Not invited to a dear friends party.

[Petrachat]

Dp and I feeling very miffed, several friends have said "see you at the Birthday party", but its a party to which we have not been invited ,this is painful and rather embarrassing as the party givers are very good friends and people have assumed we would be there. We have not had any form of disagreement with them, but now feel we are far less important to them, than they are to us. Would you contact them to find out if there is a problem, or just leave it.

So they couldn't be bothered to cater for four vegetarians at the huge cost of upsetting some great friends?

Dump them, that's terrible.

"I wouldn't ask. I wouldn't step back from the friendship either, but I would view it with less expectation."

Yes, this, as Wannabe already put it.

When I meet a new man, I think about who I'll introduce him to first, ykwim? There have only been a couple, but I do think, hmm, what will they make of him being a Buddist {lol} or will my rich married friends find his being a student in his 30s a "red flag". Lots of things to consider when introducing and mixing different groups of people. I can get on with everybody, rich, poor, socialist, capitalist, foodies, vegans, those who like a smoke and a drink, extreme health nuts........ I'm flexible, I'm a chameleon, so I know so many different types of people, but when I think about introducing them to each other, I feel slightly uncomfortable. Not that I host parties! Maybe that's why.

Don't just leave it, or if there was some sort of invitation error, they will think you are mad at them, and the whole situation will be entrenched. The question needs to be asked, by you or a sympathetic 3rd party.

It is a crappy reason, but nothing to drop a frirndship over. Yes, they could have come up with extra, non-meat dishes, but they arent actually obligated to invite every friend to every event and make special inclusive plans everytime.

We invited friends to a Halloween party via a FB message this week. It was only when I read back the message to DH two days after I'd sent it that YD piped up 'what about the X's?' I'd forgotten to invite our best friends. Complete oversight, just went through a mental list of families we invite for Halloween and they didn't figure because we are in and out of each others houses so much I don't think of them in the 'must remember to invite' category. If they had heard about it and hadn't felt they could ask I'd have been horrified.

Ridiculous reason.

I've been in your position... Not invited, found out from Facebook posts of the party on the evening, lots of mutual friends surprised not to see me there. I never did ask.... But moved the friend into the category of nice for a chat and a coffee not going to put myself out for. Or invite to our big party....

I think it might be an idea to ask or get a mutual friend to ask, because if you don't turn up and you were invited then that in itself will have its own issues.

Tbh honest I would possibly send a text saying ' hi I've heard from so and so that you're having a party, I totally understand if you don't want us to go if numbers are getting a bit out of hand but if you have sent us an invite then I just wanted to let you know we haven't received it in case you're wondering why we aren't there'.
I would be able to send such a text to many of my friends without either of us feeling uncomfortable and I'd be fine with whatever their honest response would be.

Ps can I also say I have some friends with odd dietary requirements who often bring their own pre cooked food round. I did have a vege friend once who kept banging on about how meat is bad etc so never did invite her back as i did not welcome her overly strong opinions re meat and the way she put her point her across esp infront of DD and DS as it made everyone feel uncomfortable.

How lazy and peculiar!

^^ of the hosts.

Gosh, this has really got me thinking. I sometimes leave off inviting vegans if I'm doing dinner. Is that bad? I invite them sometimes and do vegan food, but I really enjoy a "big hunk of meat" sort of dinner sometimes!

I like them as people; I just don't always fancy all the fannying about. A whole salmon with dill sauce and steamed greens followed by eton mess is just about my favourite summer supper and it's fifteen minutes to put together, but then if you've got vegans you have to do a whole other meal for them as they can only have the greens. So I invite fish eaters to eat my fish with me. Have I been horribly insulting my vegan friends all these years?

In fact have I been insulting all my friends all these years? I have never invited everyone I know (and like!) to anything at my house. I always invite a subset - normally a mix of people I think will get on well and perhaps haven't all met.

Are there many people going? I could understand if they had just bought a grill and decided to invite a couple of friends around for steaks or something like that but if it is a big party then it seems odd. Unless it's one of those hog roasts, perhaps they thought you would hate it there with the smell and everything.

The OP said they hadn't been invited to a birthday party, Tanacot.

I'm vegetarian and could understand not being invited to a dinner party if the host wanted to do something very meat-centric which would be hard to adapt for vegetarians, but not inviting vegetarians to a large birthday party purely because of the food you were planning to do sounds very odd.

I always offer to bring something anyway, but if you are catering for a crowd it's normal to offer a spread of different things, to give everyone something to choose from.

/me nodsnods OK good to know

How strange of them.