Hi - I have changed my name for this in case I get told a few home truths and cannot take it. I have never posted on AIBU before and am a little nervous but here goes. It's going to sound ridiculous anyway but I was quite upset about it.
Tomorrow a friend of mine has an open invitation to go over to her house - she has three kids and so do I, all primary school age. It sounds like there might be two other families there, each with one child I think. She plans to do a bbq and as we are vegetarian warned me in advance (I suppose in case we decided not to go because of seeing the meat being cooked). Anyway, towards the end of our phone conversation about what time to come over etc... I mentioned that I would bring over cheese sandwiches for my kids and that if I managed to make 200 (exaggeration obviously) for everybody else too. She then very didactically asked me/told me to bring food over for everybody and not just my kids as she wants us to share all the food. She also told me that she would be making various things (nice adulty things) including bagels with cream cheese (there is an outside chance my kids would eat these, they are fussy).
I suppose I could have left it at that but her tone annoyed me and I said that I hadn't meant that my kids would hide in a corner and not share their food, just said they are fussy etc...
She then must have told me another once or twice or even three times that she finds it awkwark when people don't share food. I said several times that I had not meant what I said in that way but reiterated how fussy my kids are. After her last repetition of how awkwark she finds it and what she would prefer, I said that since my kids would not be eating anything from the barbecue and that others would be, they would need a few sandwiches each... The conversation then ended in a forced way and with me thinking that I no longer felt like going to her do tomorrow.
Thinking about it more rationally, I should have said that I would be bringing food for the adults to share (which I normally do, I am not mean about sharing food), and also said that I didn't think anybody would want a boring cheese sandwich which is the kind of food I give my kids when we are out and about and when I want to be sure that they will actually eat. This would be one way of making sure we could stay at her house longer without them getting whiny / hungry. What annoyed me about my friend is the way she talked down to me and told me what would be happening. I somehow felt unable to agree with what she was saying because her tone offended me. I hadn't even got to the part about what other food I might bring, in my head I was thinking of a way to ensure my kids could enjoy themselves at her house with a full belly. Additionally, when she first told me about the bbq she suggested I bring some vegetarian food on it - I suppose this would have been for me and my kids to eat while the others were eating meat so what is the difference between my bringing veggie food for the bbq and me bringing cheese sandwiches?
She has a thing in general about people not sharing food and I feel that she just fed my statement into her whole bugbear about people sitting separately with their own food. I bet that tonight she has been telling her husband that I wanted to bring my own food and not share it and that when she tried to tell me how wrong that would be I would not back down... She is a warm person in general and is one of the people who invites me over etc... but she talks about herself / her things incessantly without allowing other people much talking space, and has a tendency to be over prescriptive/didactic though partly this might be due to cultural differences.
Anyway, if you haven't keeled over with boredom, what do you think?
[Running away scared]