Really offended a friend. Would this upset you?

[Eastie77Returns]

Arranging where to go to dinner on a group chat with 3 friends and came up with a shortlist of restaurants. One friend (‘Sally’) said she could not afford any of those venues. The other 2 friends suggested some cheaper options but she said it was still too pricey as she has to factor in travel and babysitting costs for the evening. So we asked her to suggest somewhere and she came up with a pub that is honestly not somewhere I’d choose to eat (or drink for that matter) but by this time the group had been going back and forth for days so I said if everyone was in agreement we should go. We had a nice evening. The food was not very good and the pub attracts a rough crowd so not a great atmosphere but we sat in the garden and all enjoyed catching up.

My other two friends then messaged me separately and suggested that the three of go to one of the restaurants Sally had vetoed.

Can I ask if you were Sally, would you be upset or offended at this? She found out and is really hurt.

I don’t think she’s choosing to sulk, I think she’s hurt that her friends made her feel excluded. The fact that she had already excluded herself on the grounds of budget kind of makes it worse really.

It’s seriously shitty of the 3 of you. It’s the making a new chat and not even asking her. You excluded her. It’s extra mean it was because she couldn’t afford to come.

Imagine you have less money than your friends. It may have even been hard for her to tell them that in the first place who knows. And they all arrange behind your back to go to an expensive restaurant - a restaurant which you said you couldn’t afford right now. I could never do that to my friend. I don’t like how they’ve gone about it at all. It comes across that they’re more interested in going somewhere fancy than making sure their friend is with them and feeling like part of the group. It’s not like it’s a once in a lifetime trip or something. It’s just a chance to catch up. They definitely shouldn’t have hidden it from her. But hey this is just my opinion.

I could never do this to a friend.

Imagine you have less money than your friends

It doesn’t sound like she has less money than them. She spends it on house renovations, Op spends it on food and travel

So basically, what you’re saying is that your friends can’t do something they want to do because you can’t do it, so they have to run their lives according to what you can do because otherwise they’re bad people. Right, got it. Even if they’ve already done something you want by going to the pub to see you and include you, that’s not enough.

I’ve had a few friends with this mindset that the whole world revolves around them and their feelings, their wants and their needs and they overrule the majority because only their feelings are ‘’valid’’ and must be adhered to at all costs. Those people are colossal pains in the arse and I’d rather not have a self centered arse as a friend who feels like they should have control over what their friends do or not.

So she’s renovating her house to ensure her family have somewhere nice to live. It’s not necessarily something people relish spending their money on. It’s expensive but necessary. And clearly means no room in the budget for expensive meals however much you might want to see your friends. House renovations are also extremely stressful especially while living with young kids. Sally definitely needs a bit more understanding right now.

I didn’t say anything like that but ok…..
You are twisting everything I’m saying for some reason.

If you arrange pretty much everything as a group together, then I can kind of see why she might be a bit put out at not even knowing the group was going.

But that seems unlikely to me given you've all been friends so long and you obviously have such disparate tastes in restaurants. And even if the case, since you'd had the big conversation about it before where the rest of you all loved it and Sally didn't, and you arranged to do the restaurant she wanted that you didn't, it warrants being a bit put out not being mortally offended and refusing to respond to people.

Sally chooses how to spend her money and you choose how to spend yours. If she values house renovations over facilitating friendship that's fine. there's a time and place for prioritising family. But she can't expect everyone else to hold off on what they want to do while she does that. Even if she just can't afford it, she needs to come to terms with that. You should try and do most things in her budget but it's unreasonable for her to want everything for the rest of you to be dictated by her limits.

I think you need to decide whether Sally is worth much sacrifice, because she sounds like very hard work as a friend. Too much FOMO and too little genuine happiness for others. Unless she normally goes very out of her way for everyone else, I'd be inclined to just ignore her snit and carry on as normal. She can join back in when she's got over herself.

Mums er is a bit weird at times…
I consider myself quite insecure - but if my friends went out to a place I didn’t like/couldn’t afford without me I’d not care, at most I’d say can we go somewhere cheaper next time so I can tag along?
I find it odd that the people think that friends aren’t allowed to make plans unless everyone is asked/told…. I am a part of a 3 way friendship, I go out with one or the other friend frequently without asking the other, they also socialise without me - non of us feel the need to invite each other every single time, it’s just crazy.
OP is in her 40’s, not a teenage hormonal child!

Id be sending a text via the group chat saying they’re sorry she felt offended, that wasn’t their intention but they all wanted to check out the place and as she had already expressed she didn’t like the look of it they didn’t see the point of inviting her again…. Then leave it there…. Continue as normal and let her join in when she has gone past her upset… next time they’re due to meet just pop a generic ‘are we meeting next week?… anyone got any preferences ? And see if sally comes up with somewhere… or maybe suggest ‘hey Sally - shall we get a takeaway and come to you so you don’t have to worry about babysitters…. If she’s still annoyed and ignoring everyone at that point then I’d just come up with a place and time and leave her to either turn up… or not! …

I don’t think you and your friends did. Any thing wrong @Eastie77Returns

Imagine instead that your friends really wanted to try a restaurant but you couldn't afford it because you want to spend your money on other things and, besides, it's not really your cup of tea. So, because they want to spend time with you, they go to a restaurant that you choose, even though it's not really what they want to spend their money on. Then, later, you see that they've gone to the restaurant you neither like nor can afford and had a good time.

Could you really not just be happy for them and glad they wanted to see you so much they did both?

I personally would be, yes. But I’m not Sally. And Sally is the one who IS upset. I have never been in the position of the Op or Sally. But If I were Sally’s friend, I would care that she’s upset. And I also wouldn’t have gone about things the way that Sally’s friends did.

I would ring her up if possible to clear the air, say no offence intended but you all wanted to try the restaurant and knew she didn’t want to. There’s no reason why you should offer to pay for her, it’s not her birthday and as you say she’s not in poverty but has different priorities and didn’t fancy it anyway. As you all agreed to her choice last time I think she’s misread the situation somehow.

I may have worded that poorly, my point is that when you asked us to imagine we were Sally - this was what I imagined. I imagined thinking "Oh wow, they went after all, how great!" And seeing it as good and a sign of our great bond that they were happy to do my thing so they could spend time with me even though they all clearly really wanted to go to the other restaurant.

That Sally doesn't see it this way isn't OP's fault and isn't necessarily something OP should handle. There is much more onus on Sally to change here because it's her behaviour that is controlling and inappropriate. I can see the argument that someone should have mentioned it to Sally before hand but also that, depending on the details of the previous back and forth, it might not have been a good way to go. And even if that would have been a better idea, Sally's response is extreme and childish.

Really offended a friend. Would this upset you?
Probably not.
But it has offended your friend and plenty of people think that is a reasonable reaction.
So do you want to fix it? It wouldn't be all that difficult to apologize and invite her out somewhere thoughtful for another meetup.

Alternatively, its a bit narcy but whatever, you could go in search of opinions which align with your own, and present them to her as evidence that she is wrong and invalidate her feelings. Start with the mutual acquaintances and then broaden the net just pay attention to the opinions that agree with you and......

.....Oh you knew all that right?

Whether or not you think sally is overreacting is not important. It’s important that as her friend, you validate her feelings even if you don’t agree with them because that’s what decent people do. Ask questions to understand. Listen without forming your own response in your head before she’s finished talking. It’s called empathy. Apologise and move on.

If It were me, it would be the secrecy and talking behind my back that would be hurtful rather then the actual going to the restaurant without me.

You think that your friends arranging to go to a restaurant (let alone one you have already stated you don't want to go to) is them "talking behind your back?" That's really shocking for an adult.

I disagree that that it's necessarily a good idea to validate Sally's feelings here. Her feelings are valid in the sense that they are what she feels, but that doesn't mean they are reasonable. Validating feelings that are based on unreasonable lines of thought, especially where that has lead to such poor behaviour like this, is rarely a good idea in a relationship of equals because it provides positive reinforcement for the bad behaviour.

Who are we to say that someone’s line of thought is reasonable or unreasonable? What’s reasonable to you is not necessarily reasonable to someone else. Again, empathy.

100% this. I get that Sally is upset, but there might well be good reason they didn’t tell her they wanted to go. Maybe she’s well known for being petulant and feeling put out any time any of her friends even dare suggest doing anything that doesn’t involve her. There are many, and I’ve known a few ex friends like that.

Sally needs to put her big girl pants on and get over herself, frankly. She was asked and she can’t go unfortunately. That does not mean she gets to stop others going. She sounds like a controlling nightmare. As long as she has had chance to catch up with her mates, does it really matter? They obviously care about her to have gone out of their way to go to her suggested pub in the first place.

Sometimes other people do things we can’t. That’s life. I am shocked at these responses that think her behaviour is that of a reasonable, mature adult.

There are lots of ways that lines of thought can be shown to lack reason. E.g. through a lack of valid logic or a reliance on an assumption that is not valid.

To insist that all lines of thought are equally valid is a great way to open people up to abuse.

I wonder if when you were organising the meal with Sally, you had said, “let’s all go to (her choice) and us three can go to the other restaurant in a week or so.” If she would have reacted differently. I suspect she would still have been miffed because I don’t think getting upset about you all going to somewhere she disliked was rational. Having said she thought it was a waste of money, why would you run your plans past her.

But even though it was irrational, it may have come from a place I could sympathise with. Even though she’s chosen to take on a renovation and limit her spending on fun stuff she probably does wish she could join in with the more expensive stuff from time to time. Also, living in a house that’s being renovated can feel like a never ending nightmare. Her choice but it’s still grim.

We can all have lapses of rationality once in a while, so I would just reassure her you’d not intended to hurt her feelings and that you value her friendship. You shouldn’t have to, but it would be kind.

You don’t get it. Never mind.

I do. I just disagree with it.

This right here. Exactly. Op seems more concerned about making a point that Sally is being difficult, rather than trying to see it from Sally’s point of view. They knew that what they did wasn’t very nice, and that’s why they arranged it in private.

What?! Are you saying Sally’s friends left her out, and now she’s upset. And so Sally is being abusive??!! Because….. what?
if she’s a close friend and her friends care about her, then yes it’s expected that they care to make the situation right and validate and hear her feelings.