I only have 3 best friends, we’ve been friends since school and although now im in a totally different life stage to them we do get along well and have a good laugh when we do meet up, or so I thought.
The thing is I don’t think they actually want to be my friend anymore, I’m a single parent to a toddler with a failed marriage behind me, they’re in long term relationships with no children, have just bought their first houses and plan to get married before children.
It now seems to be only once every few months that we meet up with hardly any contact between. I’ve not seen them since August, I try to organise meet ups but they say they need to check their work rota but then never get back to me, they know they’re always welcome to pop round to mine for a quick catch up any time and only live a 5/10 min drive away.
I was invited out for a meal last week, but they’d obviously arranged it between themselves and invited me to tag along giving me the date, place and time, I declined because it was too short notice for my mum to babysit my son and they didn’t want him to come. They then invited me out to a meal on the 26th Oct, arranged between themselves and I was told the date, time and place if I wanted to tag along, they’ve now just cancelled because one friend has to work and the other is skint, yet they then mentioned about a cocktail night the next evening, this wasn’t to include me as they know I don’t drink or go out out, they’ve probably carried on that conversation elsewhere because I then replied saying ‘aww my mum had said she’d babysit, guess I won’t see you guys for a while now’, no reply.
I just feel so left out, upset and lonely and even cry about it, they’re obviously having a group chat between themselves without me, and I know they’re meeting up without me too which is fair enough they go out to bars and drink which they know I wouldn’t want to join in with but once in a while it would be nice if we had a girly night in or something I could be invited to, we use to have regular girls nights in even after I had my son. Also non of them even wished me a happy birthday last month either.
They were so supportive when I left my abusive ex and I don’t want to have no friends at all incase I need their support for anything else in the future, although last time I saw them one friend said very abruptly that she hopes I’ve learnt my lesson about my abusive marriage and also had a rant at me that I’d booked a holiday for me and my son instead of saving up to divorce my ex, I was almost in tears but held them back until they left.
Do they not want to be my friend anymore? Are they trying to fade me out? I feel like I’m bugging them if I keep trying to arrange something, should I just leave it and be happy to be invited out every once in a while? Should I say something ? Should I just decline all future invites or even just cut contact to save myself the upset?
I’m quite shy at first and struggle with small talk and making conversations, I’ve not managed to make any new friends, my current ‘friends’ have told me to make some new mum friends like it’s so easy to do, but it isn’t easy for me despite going to playgyms and toddler groups, I look young for my age too (I’m 26 with a 2.5 yr old) which doesn’t help. Sorry it was so long I’m just feeling sorry for myself and needed to get it all out.