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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be upset at how these friends have behaved?

157 replies

Kitonian · 14/01/2016 22:51

I have been friends with 3 other mums from my DD's school for several years. I will call them A, B and C. We have, for the past couple of years met for lunch once a month and also occasionally gone out for meals/drinks in the evening.

A is quite a negative person and seems to see the worst in people and has had a lot of fallings out in the past with others. Two months ago our DDs had a bit of a falling out at school. It only lasted a week, at the most (they are 8) and then they were friends again.

During this time, friend A:

Deleted me from an ongoing Facebook chat that the 4 of us had to keep in touch with each other.

Deleted and blocked me on Facebook.

Sent me a text saying she was not willing to spend anymore time with me or speak to me again due to the girls falling out, and that I was not welcome at our next planned lunch for the following week.

I replied to her and said that it was a shame that she wanted to fall out over the girls having a spat, but said I would be willing for us to meet with the girls if she wanted to try to sort things out between them. She replied again saying that I was deluded and to fuck off and that she was blocking my number on her phone.

I was upset but decided she couldn't have been much of a friend, but wanted to still be friends with B and C. I sent a text to both of them saying that A was upset with me over a falling out our girls had and had told me she would never speak to me again and wasn't welcome at lunch, but that I would like to keep in touch with both of them and perhaps the 3 of us could have lunch at some point to catch up.

Both sent me texts in reply along the vein of they don't want to get involved and that A was very upset etc. Neither of them said that they would like to meet up with me again. It was just kind of accepted as a given that I had been turfed out of the group. I presumed that they wouldn't go to lunch with A either, but no, the lunch the next week that I was uninvited to still went ahead, as they posted on FB about it on the day!

AIBU to not particularly give a shit about A given her behaviour, but to be very disappointed with B and C? I didn't expect them to get involved, just wanted to try to keep in touch with them and to let them know what had happened. If they see me at school they are both nice and polite with me but quite cool, it's clear their loyalties lie with A. I guess I just thought they would see it more objectively and also I thought they liked me and valued me as a friend but they clearly didn't if they are just willing to drop me on another person's say so?

OP posts:
TurnipCake · 14/01/2016 23:34

God, they all sound like a bunch of planks

Save the money you would have spent on lunch with them and buy something lovely Flowers

LeotardoDaVinci · 14/01/2016 23:34

She'll pick on one of them next - you won't be around to say: "haha" because you will have moved on and will be a bit Confused as to how you ever found these people interesting but it will happen.

I was a B or C in that sort of situation once (was a student so fairly young) I was really sorry for D (you) but didn't know how to handle it and the easiest was was to follow A - the definite alpha of the group. All was plain sailing for a while until A decided I was next in line for a kicking - I realised what was happening and moved on, I tell you my mind still boggles at how I ever was friends with that group but A's personality was so strong that she is the one I remember most about 20 years later.

Chin up - you've had a lucky escape.

ElderlyKoreanLady · 14/01/2016 23:35

Decent friends can't be swayed by a Wendy OP.

I've been majorly Wendied before. A really big group of friends who I thought I was very much a part of. Then the Wendy took a disliking to me (she'd really embarrassed herself in front of me and couldn't handle being around me despite my discretion). When I realised what was happening and that it was working, I just gave up and moved on.

I've seen a few of them since while they were together, including the Wendy. The rest acted like they had no clue what had happened and started getting friendly and catching up. The Wendy saw this and started trying to Wendy all over again.

Bambambini · 14/01/2016 23:41

Just to be sure before you write them off - you could actually invite b&c for lunch/coffee - put them on the spot. What you said earlier sounded a bit vague. I think many things like this are down to miscommunication and lots of assumptions.

Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost · 14/01/2016 23:53

She deleted you from her face book because of your dd and hers falling out. Is she on glue. I couldn't be arsed with idiots like that.

TheVeganVagina · 14/01/2016 23:54

I find it fascinating that grown women behave this way. Im sure it hurts, but you sound much more highly evolved them then. There is no other way i can think to put it. Imagine having a role model like that.

gandalf456 · 15/01/2016 00:00

What is a Wendy?

Lucy61 · 15/01/2016 00:03

Yes, who is this Wendy?

knobblyknee · 15/01/2016 00:03

gandalf456 I think you might get different answers to this, but you know at school when the bitchy girls take over the Wendy House and dont let you play? That. But with grown ups.

gandalf456 · 15/01/2016 00:05

Ahhhh...very good

Lucy61 · 15/01/2016 00:09

Op- what did your girls fight over? If it cased such a rift, it must have been memorable!

In any case, ignore them. They don't sound like a great loss. Im always surprised when grown women's behave like this.

seafoodeatit · 15/01/2016 00:09

YANBU!

I can't believe how they've behaved, this sort of thing makes brings out my anxiety and is one of the reasons I don't really engage too much with the parents at DS' school. I'm really sorry that people you thought were friends turned out to be such bitches, don't give them another thought and leave them to it. I second a previous poster, remove B & C from facebook too.

I too have no idea what a Wendy is.

DixieNormas · 15/01/2016 00:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Alisvolatpropiis · 15/01/2016 00:12

With friends like them who needs children?

Fuck that!

sleeponeday · 15/01/2016 00:15

There was a thread several years ago, I think in chat, by someone who had made friends with a newcomer, and introduced her to all her social circle. The newcomer then made friends with all the OP's in her own right, which wasn't a problem at all. But over time, the OP was slowly annexed from all the rest and ended up being ostracised, seemingly on the say-so of this woman she'd introduced to the rest, and had no idea why. I seem to remember that the others weren't even willing to tell her why, when asked, though could be wrong? Anyway, they were all dancing attendance on the newcomer, as the social Queen Bee, and the OP had given her the pseudonym of "Wendy". A lot of other posters contributed similar stories, and so "wendying" became a MN verb.

OP, these women are ridiculous. Cowards, too. I'm sorry you are having to deal with it. Idiotic behaviour from friends hurts, even when you know they are in the wrong. Flowers

nextusername · 15/01/2016 00:20

YANBU. A sounds manipulative. B and C sound like they can't think for themselves. They've heard A's side of the story (which may have been exaggerated) and it doesn't even occur to them that your side may be very different, and that you as well as A are "very upset". They're not real friends if they are so easily swayed against you.

TaliZorahVasNormandy · 15/01/2016 00:23

People who do this shit never left the playground. Life is too short to be hanging around with these dementors.

OP she wont just stop at you, you can smile when nasty bitch picks sheep b or sheep c as her BFF. Just resist the temptation to say I told you so.

whoreandpeace · 15/01/2016 00:26

So glad I don't do groups and so glad I don't do the school mum-friends thing. Early on in my parenting "career" I met a mum who told me that she didn't do the mum-playground-friendship thing because the only thing she had in common with the other mums was that their children were the same age at the same school and that this alone was not enough to form the basis of a friendship. It was a refreshing thought and one I then copied. It was good advice.

OP, this is painful for you. But hold your head up high, always have a beaming smile on your lips and a sense of purpose in your stride. Don't let these unkind people get you down.

coffeeisnectar · 15/01/2016 00:27

Same thing happened to me and while I now don't have any friends as such, I at least am no longer involved with a toxic woman who plays everyone off against each other so they all compete for her friendship. I'm much happier without that crap.

kipperssippers · 15/01/2016 01:05

B and C are followers and followers are not people you want to be around.
A is a leader but a nasty one so again not someone you want to be around.
Fuck them all off, they sound like complete losers tbh

GarlicBake · 15/01/2016 01:57

Here's a thread about 'Wendies'. There have been loads, but I think most were in Chat so have disappeared.

My Wendy turned out to be a full-scale Single White Female crazy woman, and actually was called Wendy! But the generic name came from a well-known novel, whose title escapes me.

sleeponeday · 15/01/2016 02:41

There's a link to the original Wendy thread in a Relationships thread shortly after it was posted, here, but the original was indeed in Chat, so is now gone. That's where the word in this context comes from, but after over 3 years, it's just in the MN lexicon now. What's interesting, OP, is that so many people have had the experience that the term caught on so fast. This is an instantly recognisable type/scenario. Depressing, really, when most of us thought that stuff would end with adulthood.

Aeroflotgirl · 15/01/2016 07:15

I would ditch the lot, even B and C, they are sheep, friends with you at a superficial level, not a deeper level. True friends woukd certainly not take this crap from A. I remember doing something similar and being a follower, because at school this girl called 'Anna' said we shoukd end be friends with 'Zoe'. I was 10, not an adult!

Greyponcho · 15/01/2016 07:37

OP - maybe I've missed it, but you've still not said if you've invited B & C for coffee/lunch separately? Is there a chance that at their lunch with A they were hearing all about her side of things (whether they wanted to hear it or not) and are receptive to hearing yours? Many people seem to be a bit quick to say "get rid" without actually talking to them first. You may be pleasantly surprised.

KERALA1 · 15/01/2016 07:38

Whore that is such nonsense. Your university friends you only met because your parents all had sex in the same year. Your work friends because you happen to have applied for the same job.

Op this is crap and feel for you. But dismissing all child / family related friendships is throwing the baby out with the bath water.