Finding being ignored and excluded very difficult

[SadSackStruggling]

This isn't my regular username, it's a name I used when I first posted about this last year.

Essentially, my former friend and neighbor has decided she hates me. Various reasons were given when I asked her about it last year. One thing was close to the truth about a time I acted childish on a WhatsApp group. I apologized and admitted I had behaved like a dick.
The other reasons were absolutely not true. Fabricated rubbish and, I feel, Chinese whispers that she had decided to claim as events that happened.
Since then (late July 18) she has completely, totally blanked me.

Last week I was walking down our road as she was about to get into her car which had been parked at bottom of road. I waved, I have continued to attempt to say hello as her family all still speak to me and we live opposite each other, I don't want things to be awkward.
She, of course ignored me, so I asked "are you honestly going to live the rest of your life ignoring me?" I was met with silence so repeated the question. She got in her car, left door open and shouted "that's entirely up to you!!"
I don't see what I can do other than to continue to greet/say hello/remain polite so I simply said 'huh?'
Neighbor then began to rant and shout saying 'you've had plenty of opportunity to sort this out following our conversation last year' then slammed door and drove away.

I can't do anything to 'sort this out' with a person who acts like I'm invisible.

Now the event that she and another neighbor created last year is about to happen again. It's in the early planning stages. I'm good friends with one neighbor whose family the event is for and another member of the planning group. I also have a neighborly relationship with the other 6 women.
Needless to say as the one who hates me is one of the two main organisers I am not invited to be part of the preparation this year.

Last week was the first planning evening. Essentially a night out where a group of friends from the street get together and drink wine, socialize and basically have a great time come up with ideas.
I feel so wretched.
This will be a regular occurrence now until the event in June
It makes me so sad that I cannot be a part of this.

How do I get over this feeling? How do I shake feeling so pathetically upset over the next couple of months?
I feel like a child that nobody will let join in their fun but I'm an adult!

That’s probably just it
It’s triggered those childish feelings.
That are still real.
How about next time you see her give hers bright breezy hiya and move rapidly on
Don’t expect anything from her because you won’t get anything
But that bright breezy hiya gives you something to do so you can overcome your difficult feelings

I used todo this to my ndn...they used to really squirm as they tried to avoid me... I found it quite funny
I didn’t like them . She was a complaining misery over the slightest thing...our window cleaner walking over her grass that sort of thing...like I held sway over that

So, a breezy hiya..kept me occupied on the way to my car.

Oh and they moved...I like to think I helped them on their way by being so nice to them when they just wanted to be miserable and moody

i think if you want to resolve it you should knowck at her door and say you want a sit down conversation. if at all possible arrange a seperate day at a neutral location ( not one of your houses). i you knock on and ask this she might try and initiate a heated argument there and then - aand if so state that you havent got time right now, but would she be up for meeting for coffee.

however, if this is ssome kind of power game - ie. she is enjoying not including you - in your shoes i would back the fuck off. and all the other women involved are complicit in excluding you this is hurtful and i would fuck them off too - just alwways be polite and dont get involved

Same thing happened to me .. it hurts , I just backed away from it all.

You could .......... just go. I know it would be excruciatingly awkward but you know that a number of these women like you! So if you hoist up your ovaries and stroll in to the activities and say hi warmly to the women who do like you and act like you're completely unaware of what the other one is still saying then the others will think that the co-organiser is being dramatic, that she has exaggerated the extent of the falling out, or that the pair of you have made up and the organiser is still holding a grudge.

I suggest this, knowing that it would be an EXTREMELY difficult thing to do.

Or , you could forget about being a part of the larger group and invite the ones you're closest to over for coffee /dinner. Don't try and compete with the group, just focus on the friendships that feel the most genuine and sincere.

Also, I wouldn't focus on ''sorting it out'' with her. She is enjoying the power!

I'd say (with an audience of at least one) ''it's your choice not to like me, I can't make you like me, but I feel like you're excluding me from a group I could be a part of, you wouldn't do that would you? that would be overstepping the mark surely, I know I'm not your favourite person, but you wouldn't feel entitled to exclude me forever would you?'

It would takes balls of steel I know though. But her not liking you is her prerogative. Her arranging social activities that include everybody but you right under your nose is not her prerogative.

If you can point that out in a really calm way, whilst giving the impression that whatever troubles went on last year are behind you as far as you're concerned, she will look like a mad bitch

I can't go along.
Not because it would be excruciating, I can deal with that but because it would put the others in a most uncomfortable situation.
First I'd have to ask my friend for the details of the meeting, I won't let this nastiness eek out and begin to make things difficult for her.

Secondly, it will only harden her. We were friends for over a decade before this. I know that she won't relent publically just because I show up to a planning night. In fact it would give her ammunition to show the others that I'm out of order.
She has already twisted comments I made during last year's event, comments that were supportive and taken as such (not a comment to her but to another member of the group) by the time she was telling me why she hated me that comment had been twisted into something I'd apparently directed to her and turned into a spiteful statement.

I dread the event. Yet feel I can't win either way. Either I go and be part of the fundraising for one of the sweetest families you e ever known in memory of a lost family member, knowing that I am unwanted and will be ignored by the organisers.
Or I decline and probably look like a twat for not being there.

You are giving this person a lot of power. She decides who you associate with, where you go, how you feel. Stop giving her this power. You decide where you go, who to talk to. Stop giving her headspace.

Sonjadog she doesn't decide. It doesn't effect me generally. I continue to greet her and go about my own business normally.
The problem now is that I've been left out of the 'planning committee' of which she and another neighbor are the head of.
So there will be regular meet ups, all of which I was a part of last year.
I can't just turn up without it being incredibly difficult for everyone else. To be honest I don't think I act want to spend an evening in her company, it just feels so bloody unfair.

I know I need to get over it and just not let it get to me but that's an easy thing to say. In reality it's very hard to do.

It's been suggested to me to write to her but I'd find it difficult to write anything constructive and don't imagine it'll do anything to help the situation.

Cut them all and find new people to enrich your life.
Why do you want to spend any time with any of them anyway?
Beg - a - friend? No ta!!

Oh dear, I hear you. I remember when I was excluded at work, the reason I didn't just ''turn up'' was for the same reason, I didn't want everybody else to feel uncomfortable.

It's not a competition and there are other ''sources'' for friendships but I would still try and maintain friendships with one or two of these women if it feels genuine. Don't do it to SHOW you have your own faction.

Either I go and be part of the fundraising for one of the sweetest families you e ever known in memory of a lost family member, knowing that I am unwanted and will be ignored by the organisers.
Or I decline and probably look like a twat for not being there.

If the rest of the women are going to shun you are well then there is no way on earth I'd put myself through that. And if you've apologised once it doesn't sound as if she has really accepted it, so there's nothing you can do.

Slip a contribution in an envelope with a note to the family the fundraising is for, in advance, and tell them you'll be thinking of them.

Then remove yourself from the event and these women totally. Go off out for the day or the whole weekend somewhere lovely to take your mind off it.

I think it depends on how bad the event that started all this was.

It could be something really awful that knocked her trust in you.

It could be something really silly that she's using for her own enjoyment or she went OTT in which case you are well shot of her.

Or something in the middle that simply fuelled other issues in the friendship or that she might have herself.

Basically, you'll know better than us if she's fuelled by hurt/distrust or a feeling of power/having something over you/anger.

yoursarcasmisdripping
The event that kicked this off was...not a clue!

Absolutely no idea.

I asked her back in July why she couldn't even look at me and had stopped speaking to me.
She said I was Nasty and Sly, then walked away.

I walked to her (she was intent on marching home) and asked for an explanation.
She levelled a ton of shit at me, the majority of which was completely false. Not even close to reality.

One thing (that I'd made a comment on WhatsApp group about being pissed that I had wasted my lunch hour making flyers for event that her and other organiser didn't now want as they may not 'match' their other posters)
In July I held my hands up to acting like a baby over that but it was literally one stroppy comment.
All the other stuff she said was nonsense so I can't even understand why she hates me so much and she isn't willing to say.

I find it very hard to believe that she would have ignored me for the last nine months because I posted a passive aggressive 🙄 and 'glad I wasted my lunch hour making them then' on the planning group chat

I just want to say that I hear you. I’m going through something similar myself and I want to let it go but I also can’t stop thinking about it. It’s really hard. I get it.

HER ego sounds massive.

I know the advice is always to walk away completely but as a person who has found herself in these shoes often I really sympathise. I felt like wherever I tried to make friends next, somebody would smell blood. My self-esteem was damaged in my younger years and I was a people pleaser who accommodated others too much, fitted in with their agendas, maintained the friendship that they wanted on their terms... Ironically I think I used to 'ignite' irritation in people who ALSO had a damaged self-esteem but who dealt with it by over stepping boundaries and taking taking taking and controlling and excluding and re-writing history etc....

Show up at the event with new friends? Fully briefed in what happened and who will support you then proceed to have a good time and bloody ignore her no need for hellos just ignore and move on because she isn't going to let this lie and die she will drag it out by removing that power she and by extension them are the petty ones

Wanted to come and give a bit of an update as the event is almost upon us.

Neighbor continued to ignore.
I mentioned it to the co-organiser early May who apparently didn't really know much about it. Despite knowing not much about what had occured she did want to tell me she thought I was out of order for "airing dirty laundry on social media"
(a month into being ignored whenever I stepped out of my front door I noticed neighbor who declared hatred for me had posted a photo on Facebook. I posted status saying something along lines of why tell a person you hate them, ignore them yet keep them as a Facebook friend? No names, just a question. I suppose I was prompting her to either start to acknowledge me or delete me.)

Anyway, now the neighbor who hates me decided to knock on my door.
Said she did not want to talk about anything that had gone on. She was simply here to ask if from now on we could be civil to one another?
I didn't speak initially.
Just wanted to hear her out.
She continued to say "I'm still really hurt and don't want to talk about what's gone on, I just think with the event approaching we should at least be polite so it isn't uncomfortable for anyone else"
I waited until she'd finished insisting that maybe one day she'd be ready to discuss what I did (WTF!?) but right now she was simply here to ask that I be civil.

I said "I have been civil this whole time" simply that statement.
Saw no point in saying anything much but as she'd 'asked' if WE could be civil a few times, I did want to make it clear that I had continued to be civil and polite for a year despite the fact that she chose to ignore me.

She has now started to acknowledge me (if she's with anybody else, total blank if she's alone).
The event is imminent.
I won't be going.
I wish I could move house but better the devil you know!

SadSack well, that does seem better than before, even if it's irritating that she's making out you've both been carrying on the grudge. Perhaps there will be a gradual thaw leading to a more normal state of affairs - I hope so.

I have lived in my current house a tad over thirty years. Before I even moved in my ndn started spreading rumours; bearing in mind I moved from 100 miles away and had never set eyes on her. The day I got here and parked my car I had abuse screamed at me by a different elderly woman who told me I 'can't park there!' as her son liked to park there. A bit bemused and not up for an argument after a very traumatic drive I simply moved.

This set the scene for years and years of being ignored by all and sundry with the exception of my other ndn who was always lovely and who eventually told me what had been said and what happened. Only over the last five years have attitudes improved and it has finally become a pleasant place to live. At one point it was so bad I phoned the local vicar (nasty ndn was a church goer) and asked why she was so foul and so vindictive towards me.. he didn't have the answer but he was aware of the situation and admitted knowing it was happening.

But, you know, I didn't have the option of moving so I made the best of it. I made friends with people out of the immediate vicinity, I loved my house and its position and refused to let her get me down. There were moments I had severe wobbles but I survived, as will you. The day her house went on the market and she finally moved was one of the best of my life!

It will get better OP. Try not to discuss her with anyone else as it will get back to her. Hold your head up, carry on with the friendly 'hello' and eventually she will crack.

Thanks people.
Good advice about trying to not talk to people about her cantfindname I've kind of struggled with that but knew it wasn't wise so for months I've been avoiding all the neighbors. A couple have asked about the 'frosty relations' but I haven't wanted to get into it.
Been really difficult as I'm an open sort of person and easy to get sucked into conversation usually.

Hopefully they don't all think I'm batshit but I do feel pathetic saying a weak hello and scurrying away.