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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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:

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 15/01/2016 15:01

Captain - a number of people have shared their stories on MN, of how they have introduced someone to a group of friends, who has then gone on to exclude them from the group. This is what people are calling being a Wendy.

So clearly such people exist, and, on MN at least, they are called Wendies - so I don't think you can say there is no such thing.

CaptainCrunch · 15/01/2016 15:50

I don't doubt that people DO this, my point is the "friends" they manage to "steal" are not worth having if they drop you for new shiny Wendy. If you had decent friends to begin with, this wouldn't happen.

wannaBe · 15/01/2016 15:59

The thing though about "Wendy" is that as a rule we only get half the story on here. And while there may be some instances where a group of friends might drop one friend seemingly for no reason, I would imagine that in many instances there are also valid reasons why these friends back off from one particular member of the group.

E.g. I know someone who will tell anyone who wants to hear that whenever she has introduced friends to each other they have immediately turned on her and she is the one shut out. The truth however is that this particular woman is so demanding and aggressive but at the same time over sensitive, that as a rule, many people put up with her for as long as they can, taking into account her sensitivities, and at some point they just snap and cut all contact. But if she posted here that she had been excluded for seemingly no reason (she won't listen to reason) people would tell her to ignore the group, that they were all bitches and that she was better off without them. but in three/six months time she will have yet another falling out with yet another group of friends who will distance themselves from her because she reaches a point where she is so intolerable.

If a group genuinely just follows the wims of one person then they weren't friends in the first place, and chances are they would have moved on sooner or later anyway, albeit perhaps not on mass.

CaptainCrunch · 15/01/2016 16:16

I agree with you wannaBe and have a former friend like the one you described.

We were close but she was high maintenance, used to phone me 4 or 5 times a day and was very needy and paranoid.

She introduced me to a couple of her friends and they were great fun. One of them contacted me about a hobby that we had a mutual interest in and asked to meet for lunch and a chat.

Needy friend got wind of it and completely lost the plot at me, totally batshit crazy. I refused to back down and went out with the other friend and told her what had happened. She was appalled and gradually distanced herself from her as she couldn't put up with all the drama.

Sometimes alleged "Wendys" are just normal people having a normal social interaction but for some reason the "original" friend seems to think they have a copyright on the friendship.

PrincessFrillyKnickers · 15/01/2016 16:32

OP - I agree that they have behaved in a really horrible, bitchy way towards you and that it's best to move on from this particular friendship. However, I am wondering why A reacted so strongly - not that this is in any way a justification for her behaviour. Do you think that her dd may have said something to her about the fight with your dd that made it seem more serious than it actually was? Were you there when the falling our took place? I had an experience with a school mum who gave me the evil eye for ages because her dd had been spinning a few stories about my dd's behaviour. Eventually, we got to the bottom of it and now just about talk to each other. Would you consider asking B and C why she is SO angry?

GarlicBake · 15/01/2016 18:31

Captain & wanna, you're being unfair to those of us who've been majorly Wendied by properly insane (narcissistic, in my case) Wendies and to those of our friends who were manipulated by them.

There's nothing in OP's story to suggest A is any worse than your average wanker, but it's no better to claim that being abused by a same-sex friend means the victim's at fault than to say the same about DV victims.

totalrecall1 · 15/01/2016 18:45

I am confused. Why did A have the right to exclude you from the lunch, it wasn't her place to make that decision. Why didn't you just tell her that you intended to go to the lunch because you had as much right as her, and that if she didn't want to see you she shouldn't come. I do find that strange

Cheeseoncrumpets · 15/01/2016 19:09

I also agree with wannaBe. I knew someone a bit like that as well, I remember one self pitying rant where she moaned that she was sick of every friend she ever had "shitting on her". Well, quite honestly it wasn't hard to see why. She was very spoiled, and possibly slightly narcisstic. She needed to be the centre or attention at all times and the things she did to do that was just absurd. Think cart wheels in the street and pretending to be drunk on half a bottle of WKD and then standing on tables in bars and falling all over the place. She couldnt handle crticism and took offence over the most innocent of things and always managed to turn a conversation back to herself.

Understandably people quickly got fed up with and ditched her.

KERALA1 · 15/01/2016 19:57

Exactly total - who made A queen of the world deciding who goes where?

TheDowagerCuntess · 15/01/2016 20:58

To be totally fair, I would have skulked off shame-faced, rather than pitch up to a lunch where there was even a remote chance I wasn't wanted. 😕

CaptainCrunch · 15/01/2016 21:06

Don't compare "Wendy" nonsense (disclaimer...it doesn't exist) to domestic violence. That's disgusting.

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 15/01/2016 21:14

Of course Wendys exist

CaptainCrunch · 15/01/2016 21:29

No, they don't, shite "friends" do though. You can't script or control a friendship.

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 15/01/2016 21:41

Some people have an agenda to spoil people's friendships. On MN those people are referred to as Wendy. It is certainly a thing that happens in RL.

CaptainCrunch · 15/01/2016 21:44

Again not disputing it happens but the fickle twats who go along with it are NOT friends. The alleged "Wendy" is not to blame.

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 15/01/2016 21:48

Yes I agree the so called friends must be pretty flaky in the first place to cool their friendship because of someone/something else without giving the OP or anyone similar the benefit of doubt.

nextusername · 15/01/2016 22:18

I agree ThroughThickAndThin01. Surely if there is any friendship there at all, someone would at least give the OP the benefit of the doubt and ask to hear her side of things. It's so lazy and hurtful to just blank someone.

Leelu6 · 15/01/2016 22:20

GarlicBake - I heard it was Peter Pan?

GarlicBake · 16/01/2016 01:53

Don't compare "Wendy" nonsense (disclaimer...it doesn't exist) to domestic violence. That's disgusting.

Don't be so bloody rude. Abuser abuse all sorts of people - friends, colleagues, neighbours, business partners, clients, suppliers ... leaving trails of devastation. If it will profit them, in their eyes, to alienate a target from their support network then they will.

Victim-blaming is victim-blaming. You don't get out of that by pretending it only applies in a single context.

Leelu - not the crocodile?

JerryFerry · 16/01/2016 04:07

SurlyValentine JerryFerry "I used to get Wendied but now I am trying a bit of Wendying myself. Quite enjoying it actually."

You sound so proud of yourself hmm Don't let the thought of upsetting someone who has done nothing to deserve it put you off though. Who knows, maybe the maths has been wrong all these years and two wrongs really do make a right.

Now what in god's name would you know about the people involved? Oh that's right, nothing. I do and I'm comfortable with it.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius - Jerry - are you saying that you have been introduced to a friendship group, and are now deliberately (and maliciously) excluding from that group the person who introduced you? And you are enjoying that? If so, I think that is despicable of you.

Er no, I did not say that. I said I am Wendying in a couple of groups ie. hooking up with one over the one who introduced us. Nothing remotely malicious. In one neither of us is in touch with the third because she's revealed herself to be somewhat unpleasant. In the other we are all still in touch, just a little re-aligning.

Did I say I was being malicious? No, that was your words. Like I say, I'm cool with what's happening. You seem determined to be offended.

Thing is, friendships evolve, friendship groups change. Some people who at first appear nice and friendly reveal themselves in time to be just not worth the energy. I don't believe in soldiering on with the original line up just because A got in first.

Narp · 16/01/2016 04:36

And this is why it's not a great idea to get too close to the parents of children in your children's class.

Upset all round

Salene · 16/01/2016 05:03

What a bunch of childish idiots, youre well rid.

Leelu6 · 16/01/2016 09:48

I don't think you are Wendying though, JerryFerry? Wendying is what STDG described.

pictish · 16/01/2016 11:43

kiDon't be so bloody rude. Abuser abuse all sorts of people - friends, colleagues, neighbours, business partners, clients, suppliers ... leaving trails of devastation. If it will profit them, in their eyes, to alienate a target from their support network then they will.

True. I have good social skills and friends I don't have issues with at all. I enjoy positive relationships with other people. I don't encounter many difficulties in my relationships.

I was 'wendied' years ago and with as much certainty as I can muster, I will tell you that this woman's fixation on getting rid of me was absolute.
I introduced her to the group (whom I had essentially grown up with) and in hindsight, I think she felt insecure about only being there because I brought her in...not that I was thinking that way, I was happy to share, hence the introduction. They were a cool crew, and I believe that being in the circle on her own merit was so important to her, she could only be satisfied when she took me out of the equation entirely.

I have never known a more skilled nor driven manipulator.

Bambambini · 16/01/2016 12:33

Pictish - did you ever speak to any if the others about it, those you had known so long?

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