About my friend?

[cherrynibs]

Name changed as this could be quite outing

Earlier this year my old boyfriend from university died in quite shocking circumstances. It made the news. We were still in touch, no hard feelings etc. After he died some of my friends who had been there made a point of phoning me, making sure I was sitting down etc. to give me the news. I was surprisingly upset and shocked and appreciated this.

A few days later, once it was in the papers, another close friend from our uni class texted me with a link to the news article and "OMG look xxxx has died" plus description of how it happened. I found this message pretty insensitive and replied saying "Yes I already know, the funeral will be on (date), but just to let you know- if I hadn't already heard I would have found your message pretty upsetting. Please don't send a message like that to any of the rest of our old class, you never know who you might upset after all"

She never replied.

This was a few months ago and I haven't heard from her since but the thing that started me thinking is my 30th. My DH organised a surprise party for me. She wasn't there. I found out later that she simply hadn't responded to his party invitation. She also didn't wish me happy birthday or anything. For context it was her 30th earlier in the year and I took her out for drinks and got her a bespoke piece of jewelry.

We would always usually have a christmas catch-up around this time of year and I'm not sure what to do. I feel sad that I have possibly lost this friendship, and am not sure if I was BU with what I sent her. If I was, how should I try and resolve things? When I open my messages the last one is that text that I sent her, and it feels a bit awkward - also reminds me of what she said and makes me a bit upset. Saying that, if I wasn't being unreasonable what do I do regardless!?

Sorry this has been so long and thanks for reading if you made it this far!

Nice message

I think your text was good. I hope you manage to go back to being good friends.

Having read a lot more of the responses to your message, I’m still really surprised

You’ve stated the deceased is a distant acquaintance of the friend, where as they were someone who you were in a relationship with previously and still obviously friendly with.

I genuinely thought your message was polite and a gentle warning that maybe they needed think before messaging the details of a difficult death, I’m actually really baffled that so many people have said they’d distance themselves from a friendship over such a comment rather than just say sorry no offence meant, you are the only person I sent that too I was just so shocked to read it (if that was the case and they weren’t just gossiping) hope you are ok?

It’s definitely things like this with highlight how different everyone’s approach to different situations are

Hope the whatsapp message response is what you are after and I’m really sorry to hear about your friend.

Because I think the offence has been in the unintentional subtext where the OP has said it’s a horrible way to find out and she had/told everyone - and her friend has gone hang on I found out like that no one bothered to spare me.

The bit where it treats it as an exciting piece of gossip she's sharing (OMG) rather than as really sad and serious news?

I'd just like to point out that using OMG doesn't necessarily mean she's treating it as an exciting piece of gossip. OMG is what I'd say if I were shocked.