Upset other mum unintentionally

[TerracottaDream]

My child is in a group connected to a hobby type thing and has a crew of 5 friends they met there.
I am friendly with the mothers but we are not close, two of them have kids at same school but in different years for example but essentially we didn’t know each other before our kids met but all have mutual friends and go to the same places.
At Christmas one of the mothers suggested that while the kids had an end of term thing we would all go to gastro pub. We had a blast! Great fun.
Now like in any circle I have bumped into women separately and the usual stuff about having to go out etc. Always genuine but life gets in the way.
This happened with one of these mothers and we made firm plans but I then suggested that we invite the others who we had been out with at Christmas. She became really irritated and said whenever she tries to make friends they always want to include others as if she isn’t good enough on her own. This is a successful educated woman. I didn’t mean anything I just wanted to be inclusive.

The flip side is that meeting people in a group takes less time than arranging to meet each person individually and many people simply don't have all the time in the world for socialising.

"many people simply don't have all the time in the world for socialising".

I disagree with that. I think most people do have the time. Its more a case of whether or not they have the inclination / the desire. Some people have commitments ie caring for elderly parent that they cant get out of . But most of us don't. Or it's manageable. How do you choose to spend your spare time? Do you choose dp? children? friendship?

Some people are quiet and don't want or need deep friendship.

Other people its one of their main priorities so they make it happen.
It's very important to me, so I choose not to sign up to other things that others might: no agreeing to be a parent governor etc, or commit to attending weekly events.

To be blunt if everyone who I meet up with in a group suddenly started insisting on 1 2 1 only there would be several who would probably end up being faded out.

This is derailing from speculation about why the other mum didn't want to do a group thing. Its not one or the other is it. Most people have a mixture of both in their lives.

I don't know anyone that exclusively does 121s or group things only!!

Only on MN is this an issue. I find that my close friendships develop naturally, change etc. I don't need to do anything, comment or worry.
Never have I needed to say to someone:
"No I don't want to meet. No, I don't want this friendship to develop. I like you but not THAT much".

I've just never needed to.

Or maybe we should encourage the OP to have the bollocks to say exactly that to this woman!! and do her (and all of us) a favour.

Has OP come back to tell us what happened? I had a quick scour thru the 4 pages but can't see any update ...? Not that she HAS to but I'm just feeling nosy about whether OP & Newfriend went ahead with the original plan or not!

I dislike big groups and wouldn’t like it if someone I made plans with turned it into a group thing.