Unclean..unclean..I am wearing the leper's bell..no one likes me in the village

[taxiforme]

AIBU to be so f*ing angry for being "rejected" by the village book group?

I am trying to "make friends" in the village I have moved into. Thought I would join the local book group via a friend that I had made who was a member and I kind of knew in passing the other members as their kids are friendly with my DH's kids...

Ohhh they go out for curries, they drink wine, sometimes they read books.

On saying I would pitch up for the next meeting I was told "oh no..I will have to put it to the other members"

..eh?

I am now told that "they feel they have enough members and cannot accept more"..there are EIGHT of them.

I feel so rejected and unwelcome but suspect that this is the work of the "XXName of the VillageXX Mums' mafia".

I am not a member of this sacred sisterhood. I work full time and don't wear Boden or Birkenstocks and have never been to Centreparcs..also I am a bit common. I have been seen in ASDA. I have a bit of an accent, too. I was asked if I was from "the North country" the other day.

What to do? Set up my own group sacred to the memory of "Princess Daisy" and "flowers in the attic" with a bit of jackie collins and bridget Jones thrown in? Or buy some flat ergonomic sandals, an overpriced flowery skirt and pay £1200 to sit in the rain in a wooden shed in Wiltshire as an effort to blend in?

Fight? Or resign myself to drowing in a well of loneliness of puffa jackets and John Lewis samples?

Well..thank you ladies..

I think we have a bit of a manifesto and quite possibly a cheese based snack menu on the go for my inagural meeting of the Village People Book Club. "Young man...There's a place YOU can go, when the book club says NO"

1. No shouting, wearing of birkenstocks or boden (fat face or white stuff at discretion of the comittee) puffas to be removed.
2. Snacks to be provided, must be Iceland or Aldi. No hoummos or pesto allowed.
3. Bring a bottle. Mateus Rose, Black Tower, Blue nun. Your choice.
4. Everyone has 8 minutes to have their say.
5. One children's book to be discussed in addition to the other every two months. Please can In have Folk of the Faraway Tree or the Wishing Chair?
6. GCSE/A Level students welcome as associate members to discuss their set texts (anyone who has a DURRRR SHAKEY -SPEAR is like so LAME daughter will be able to connect with this). No doubt some Judith Krantz and a bit of Martina Cole mixed with Lambrini and cheese puffs will shake them out of their torpor.
7. Short entry test which will involve

a) General knowledge (Mallory Towers and TOWIE synopsis) b) Comprehension (suggested text Peter Andre "my World") I would say this is the perfect book for any Peter Andre fan, you get to know his life, both the ups and downs ... I'm a big fan of Peter Andre so this was a perfect book for me.

Start a Heat magazine reading group all of your own.That should exclude anyone potentially irritating!

Please Miss may I test on St Clares instead of Mallory Towers?

What...and miss out on the Darrell Rivers prize for spiffingness?
Ok, but will cost you a bag of iced gems.

reminds me a bit of the 'buggy brigade' at my dd's nursery. they are all SAHMs or work part time. They have a 'breakfast club' where they go for a big breakfast every tuesday. Once night a week they also go out for a meal or drinks. They also go to kettlebells once a week. They wear BADGES with buggy brigade on it!

I'm jealous about it all and feel hurt too.

I work full time so I can't do the breakfast club or the kettlebells but it would be nice to be invited to evenings out. I chat away to all the mums and we go to all the kids parties. I always suggest meeting up or joining them when i have days off but I never get told.

I hate cliquey women!

oh god red rosette that induces all kinds of hate in me-fuck em! Really.. buggy brigade badges??? That is so bloody embarassing and totally uncool-bloody hell!!

Sorry but I would have to do something NAUGHTY to piss em off its so bloody Malory Towers-ooh no no no no no..you DO NOT want to be like them really..

Buggy brigades with badges? Oh love em. God do they have special BB salute?

What are kettle bells? Are they like kettle chips?

Redrosette, dont feel jealous lovey!! You have nothing to feel jealous of!!

OMG I actually feel like crying at the banality of some women..buggy brigade.. my arse.

Just going to reiterate that I'm a member of a book group, and in practical terms, you do have to have a number limit, if you're going to fit in someone's front room and all have a chance to share your opinions. I was invited when another couple left.

SO they might think you're a social leper, but they might well have agreed that 8 is a sensible number to sit in a room and discuss a book.

I know its bloody alpha mummy's for ya. Me and my mate call ourselves the slummy mummies cos we lie on twin sofas in my lounge farting and recovering from hangovers.
We laugh at how everything must be on rota like for these 'buggy brigade' types- riding the old man like a horse on a sat night and then ticking off that chore with 'thats the old man seen to for another week, what's next on the list? Mmm Kettlebell nite...better ring Martha...

Oh but Grendel see that's the thing innit? 'Sensible' not 'social' or 'welcoming' or 'inclusive'...where's the anarchy????lol

Oh god and someone actually had the time and inclination to 'organise' making the bloody badges and then remember to wear em ..dear god it exhausts me thinkin about it

I haven't read all the pages but if the Book Club is in a village and there are eight members, more members (even one) might be too many. Book Clubs like this are usually held at someone's house and there might be just not enough room for any more.

I'm a member of another group which is very much 'everyone is welcome, no-one is ever turned away, everyone has equal talents'. It's delightful in some ways and infuriating in others, because the people who have attended every session have to wait while the people who have attended three random sessions faff around and have to be shown what to do again. I'm not actually sure the result is genuinely inclusive of everyone.

kettlebells is an exercise class with weight thingies.

Yes they all wear BB badges. Its so very cliquey. The mums are chatty when I see them but i never ever get invited along to anything.

I would love to say something snarky lol as they increasingly get on my nerves.

Go for it !!

Hahah. This thread is so funny. I posted something in one of the Wiltshire local forums on this site the other day about a great-grandfather who had been taken from his family as a child and sent to Australia. He was from the New Forest region so thought I would just post in some of the forums near that area asking if they knew anyone from a Wells family who had stories of their children being taken from them. Made no allusions to any grand heritage (as I presume that they were rather poor) and someone wrote back saying " Would be a rather common name, I should think". Well, yes, you twit - even commoners get upset about being taken away from their families and their descendants are curious about possible relations.

Did they not mean that literally, Wells is a common name?

nothing of any import to add, 'cept to say some people are such fuckin up themselves tossers. And Geraldine, you crack me up...

DSis joined a local book group; it is vair vair exclusive, and she only got in because she is considerably richer than me. I wouldn't get in, that's for sure, and wouldn't want to be in it but for the fact that one member was having an affair with a v well-known TV personality so there was plenty of salacious gossip. But I got it second-hand anyway.

The group was filmed for a telly programme about .. well, book-groups. Sis was consumed with fury because they cut her contribution out. You only got to see the side of her nose, and she'd spent £££ on a new outfit. Oh, the Schadenfreude!

They don't sound like the kind of people you would want to spend an evening with anyway but I do understand your feeling rejected. Not sure if this is the same but several of my friends are in book groups and they tend to be small things that people invite you to rather than you just show up. Not saying that you did anything wrong in asking just suggesting that maybe that was the reason rather than that they don't like you.

"Did they not mean that literally, Wells is a common name?"

I'm sure they did but that has nothing to do with my original post mentioned. I wasn't asking whether or not it is an unusual name/family. Just asking if they were from a Wells family or knew of one that had children taken away from them in the earlier part of last century, I would like to hear from them.

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If someone said that to me on a family history forum, I'd guess that they meant that there are so many families called 'Wells', that knowing one with children who were taken away might not be the same people, and that it would be a shame to get your hopes up that you'd found some lost relatives.

You seem to have taken the comment as an insult, and I can't see why you'd see it as meant that way.