to sit anywhere other than with them. It would have felt rude, or at least odd, to sit apart from them.

I'd have been really upset to be treated the way you treated this woman, I'm not surprised you're getting some grief from the rest of the group.

If you want to meet privately, why on earth would you do it at the time and place you're metting the others?

I think you were in the wrong this time. It sounds very childish and I imagine the other woman felt awful. Like a pp said it sounds like schoolyard “you can’t sit with us until we tell you” type of thing. I get you don’t like the other woman and that’s fair enough but what has happened here has made you look like a nasty person. If it’s a work meeting you could have said that nicely to her but she assumed you were also early for the coffee catch up which was a reasonable assumption to make. I think you handled this badly.

I think you were rude and abrupt. If you wanted a private breakfast with your friend then you should have had the social awareness to pick a different venue!

you sound like a bully OP

Also you dislike the interloper because she does not adhere to social norms such as not interrupting, but you yourself are behaving against social norms too by sending away someone you know when they come to sit with you…

but I think there is a big difference between being abrupt and being a bully which is what I am not happy about
A while ago there was a post on here that defined bullying and as I recall part of that definition was repeated behaviour. You only abruptly told her you were having a private conversation once, so no, you didn't bully her.

I do see how she may have thought you had arrived for the 10am group coffee even earlier than she had and she may well have assumed the person you were with was new to the group as she had once been. And her angry reaction probably came from embarrassment.

I think it would have been better if you had called her out at the time, every time she was boorish once she had become part of your group rather than let it fester. Now it looks like what has happened has come out of nowhere and that you kind of set about her when she was on her own and you were with your pal. It has already caused a division in the group and you will probably find it will be you who is given the slow fade rather than the boor. Even if others do find her irritating, they haven't jumped to your defence so they either don't want to upset the existing set up or they don't dislike her as much as you think they do.

Yeah shaming someone like this for doing something so normal is textbook bullying. Surely you see that OP? Especially with there being two of you and one of her.

Also you haven’t said if you were actually having a private conversation about something sensitive or if you just said this to make the interloper feel awkward? Strongly suspect the latter, in which case - bully!