AIBU to drop friend' caught fibbing.

[othervoicesotherrooms]

Friend (A) of many years has been caring for one of her parents & has understandably found it harder to meet up or be in contact regularly. Or so I thought.

I let her know that I was free to meet up if she had any time off : coffee, lunch, cinema whatever but accepted that she was busy.
Didn't see friend (A) at all over Christmas or new year.

I have just found out from another friend (B) that (A) has actually been out and about many times with a group of women (B) socialises with.

(Friend (A ) doesn't know that I know friend B)

(A) has just messaged me to ask if I'd like to meet up as 'she could do with a break from the relentlessness' (of looking after her parent). She said she is sorry it's been so long but she hasn't had a minute to herself over Xmas/new year.

I'm tempted to ignore. WIBU? WWYD?

I work in psych. Nothing the OP has said indicates narcissism for goodness sake. Now people are just armchair diagnosing when they have zero qualifications to do so. The OP has never once said everything should be about her, she hasn't demonstrated an excessive need for admiration and she hasn't been selfish or manipulative. She even met with friend A and said NOTHING about her social outings. She also listened to her vent for 1.5 hours. Those are hardly the actions of a narcissist.

People need to stop with the ridiculous armchair psych diagnoses. You cannot diagnose someone with a serious personality disorder from a few scant details FFS.

@Bizawit

I don’t think it’s a weird gripe to feel a bit stung, when you’re given reason to believe that your friend has lied to you to potentially avoid seeing you. I don’t think that’s narcissistic at all. It’s just someone feeling a bit hurt by a friends porky pies.

@beautifulstranger101 Exactly! Well said!

Thank you for all your posts Brown eyes, Cham, Never, On the edge !!

More craziness overnight! I've woken up a 'narcissist' it seems!!

@othervoicesotherrooms

By tomorrow morning you'll be a dangerous serial killer

Also Beautiful stranger

I'm just about to go out but will try to add my thoughts later!!

Beautiful stranger
I think you're right! Haha!!

She’s made this situation about her when it’s not- maybe the friend feels like she hasn’t had a break??

It doesn’t sound to me like the friend was avoiding her at all- just that she has more than one friend and needs to balance caring for a sick parent with keeping up with people.

IMO if the OP feels “stung” - that is coming from a self-involved perspective that lacks empathy and perspective taking.

You sound like the sort of friend I would be happy to drop.

Oh, give her a break.
Maybe she wanted to catch up with other friends and knew/thought you would be peed off that she never put you first.
Sounds a bit jealous to me.

@MinkowskisButterfly
Totally!

I can understand how upsetting this is for you. but maybe the relationship dynamic is not what you thought.
I have friends who I can have deep and honest conversations, I also have friends who I just have a laugh with and everything in between.
Maybe, at the time she just needed a different friend and felt bad about it.
I wouldn't drop her, but maybe if it is bothering you, you should mention it - in a non confrontational way.

Lall
As pointed out many times by other posters and me... This has nothing to do with meeting up with other friends! We have different sets of friends. We both do this all the time!

But have you thought about why she couldn’t tell you? Perhaps because she thought you would over-react? Like you were over-reacting by considering dumping her for this very tiny offence on the first place. You really don’t see it do you OP?

You come across as having quite a forceful and opinionated personality which perhaps your friend can’t cope with all the time?

You shouldn't assume too much without knowing her side of things. If that group of women regularly meet anyway, she might have just gone along once or twice for easy socialising. Depending on the size of your community, she could have bumped into them once by accident - you just don't know. So I'd meet her without any presumptions, and if she mentions that she's been out with the group you can always say, 'Oh yes, B mentioned she saw you' or something. It's probably not a big deal.

Lall: But have you thought about why she couldn’t tell you? Perhaps because she thought you would over-react?

We talk about our lives all of the time! She talks about her friends/family constantly usually! She's a talker & describes in great detail where she's been and what she's done!
Why on earth would I react negatively? I've known her for years, we have different friendship groups as well as our own!

It's very strange that she made out that she hadn't been anywhere or done anything for nearly 4 weeks.
I quoted her up thread!

If she was trying to distance herself from me her toxic, narcissistic, jealous, friend why did she ask to meet up on Sunday? And why has she tried to arrange another meet up this week?

Are you a member of the social group she and B are in? Maybe B could bring you along next time. That would perhaps take the wind out of her sails somewhat and stop her acting like she's housebound.

cheese
I get this. Not sure if I want to be seen as only a 'heart to heart' friend though!! Do I get a choice?!

Contess
No! They know each other from work! Past and present employees!

Friends A and B don't work together, they just share colleague friends!

I wouldn't want to be used the friend who she treats as a free therapist, while she has all her fun with other friends.
I'd back off and be way less available for her venting. This 'friendship' is too uneven anyway - you provide hours of support but I can't see what you are gaining. All relationships should be give and take.

I agree with Aderyn19. Who wants to be the tea and sympathy friend and never the cocktails and kicking your heels up friend?

Mother of God, some of the comments on here are off the charts bonkers.

All these horrible accusatory posts about how vile you are OP. I hope and presume all these posters are the most wonderful friends on the planet.

PS I think you sound fab OP and I bet you are a great friend for both tea and cocktails.

Hmm, she actually lied to your face love. That’s hard to come back from

At least you know not to rely on/bother with her.

How sad.

Who wants to be the tea and sympathy friend and never the cocktails and kicking your heels up friend?

But I thought the Op wasn’t u0set that her friend met up with others for cocktails? I thought the issue was she supposedly “lied”.

I think the issue in the first instance is that she lied. Now I think that OP is realising that she is just a tea and sympathy friend and A looks elsewhere when she wants a night out. And as OP said - she can decide if she is happy providing that part of the friendship.