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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

.. to tell her to take a hike!

24 replies

LittleMermaidRose · 06/06/2017 12:05

A woman I was friends with for a year or two in high school has recently started taking her daughter to the same toddler's group that my niece goes to, so I've seen her the past three Tuesdays as it's me who collects my niece for my SIL.

We stop being friends when she got a boyfriend and decided to dump our whole group - ignoring our texts/calls, deleting us off Facebook.

Now when I see her she acts like nothing ever happened. She's asked me to add her on Facebook, asked for my phone number, and she keeps suggesting we go out for lunch to catch up.

I've given her the brush off, but she wont give up. What's the best way to tell her I'm not interested in her friendship without making things too awkward when we do see each other?

I've been polite to her and I don't mean to hold a grudge but I just don't need friends like that in my life. I hope I don't sound too bitchy!

OP posts:
Hissy · 06/06/2017 12:11

Just be vague love, no need to engage or get sucked in if you don't want to be.

it's only once a week and you are only collecting.

Allthewaves · 06/06/2017 12:16

Just keep it vague and polite

NoFucksImAQueen · 07/06/2017 06:30

Continue as you are I guess. But honestly are you really going to hold something against her she did in her teens? Seems like a long grudge

NoFucksImAQueen · 07/06/2017 06:30

Maybe ask her if she's still with him? Grin

babsjonhson · 07/06/2017 06:35

YANBU

It's not a grudge - I couldn't be arsed to be friends with someone like that because you'd always be wondering if you were about to be dumped for no reason.

Just block her on FB then tell her you don't use it and if she insists on having your number don't reply to texts etc

Nocabbageinmyeye · 07/06/2017 06:37

Don't add her if you don't want to but to be fair it was high school, I think loads of people do the whole "dump their friends for a guy" thing, not really meaning to when they are young, I'd get over it personally. If she showed signs of being like that again then fine, otherwise I'd put it down to being young and infatuated, it doesn't mean she will be like that as an adult. I certainly wouldn't hold it against her as being someone "like that"

Sirzy · 07/06/2017 06:40

I don't think I could be bothered holding grudges over high school daftness to be honest!

LedaP · 07/06/2017 06:43

If you really cant move past a silly decision that a teenager made, why not just tell her you are still really hurt about what she did.

Fwiw alot of people who dump their friends for a relationship do so because thry are being pressured into doing it by their partners. Which means they are being abused.

Honestly i would add her and see where it goes, if the friendship was a good friendship before she made a stupid mistakr.

Iamastonished · 07/06/2017 07:06

I agree with Leda. I think you are being mean to ignore her. If you had Facebook when you were at school you must still be very young. I would just be the bigger person and give her another chance.

228agreenend · 07/06/2017 07:10

I guess you are all still fairly young if you had Facebook during your teen years.

However, I think,you are being a little petty if you ignore her friendship now because of something that happenedduring teen years. It's not unusual for teens to dump existing friends when the excitement of boys come along.

You were friends once, can't you be friends again?

WinnerWinnerChickenDinner0 · 07/06/2017 07:10

Wow. I guess I'm blessed that no one has chosen to hold any of the many many silly choices I made as a teenager against me

You are both adults now. She is acting like one, are you?

SavoyCabbage · 07/06/2017 07:11

We all did stuff as children at school that was impulsive. I hid in the toilets so I didn't have to do cross country and now I go for a run every morning in a country park. If someone said 'no, you can't come for a run with us because when you were 16 you didn't want to run across a field and through a wooded area' I would be confused at their grudge holding ways.

MrsExpo · 07/06/2017 07:13

YABU. Time to grow up and move on beyond a bit of teenage silliness. If she seems like a decent person now then why not go for a coffee and a a catch up. She might just turn out to be a good friend.

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 07/06/2017 07:28

One person in this situation is being a grown up...

rocketman3 · 07/06/2017 07:58

maybe she realises she made a mistake and is trying to claw it back

flumpybear · 07/06/2017 08:10

You were st school then, you're adults now, step out the playground and grow up, give her a chance and if she's still behaving the same way then tell her ir walk away -

I'll tell you something for free - we all make daft decisions sometimes, even you!

AlternativeTentacle · 07/06/2017 08:14

Maybe she is now an adult and behaving like one?

BasinHaircut · 07/06/2017 08:18

I'm so glad Facebook hadn't been invented when I was in school

contrary13 · 07/06/2017 08:25

YANBU.

I had a "friend" like that - dumped us for a bloke when we were young teens (many, many years before FB... because I'm old Grin ), and then, when she was mysteriously single once more, came crawling back in the hope that she could pick us up where she'd dropped us.

My group tolerated it for a while, because she was considered "the fun one" - y'know, the giggly sort who always seems to be revered by teenagers/young adults. I tolerated it for a while longer, because she and I had known one another since our first day at school. However, because I'd known her since we were both 5, and not merely since we were 12/13, I knew her a little better than them. I knew that - when we were in Infants and Junior school, she was prone to dumping one group of friends for another if she thought they were "better". For some reason, though, she and I'd remained friends through all of that. The clique-hopping. To this day, I'm not entirely sure why. I was a bookish and very shy type of child. Anyway, I tolerated her behaviour/attitude for a while longer. When we were 15, though, and she "fell in love" with an older bloke (20, if I remember rightly), she dumped me, too. Which was fine. Whilst our group of friends had ceased to be her group of friends... they were still mine. We all rolled our eyes and made bets as to how long it would last and what we'd say to her when she came crawling back... Except she didn't. And that was also fine. I'd see her around town sometimes (we were at different schools by this point), always giggling in the middle of a new group of friends, or with different blokes - and she looked happy. Seemed happy. Which was great. I put it down to the fact we were at different schools and had different interests.

Five years later, when I was pregnant with my DD, I bumped into her on my way to work. "We must meet up!" and "I'm so sorry - but wow! You're pregnant!!" conversation happened and we exchanged contact details. For the rest of my pregnancy/early foray into motherhood, she was always around. I remember her arriving a few days before I gave birth, with expensive baby sleep suits, and a frame to put my DD's first photograph in. And I thought that maybe she'd grown up a bit, grown out of treating us all like the second choice. I asked her to be my DD's godmother.

When my DD was 2 and her son was 1... she dropped me again. An early "ghosting", actually. She simply stopped answering her 'phone to me, would ignore us if she saw us in the street... would ignore my tiny DD, who didn't understand why... and pulled her little son away from us if he tried to toddle up to us. It was awkward, because she lived in the next street to us at the time, but not for long because she moved. My group of friends all acknowledged how shitty her behaviour was (who ignores a toddler trying to say "hello" to a woman she'd always called 'Aunty'?!). I - like so many modern ghosting survivors - didn't know whether I'd said/done something to upset/offend her...

But I got over it.

When my son was a baby, and we were waiting outside the school gates for my (considerably older) DD... I think it was about 7 years later... she approached me. Her son was in the year below my DD at the same Junior school I (and my former "friend") had attended, so I knew there was a possibility that I might bump into her. That my DD, who still talked about her 'Aunty' X every now and then, might see her and, potentially, be upset by/about it. When she approached me, she must have known how shitty her past behaviour had been, because she was very hesitant. I remember it clearly. She congratulated me on my new baby, and made awkward small talk for a minute or two, with me stonily doing my best to not give more than a one word response to her questions. And then... out it came. Her excuse for having "ghosted" me all those years earlier - she'd been depressed, she said. In an abusive relationship with her son's father, she said, and I wouldn't understand (except I would have, because my relationship with DD's biological father was incredibly abusive - which she knew all about, because we'd discussed it several times prior to my DD's birth!). And that was why she went NC with myself and my small daughter. But she wanted to be friends again. Would I forgive her?

Stupidly, I did. I put it down to sleep deprivation clouding my better judgement, to be quite frank. My group of friends collectively pulled that face you get when you've announced a stupid decision and they know you'll regret it... but they won't be the ones to tell you, because they love you, and they want you to be happy. That face. The Hmm face. But she and I'd meet up every now and then for a coffee, and my DD was thrilled to have 'Aunty' X back in her life again because she'd taken her son under her wing at school and was looking after him (he has mild learning difficulties and a physical disability - so I actually thought that might have been why X had been depressed enough to cut us loose the first time). It lasted for a couple of years. She'd had her first daughter - by a new bloke - within the first year, and her second daughter 10 or 11 months after her first, because she was desperate to hold onto the bloke. I think it was my turn to pull the Hmm face when she told me this, whilst pregnant with her second daughter and as I hauled her first daughter around in her buggy because X was too afraid of miscarrying...

She texted me to say that she'd had her second daughter - and then immediately dropped off the radar. I bumped into her mum whilst I was in town one day and ascertained that she and the children were all okay... and that was that. I've not spoken to her since - and that was knocking on for 10 years ago, now. Her DS went to the same senior school as my DD, a year below, and is apparently "a nice enough kid"... but my DD wouldn't be seen around him, because he was younger. She came home one day and said that she'd seen 'X' rushing into the school "in her pyjamas, with the girls hanging off her", but my DD didn't say if she'd tried to say "hello" to her and been ignored, or if she'd ignored X totally. I didn't ask.

I do know that she married the new bloke... and they were divorced within a few years, with him gaining custody of the two girls. Her DS is friends with the son of a friend, who doesn't know that I used to know X and who likes to gossip. I felt a little pang of sympathy for her, I'll admit, but knew then that if X ever approached me again, it'd be me ignoring her. Fool me once, and all that. More importantly, I will never forgive her for the way she picked my kids up and then dropped them again as and when it suited her. My DD adored her - because she was fun to be around, as far as DD was concerned, whilst DS was more reticent. But he grew very fond of her elder daughter in the time X was back in our lives, and he was maybe 3 years old when suddenly they were gone again. Like DD, he didn't understand why we weren't meeting up with X and her first daughter for coffee, like we had done. He cried the first few times he asked to see them and I told him "no". It's that which I won't forgive.

So no, OP, you're not being unreasonable in the slightest to want to protect yourself from being used by this fairweather friend again.

Kokusai · 07/06/2017 09:08

Well it all sounds a bit juvenile.

I got dumped by my best friend when I was about 15 for a boyfriend.

We've recently got back in contact (shes married with 2 kids now) and have been having some fun times. People change from their 15 year old selves!

LedaP · 07/06/2017 10:21

contary can you not see the slight difference between your situation and the OPs situation?

Or are you suggesting that everyone that makes a bad decision as a teen, always continues to make bad decisions?

PinkPeppers · 07/06/2017 10:31

contrary whatever happens with your (ex) friend and you ha nothing to do with the OP and her friend.

Your friend might have been a shitty friend or she might well have struggled with lots of problems or maybe it was a bit if both.
It doesnt mean that everyone will at like that. Thankfully!

OP tbh from your post, its hard to tell. She might still be flaky and mighty drop you again. Or she might well have changed a lot and grown up.
If you dint want to be friends so be it. But to give as a reason that you somehow lost touch when you were teenagers is a bit crap tbh

Birdsgottaf1y · 07/06/2017 11:13

""I just don't need friends like that""

I agree with what pp posters have said about it being ridiculous to judge someone on how they were as teens.

I know quite a few Nurses, Police and Social Workers who were anything from anti-social to violent up until their 20's, who once they had grown up and got over their childhoods, had a complete turn around.

I changed once i became a Mother and grew up a bit. I'm a different person now approaching 50 that i was in my 20/30's.

Decide if you want another acquaintance, you are perfectly entitled to not want one. But you have no idea what sort of friend or person that she is.

KERALA1 · 07/06/2017 11:22

Wow if we all refused contact with people who did daft things in their teens no one would have friends from school ever surely?! Agree what she did wasn't great but honestly hardly crime of the century. Life's too short. Are you still all quite young now so it seems recent?

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