I can't forgive her...

[LAS504]

Last year my good friend and I made a plan to celebrate our 40th birthday (one day apart) with a weekend getaway to the shore. We found a place close to where she was raised and paid extra to get the best room. She invited a couple of other friends and two of her childhood mates decided to get a room for the weekend, as well. The more the merrier, I said.

I told my other friends who asked about an in-town celebration that I did not plan to do anything other than the weekend get-away. Low key, child and husband-free time to celebrate, walk the beach and relax. Perfect.

Well. When I arrived at the shore, I discovered her friends had no idea this was intended to be a joint celebration. They had set up a bar with her favorite drinks, had banners, crowns, etc. In short, the entire weekend was all about her...every meal there were toasts to her, etc. Literally no mention of my birthday.

I was incredibly disappointed...and embarrassed. How could I get it so wrong? How could my friend treat me so...even if we had not planned it as a joint birthday, would you not acknowledge a friend who shared the same birthday?

It has been almost a year and I have not talked to her. She is reaching out to get together but I really don't want to see her. Perhaps I would feel differently if she had apologized or at least acknowledged that the weekend was not what we planned. I don't know. She I have not had the expectation that it would still involve me when it was only her friends who were invited? I want to be reasonable, but I am hurt, still.

Why would you need to acknowledge the change in dynamic with her friends being there? That implies there was some responsibility on you. There wasn't. She should have acknowledged the change and made sure her friends knew so you weren't left out and felt like a tit.

She's not much of a friend.

In my experience, people who are selfish about the little things are almost invariably selfish about the big things too. I wasted years on a couple of so-called friends who were monstrously self-absorbed and made everything about them, because I thought that, if I ever had a real problem, they'd come out in my corner and show what great friends they were. Spoiler: they didn't.

Sorry, OP - I think you're wasting your time with her.

Reading your updates, though it still doesn't excuse her, it does make more sense of how this happened.

Whereas you're happily married and wanted some low-key 'me' time, quiet, walks on the beach etc., you say she's single and depressed by getting older/ticking clock. You just wanted a weekend with her. She wanted more friends there and to be made a fuss of with crowns and a party vibe. These things are of course incompatible but since they ended up colliding, might it be fair to say that you didn't want the crowns and party anyway so you didn't get it? I guess what I'm saying, if you want to let go of the anger, is that the mistake was her agreeing to the quiet weekend in the first place, because it's not what she really wanted and could have made her depressed to turn 40 and it be so low-key, whereas for you being happily settled it's a very different proposition. But perhaps she took your initial wish that it was a quiet one to mean you wouldn't want to be the centre of attention at the celebrations, which were more to cheer her up as she's at a different stage. I don't know, it still sucks to change the the plans and not to acknowledge your birthday, but I wonder if it's a symptom of a bigger incompatibility that should be acknowledged? So you can accept it and move on rather than it being more of an angry 'you ruined my birthday' feeling that's only going to upset you both.

There’s a reason why your friend is single and this is it. And now she has one less friend.

Ghost her,move on and enjoy your family 🍸

I don't know, OP. Now you know her terrible flaw, you can organise around it. We all have terrible flaws and the best friendships are the ones where both people know the worst about the other and still want to stay friends.

New friends are great, until you find out what their particular failing is or they find out about ours.

Tell her definitely. That is terrible behaviour. I recently posted about one of my friends bad behaviour and she’d possibly have form for something like that.

Can people on mumsnet stop ridiculing the way other nations speak?

I agree @TerrcottaDream.

Poster seem to forget that the internet is world wide so we get posters from around world and many different time zones.

OP poster should not have to state, nationality, what time zone and where in the world you are.

I find the idea that "shore" is an unusual word, strange in itself. I grew in the UK, living near the "Shore Road".

Who the hell hasn't heard of the word shore Even my toddler knows what the sea shore is.

She sounds awful OP. Must have been really deflating for you when you thought it was going to be a nice celebration for you both. Any decent person would have explained it was a joint celebration. I just wouldn't bother with her again.

Yeahnahyeah Don't give up your day job to become a greeting card writer. OP that really goes beyond the pale how she behaved it was all me,me,me.

@LAS504 thank you but I can laugh about it now. Luckily I celebrated well with other friends. What your friend did is awful.