Excluded

[3littlerabbits]

Probably am unreasonable but basically we have a group of friends, children all at school together, playdates and all the rest. Found out the rest of the are having a party tomorrow evening at one families house with all the children. No invite for us. Feeling quite rubbish about this. Got a real heart sinking feeling about this now. Tell me to get a grip?

I feel for you op . This happens to us quite a bit too. We are in a friendship group of about 8 school parent couples but dh and I often seem to be the ones left out of things at times. I think it's probably because within the group there are other separate little cliques, where the kids are all particularly close friends etc, so I don't think it's deliberate but it still hurts to see evidence on FB, hear about it in the playground etc, particularly as when it's us doing the hosting I go out of my way to make sure no-one is left out. I honestly think some people are just plain thoughtless. Put it out of your mind and have a lovely, fun day tomorrow, and if anyone alludes to being sorry that you were forgotten, just say you were busy anyway .

That's a good point, Rumpy. Maybe they've managed to offload their kids on another member of the group tomorrow, and the adults aren't actually meeting up at all?

sorry op. Don't take it personally, it just shows how rude & thoughtless they are, not you.
Just a thought, similar thing happened to me except it was dd left out of an Easter egg hunt party that all her other friends were invited to. Dd asked host friend why she wasn't invited & she said her mum said it was because she doesn't see me much. Ffs I work full time, don't penalise my daughter because I'm not there at 3.15 every day!! Said mum has gone right down in my estimation since then, dd (and host friend) were really upset I think it's just nasty.

Also - could it be just x,y & z going over not families?

whattime why do you go out of your way, when they treat you badly? I would be distancing myself a bit from them, instead of being walked over.

I'm still thinking it's a 'wrong end of the stick ' scenario if everyone's good friends.

Text them!

It's definitely not a babysitting thing, he said bbq and party. Good point about today though, I did only invite one set of dc, that's because my dc begged to have a playdate with one of them. Maybe that didn't go down well. I didnt cross my mind to invite all. Hmmm. And jesse I do miss out on a lot too as I don't do school pickups, maybe more than I realised. Sorry about your daughter and the Easter egg thing - that sucks.

I'd text them all saying "we're going to the zoo tomorrow if anyone fancies joining us?" And see what they reply back. If you get a load of excuses, you know they aren't real friends, if you get "what do you mean, I thought you were coming to ours?" You know it was a genuine mistake.

Given the dad named the other children that were going and didn't say "you'll see 3littlerabbits kids tomorrow won't you" or didn't say "see you tomorrow" to you, I'd actually guess it isn't a mistake.

I'm finding a bit of this with a particular friend. There are a few of us who are friendly through school and some closer than others. I thought I was closer to 2 in particular, 1 of them goes with the flow and doesn't tend to arrange anything but will go along to stuff, the other seems to take the initiative and make arrangements with 1 or 2 others. I have noticed I am never invited and only find out when she has posted it on Facebook. I admit, it really pisses me off. I know she has time off in school holidays and at the beginning of the summer I said "oh we should get together" and her reply of "oh, right, yeah" was said in a tone that she may as well said "thanks but I have no intention of meeting you at all"

I saw she had done a couple of things with others which I know would have been her instigation again. I've just been arranging stuff with another mutual friend but on days when I know other one can't make it as I don't see why she should be included when she seems to have some sort of problem with me. Although I suspect it's more to do with my DC. Ours clash a bit but according to others hers clashes with a lot of the other children (and she is aware of it apparently she jokes about it) and I also suspect she is jealous that my DD seems to be academically ahead of hers and she doesn't like it, she asks me what reading levels mine is on and what results they had last year and didn't have a good word to say despite mine doing well and me congratulating hers. I seem to get a lot of negativity from her aimed at my DD.

Is there anything similar in your group where you think that could be the problem?

Oh crap that is bad, yes I would definitely cut that 'friend' out and meet up with the others. Yes 3littlerrabbits, mabey that is it, just a slight thing that puts your friendship at a disadvantage. Well the host is no friend if she does that, how do you get on with the others? No, I don't think it was a mistake, as father would have said, see you at the party 3little which he did not, so they all know your not invited, which is crap.

I don't think that they can realistically expect you to have all the children or none tbh.

Has this ever happened before that just three of the families have done something?

Maybe they don't have a big enough table to host four families for dinner and they'll miss someone else off the invite list next time they have a do.

"as father would have said, see you at the party 3little"

Not necessarily if he was trying to get his kids home.

littlerabbits if you've been excluded on purpose then I'd distance myself from these wankers friends. I'd be gutted too if my friends did that! Also, there's no way you don't invite one family
Because there's not enough room that's nonsense. Have a glass of wine and try not to think about it

It hurts doesn't it, I had the same thing when a mum invited everyone else from the NCT group to her baby's christening apart from me, no idea if I'd done something to offend her as she was always perfectly nice to my face. She later showed herself to be a bit Batshit though and those closest to her had to deal with it while I didn't though so every cloud has a silver lining and all that.

Or he would have said something like see you later if he thought she was invited. He said we are going to see xyz and nit mentioned 3little, he knew op was not invited.

Invite them all out to tomorrow to the park or cinema or something and just see what they say.

Could be you are getting upset over nothing really.

Forget them, tbh I think these cliques based just on having kids the same age are often really dysfunctional, there's often a real shadenfraude (or however the f you spell it) thing going on and everyone gets left out sometimes cos they get so unwieldy. So you have a fab time tomorrow at the zoo and rise magestically above it. I can tell from your posts you're defo a cool, sparky chick.

You should just turn up at their gaff tomorrow and act natural, I bloody dare them to challenge your presence.

Are you certain everyone else is invited? Could the dad have made a mistake? My husband is pretty clueless when it comes to social arrangements and frequently gets muddled "Remind me, who are we seeing again?" "Where are we going?" "Oh, is so and so not coming??" He may have just rattled off the first names that came into his head to get his kids out the door.

If they are genuinely good friends and he is a nice chap, I doubt they would deliberately exclude you and then rub your nose in it. However, only you will know the answer.

Are all the other dads/DSs rugby types and your DH/DS not? Could it all be based around watching the match?

Have a fab time at the zoo!

Yeah I'd text and see what happens. I would be v upset too.

phone the host up, and ask directly 'am i invited to the BBQ tomorrow?'

'today' seeing as it's now the next day!