Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Original poster

How to do this without offending friend

142 replies

Claudia1980 · 24/01/2019 06:22

I’ll try to keep this short. A school mum messaged me and another mum ( my good friend) about catching up for dinner.

We both responded we were keen to catch up. Fast forward two days and my good friend tells me and the mum who was organising the dinner that she has invited another friend. The mum who invited us doesn’t know her. I do but don’t have much time for her.

I feel like my good friend has kind of hijacked the dinner. I think the mum who invited us is a bit put out.

How do I tell my friend it was a bit weird to invite the other mum and that I don’t want to go to dinner with the tosser mum from baby class? Any I’m guessing the original inviter doesn’t either seeing she doesn’t even know her!

Advice please. What would you think? TIA

OP posts:

MRex · 24/01/2019 11:23

Wow, some of you are really bitchy. If somebody kept avoiding hosting I'd actually assume they were worried about their house, particularly if it's a young woman with older mums, it wouldn't affect what I thought of her personality. An invite to someone else's house is rude because they're paying, but if it's the pub or restaurant it's nice to ask but I'd expect the answer to always be yes. I guess that all 4 of you were in the same baby group, which is why your friend thought it was ok to just invite this fourth, and you have managed to ostracise the young woman since, you're a very nasty person if that's the case OP.

marymarkle · 24/01/2019 11:40

There is always a split in these kind of threads. Those who are more the merrier type, and those who think it is rude.
I think the more the merrier type tend to be blind to nuanced social dynamics and don't really understand why inviting someone else can change a fun evening into "making conversation."
I like meeting new people, but when I choose to. Sometimes life is tough and I have the energy to go out with friends and have a laugh, but not to have a getting to know you session. The second takes emotional energy.

ShatnersWig · 24/01/2019 11:48

My favourite example of my friend I referred to earlier.

My best friend entered a sports tournament on the coast but didn't expect to get very far but knew she'd have to play Monday and Thursday no matter what. She asked if I would like to join her for the week so we'd have a bit of a holiday and she'd have some company. Absolutely. Great. We booked the hotel. She said "shall we see if XY and Z would like to come and join us Friday night - Sunday?" XY and Z being three couples with whom we socialise more than anyone else. Absolutely.

So friend contacts XY and Z and says "I'm playing in a tournament in May but wondered if the rest of you fancied joining me and Shatner for the weekend once I've stopped playing?" She lets them know the hotel we're staying at, they all say yes and book themselves in and we book a place for a meal on Saturday night.

On Saturday morning over breakfast Zwife says "oooh, Clare will be here in a minute". We all look at each other. Zwife has invited a friend of hers to join us. We don't know her from Adam. Then it's "oh, we need to eat somewhere else tonight as Clare doesn't eat Indian".

Rude as fuck.

UnicornSlaughters · 24/01/2019 12:17

@Shatner! Did you all go along with the gatecrasher forcing you to change your plans? I'd have told Z wife and Clare that we'd meet them after dinner for some drinks.

Pernickity1 · 24/01/2019 12:35

Gosh you don’t sound very pleasant OP. If your friend invited the “random tosser” she must have some redeeming features I’m guessing? What’s the big deal? It’s just another person, don’t be so cliquey.

ShatnersWig · 24/01/2019 12:57

@Unicorn We did, although best friend can be a bit intimated by Zwife so after a short pause X jumped in and said "no, we all agreed we were doing this, so if you want to go somewhere else we'll catch up later".

Not the first time Zwife had invited someone to something else. Was the last though.

UnicornSlaughters · 24/01/2019 13:07

@Shatner don't know any of you but I'm cheering for X! Zwife sounds like a CF.

slappinthebass · 24/01/2019 13:12

Your friend has gone against accepted social etiquette, but if she's good friend like you say she is then why on earth didn't you reply as such or ask her what she was thinking/why she has invited her on the group message? Have there been no replies since she announced this? Perhaps private message the host, suggest you and her have your own catch up, and treat the original date as a different more causal meet up and change it to an open invitation to all the school parents who want to go.

Rudeness of your friend aside, your reasons for not having time for younger baby class mum are extremely shallow. Ageist/classist. It doesn't take a genius to work out reasons why she wouldn't be comfortable inviting a group of older mums round to her house. Have some empathy.

ShatnersWig · 24/01/2019 13:17

@Unicorn She's actually very nice and very generous and very sociable but has such a laid back husband she's always had to be the driving force and I think occasionally it comes out the wrong way! She now "gets" that sometimes, you want or need the dynamic just to be "the group" and other times it's absolutely appropriate for it to be a bigger gathering but you say "anyone fancy the pub tonight, and shall we invite A B C D E as well?"

SassitudeandSparkle · 24/01/2019 13:20

I think this scenario is a bit different to a 'the more the merrier' one - in this case, the OP knows the extra invitee and doesn't like them. That's not about being unwilling to meet new people - they have met!

I would say that I'll skip this one and the three of us would catch up another time (as many other posters have said), if the flaky mum is another school mum then you could try and meet up as a larger group with more people to see how it goes but I'd try and get a catch up with just the three of you booked in first.

hellsbellsmelons · 24/01/2019 13:26

Please contact the other mum (organiser) separately.
See how she is feeling about it.
Arrange to meet with her on your own if you can she is up for it.
Tell your friend that you think it's rude that she invited CF and you aren't happy about it and that she shouldn't have done it as it wasn't her place.

Lycanthropology · 24/01/2019 13:35

How is the younger woman, who was invited, a CF hellsbells ?

Handprints2018 · 24/01/2019 14:32

I automatically thought it was at friend's house which is rude if so. Otherwise the friend is not a host at all. However, OP has not clarified.

Passportapplication · 24/01/2019 14:48

We need to know if meal is out or not!

Agree that it's not on to invite someone else without running it by original invitees first. I too would be really miffed esp if it turned out to be someone who I was less than fond of. Changes the dynamic entirely

FuckingYuleLog · 24/01/2019 14:53

Even if good friend has invited the other guest to the hosts house surely it is the hosts business to take that up with good friend and ask her why she is inviting people to her house without checking first! Nothing to do with the op.
If the op now doesn’t want to go because she doesn’t like the other woman and the host is happy to have the extra guest then the op needs to decline. I would make an excuse though rather than say it is because the newly invited person is coming. She hasn’t done anything awful and if the op can’t sit down for a meal with her that’s her own issue imo. You can be slightly miffed about the dynamic changing without flouncing.

TheDowagerCuntess · 24/01/2019 15:14

It's bad form to just invite someone along without checking with the original invitees first.

But I don't really understand why the OP thinks Mum from the baby class is a 'tosser' - but her good friend likes her enough to want to include her in a relatively intimate dinner group.

Which one of you has seriously got the wrong end of the stick about someone here?

hellsbellsmelons · 24/01/2019 15:29

I was just using it as a reference as someone else had.
That is the only reason.

Pickled0nion · 24/01/2019 16:12

I was just using it as a reference as someone else had. That is the only reason.

Are you being sarcastic?

deadliftgirl · 24/01/2019 17:57

You can clearly see this from two very different perspectives.

I do think though that its always nice to meet new people and be sociable. Your good friend probably did not realise she was offending anybody and thought the other mum maybe did not have a good circle of friends or was going through a hard time and felt this is a perfect excuse to get her out of the house.

Its just a dinner, not a weekend trip or a 2 week holiday. I am sure you can all manage and if you guys don't like her or want to see her again then tell your friend that afterwards in a polite way. I have many friends who I introduced to other friends who never knew each other and know they are also good friends.

Thats how you make friends at times. I do understand you not wanting to see someone you don't particularly like but its a few hours and if worst come to worst then just say your unwell and have to leave early if she is that annoying.

TheDowagerCuntess · 24/01/2019 18:41

It gives you a bit of an insight into exactly how difficult it is for even mature people to just be kind. Just be the bigger person - it should be hard, but it really is.

And I know women are socialised to be nice and think of others, but if grown women can't even do something simple like this, how can we ever expect children to go through life being kind and doing unto others, etc.

I think the default human position is really one of selfishness and that being kind / thoughtful really does take extraordinary effort for most people. In fact, it doesn't even occur to many people to even do it.

I also think it would be better for everyone if men were socialised to be more like women / be nice, rather than the other way around (the gift of fear / ignoring instinct aside), but that's another thread.

MRex · 24/01/2019 19:28

I think it's horrible that some who profess to not like extra people being invited say it is because they have "anxiety". Now how about the anxiety you would actually cause by blocking a harmless woman from a night out just because she isn't yet your best mate eh? Don't mistake your own convenience and selfishness for being unwell. There aren't 10 extra people invited, there isn't even anything specific to not like about this one (so she just didn't invite people to her house, the horror!). Even if she wasn't a great friend it's only one dinner with just one mother who wants some friends. Have a heart for a minute.

MonaLisaDoesntSmile · 24/01/2019 19:46

Well, the trouble is- maybe your friend knows something about that Mum that you don't? Maybe she needs extra support, maybe she struggles, maybe she wants to meet new people? I don;t see why it's such a big problem. If she is going to pay for herself, you can all have a nice dinner. I had dinner with people I was not good friends with and don;t think it's such a big deal. It would have been nice if your friend asked the lady organising beforehand, but now it's done, just go with it.

ShodAndShadySenators · 24/01/2019 19:54

Dashed bad form to invite a third party to an event without running it past the hostess/organiser.

Personally I'd still go and be prepared to be nice to everybody. It's only for a few hours and if Unexpected Invitee is still a source of annoyance, it shouldn't be too difficult to avoid her another time

foxinthemist · 25/01/2019 17:46

I don’t want to go to dinner with the tosser mum from baby class?

If she's that good a friend, then you tell her exactly like that

foxinthemist · 25/01/2019 17:49

But I don't really understand why the OP thinks Mum from the baby class is a 'tosser' - but her good friend likes her enough to want to include her in a relatively intimate dinner group

Which one of you has seriously got the wrong end of the stick about someone here?

Perhpas they are both right - people see different things in different people. All that matters is that OP doesn't want to go to dinner with tosser friend so a simple 'I don't want to go to dinner with your mate, i think she's a tosser' should suffice.

Or is that just me and my mates?

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6