my friend gave the bag of baby clothes to someone else in front of me...

[lallyp]

I might just be hormonal and hence over sensitive but I have felt icky all day and this is the only place I can think of to ask if IABU...

My ds (4.5), dd (1.5) and I went to an easter party at a friends house today. In fairness the relationship with the friend is primarily based on our sons being playmates for the last few years. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the friend has always given me her dd(2.5) hand-me-downs. Today at the party she handed the bag of clothes to the woman next to me who has a dd (8 weeks old). The bag contains clothes and shoes for a 2 year old that my dd would be able wear straight away (she is tall) and the other mama will have to put them in a cupboard for a couple of years.

Is the 'friend' just being a bitch?

Am I just being silly cow?
I walked away feeling really horrible and 8 hours later here i am writing this...
Are there any voices of reason out there?

Just telling my I am being unreasonable is not that helpful as i already feel like a psyco for feeling the way i feel.

Thanks anyone x

Yanbu and not sure why you have been quite so attacked.

I think you sound lovely, and can understand why you feel upset - Australia is a big country and I'm sure you'll find nicer friends

It's not Australia per se; it's anywhere new.

Starting friendships from complete scratch, getting to know people and building up relationships is incredibly hard and very, very slow - even for the most outgoing, gregarious, confident person.

Especially as each new person you meet, you know nothing about and have to go through all sorts of levels of inane small talk and chit chat before you can even establish if you have anything in common with them, and whether they're friend material. To then move it onto a deeper level takes time, time, time.

And to be doing this with everyone you meet, with no old friends who know you and love you to fall back on... It is tough. Believe me. If you haven't experienced it, you have no idea. But by all means, be critical of the OP and her situation if that's easier.

Lally - you have my full sympathy, I totally understand. When I moved to a new country in my 20s it was brilliant and I made friends easily. I am very social and outgoing. When I moved again in my 30s with pre-school children it could not have been more different. The closest I have come to depression in my life.

How long have you been there?

Just because she has given to your previously, doesn't mean that she always has to.

You have benefited from her generosity for a while now, perhaps she wanted someone else to benefit too?

OP, where in Australia are you?

I do understand what is being said about finding it hard to make friends. I met one lovely woman a few months after I moved here (Australia) & apart from mums (only seen when at playgroup) at playgroups, she was the only friend I had & saw on a regular basis for some time.

When my daughter started kindy she met a lovely little lass & through their friendship myself & the little girls mum became great friends. After I became friends with her, my "original" (for want of a better word) friend started getting antsy with me, stopped wanting me as a friend & more of a babysitter/someone to run her kids to school.

That relationship ended as I couldn't live like that! But now, almost 6 years in, I am starting to make new friends, it does take time, because you don't have the school friends thing to fall back on. My friends are coming from my daughter & her friends (so other mums) being on the Gov council for her school & from volunteering.

If you are in SA, drop me a line!

Sodoff, no I'm sure it's not just Australia, but it is a common enough problem that many expats over here have.

Yes, agree, sorry didn't mean to sound like I was having a go at you, Thumb!

No worries, sodoff! [buwink]

I think YANBU to expect tact in such a situation. I would never hand things like that out in front if others, and with three kids we all swap in our friend group a LOT.
so no, YANBU.

great name sodoff...I'm jealous!!

And you are absolutely spot on. Hope op comes back to read all the supportive posts but ignores the dismissive ones from those who just don't get what its like making new friends with people you don't really naturally gel with, at a stressful time.

It all sounds rather passive aggressive on the part of the other mum. She may have given you clothes in the past to affirm her alpha mum status maybe? I knew someone like that once - appeared to be all generous on the surface in a bid to cover up the fact she felt superior to all of the other mums in our circle. A few of us cottoned on to what she was like. When one of the other (understated) mums came into a lot of money after her company was bought out, and moved to a beautiful, much bigger house in the area, this other mum showed her true colours and tried to undermine my friend with bitching, sniping comments. Eventually, she stopped coming to the place where we meet. The last time I saw her she had joined the WI and claimed it was that which had taken her time. I'm not into the WI personally but I do feel sorry for them as I sense she'll be trying to replicate what she tried to do with us.

Basically, OP, I think your post was more about a toxic friendship than a measly bag of clothes?

oh, you poor thing. It sounds like this 'friend' is horrible. You are doing the right thing to walk away.

As you've explained, it really isn't about the items of clothing. They are irrelevant. It's about the treatment of you generally, which really isn't fair.

Years ago, I was living with some girls (I was residential support at a project for young women with behavioural problems) one of them KEPT ON nicking stuff out of my food cupboard, I kept telling her it was unacceptable. One day, she took a tin of spag bol and I hit the roof. I went bonkers. She went out and bought me a replacement and couldn't understand why I was still cross. She couldn't get that it was bugger all to do with the tin, that I couldn't care less about a tin of food! She couldn't get that it was what it represented. The latest in a long line of taking the piss, of not respecting my things, of thinking she could do what she liked. It was that it was symptomatic of her attitude towards me that got me so angry, not the bloody tin itself!

Your situation is more along those lines, I think. It's really not the clothes that matter.