Excluding friend from holiday.

[Mickey540]

What would you do ? If anything. DS in a group of friends 7 to be precise. They want to go away for weekend overseas for one of their 18 bday. Except bday boy wants to ask 6 leaving one out. Apparently birthday boy doesn’t really talk to him however he is in the group, a friend of my DS and few of others. I have tried to talk to my DS about leaving one out how would he feel, and can a few say they won’t go without him. I feel the friend is being petty and spiteful but this is not a good look on my DS who has been friends for years as have few others. His mom is also a friend of mine albeit not really close I would feel awful if when she finds out.
i have spoken to my child. Would you just let them get on with it. Most are 17, 2 are 18

Great - I hope he doesn’t realise they don’t all want him there though - even if it’s just one person who is reluctant

It’s what happens when you make people include others even if they don’t really like them unfortunately

Hoping so as well. It was my son who put it to the group again as he had done before. Told him I’m proud of him for standing up.

So he's being used? Poor him.

Tbh, how will he feel if it comes out he's only there because the birthday boy was pressured? This could get really awkward.

Good for your son and his friends.

To the people saying your son is an adult 1) he isn’t, and 2) even adults have the opportunity to learn from their elders about treating people with respect.

If we don’t help our young men to learn how to consider others, is it any surprise they end up selfish men that our young women end up stuck with.

At 18 they are adults.

And how would you feel if you found out that your inclusion had been the subject of discussion because one person didn’t particularly want you there?

It has happened to me -the humiliation I felt has stayed with me and has made me very cautious about accepting anything like that again. I am AuDHD so that may have contributed but now I generally assume that I’m only being invited to things because someone feels they should,

I’m sure - for the friend’s sake I just hope he doesn’t ever find out that it was even the subject of discussion, It is very possible that the friend knows or will find out that your son had to persuade the group

Would anyone on here who is advocating reluctant inclusion feel okay if they found out they were the subject of it? Would it not affect how much you trusted people? Because it does.

If the others have to have a discussion about whether to include you, then I feel it’s kinder not to.

They are 18. Other than saying “it’s a shame x isn’t invited” you need to leave them to it.

It’s only one of them that advocated his exclusion the others pushed back.

As an adult you do need thick skin some people aren’t going to like you that’s life I’m afraid. Especially in larger group friendships.

Some people are never satisfied are they. Complaining about them leaving the boy out, then complaining the rest insist to include him 🙄 nasty little birthday boy will get his karma one day I expect. Probably thought he was the ringleader of the group. Also most are will 17 so not adults!

Wow. Nasty? How ironic. The people complaining he was left out were not the ones complaining that he was then included. 🙄

The person whose birthday it is should be able to choose who to invite.

And two of them are 18, the rest are nearly 18. So adults.

Birthday boy is probably regretting the whole thing.

No wonder some people on here have so many friendship dramas and whine about being left out of things

If he’s not paying for them he can’t override the majority just because it’s his birthday!

But this policy of including people regardless doesn’t help people develop that thick skin. Some of the venom directed towards this young man for not wanting to include the other one is crazy

Leaving one member of an established friendship group out without good cause is shitty behaviour though

And those saying they aren’t adults - they are old enough to drive and leave home FFS. I would hope they could make their own decisions about who to include without their mummies getting involved.

Exactly the ds is a young adult so if he thought mum was utterly wrong he would have just ignored her. He knew it was shitty and acted accordingly.

Im 52 and still run life dilemmas like this past dh and my young adult DDs as they do with me. Isn’t that normal family life?

@Mickey540 If your son is 17 you can tell him that he's not going if his other friend isn't invited. At a point you have to stand up for your values and 17 is def old enough. One of my ds 13 closest friends told ds to not include another boy on his birthday party. Since my son had been invited to the other boys bday party and he likes him I said that was not on. So his now former bestie didn't come but my son did the right thing and he feels good about that. Excluding people with no good reason (if you're friends) is not on. He will feel shit if he goes along with it. That's what I told my ds; If you do something that you feel isn't etically right then you will feel shit. If you follow your values you will be able to look at yourself in the mirror with pride no matter eventual fallouts.

Agreed. These threads are almost always ridiculous, anyway, because so many posters are clearly triggered into remembering their own schooldays when someone didn’t invite them to their birthday party, and all common sense leaves the building, because posters are so busy identifying with the one omitted.

See also threads about school run ‘cliques’ and ‘exclusions’.

Come on this is as intentional from the birthday kid. He was happy to see him often and use his car but saw fit to leave him out and everyone else would be invited

I hope that works! It would make the boy feel really left out , I’d be heartbroken if it was my son who was being treated so badly.

Wouldn’t it bother you that he was being invited only because someone had to be persuaded then? I bet it would bother him.

If he and his friends don't pipe up, it will probably be one of those situations where they look back and regret it. However, you can't tell 18 year old, they have to find out for themselves. I would try asking would he want his friends to stand up for him if the situation were slightly different? They all need to stand up and be counted really and say, yeah, its your birthday, but you're being a bellend only leaving one of our group out, it's out of order.

That’s a well-timed example of how common sense departs on these kinds of threads. The OP has specified that the birthday boy is the only other driver in the group, so is in fact the only other member who has had no need of this guy as driver.

Isn’t it perfectly possible that it’s the other way round — that the rest of the group only include this guy because he’s useful as driver, and it would be awkward to ditch him for the holiday and continue to expect lifts once home? The OP refers twice to the non-birthday boy habitually giving the others, including her son, lifts, but not the birthday boy, who has his own transport.

I mean, there’s no evidence either way. I’m just pointing out the projecting.

Obviously that doesn’t extend to the birthday boy. He didn’t want him there. But he had been pressured to include him. That isn’t very ‘ethical’.

It is no wonder so many people on here have the friendship dilemmas they do. If people spend time with those they choose to spend time with, then it is friendship. Making people include others is cruel and pointless.

Or maybe it’s just me that only would like to be invited somewhere when I am actually wanted?

From experience, it feels better to be left out than be included out of obligation. I am very wary of accepting invitations to anything in case it is out of obligation.

If I was the birthday boy I would just say ‘fuck it, let’s not bother’ to be honest. I would also find myself some other friends that didn’t ignore what I wanted in order to feel morally superior.