Friends for over 20 years, met at primary school and were best friends through high school. She was my bridesmaid and we were there for each other when our mums both passed away when we were young. Been through a lot together in younger years. Haven’t seen each other much the last few years due to lives being busy with work and kids but stayed in touch via messages and met up couple of times a year.
Pre lockdown - had my other very close friends 30th birthday night out at nearby city - drinks then a gig - so my friend of 20yrs offered to book a mini bus for the group of us to come home.
My husbands brother died the week before the night out he so didn’t feel up to going - I still wanted to go to be there for friends special birthday but we were now under financial pressure as had to pay for funeral as brother had no money and no life insurance so we were having to cover funeral costs.
I had already pre paid our seats on the bus and gig ticket the month before so decided to go and not drink to save spending more money.
Sent message to friend who booked bus to ask if there were spaces on bus coming back. She said yes and asked who it was for. I didn’t reply immediately as didn’t have set person in mind and planned to reply once I had scoped out on social media if anyone else I knew in my wider circle was going to the gig (pre kids we used to go to lots of gigs so lots of friends on FB who could poss also have been planning to be at gig that night). My thinking was I could get the money back for hubby’s gig ticket and seat on bus if someone I knew wanted to go.
Put post on my FB page and a couple of hours later friend of 20yrs (who has never been on FB and has no social media accounts ) sent me really aggressive message saying I was out of order inviting random people onto the minibus without asking her and that just because it is someone I know doesn’t mean that everyone else is okay with them coming on the bus.
She said I have never to pull that sh*t again and she said she is livid with me but doesn’t want to fall out about it. She was angry I didn’t reply to her message about who the space on the bus was for (I was going to reply once I had a better idea of if someone could fill the seat). She said sorry if she sounds harsh but she is really pissed off.
I suffer from bad anxiety and have had bouts of depression following two miscarriages in the last few years and don’t cope well with confrontation, so despite not feeling like what I had done was actually anything wrong I messaged her to say I was sorry for upsetting her.
She responded by saying she is astounded that I can’t see that it makes me look like I don’t consider friends better than people on Facebook and that she is infuriated.
I spent day of best pals 30th feeling physically sick with worry about seeing friend who had booked bus that evening incase she had a go at me. When I arrived to meet the group of friends she didn’t turn up and text our other friend to say her child was sick.
Had very minimal contact since and wondering if I should make the effort to try and reach out and rebuild friendship or if I should just leave it. We have been through so much in past I don’t want to leave it like this but feel like she was overreacting about the situation.
Spoke to other friends on the night out to ask if I was out of order for seeing if could fill hubby’s space in bus and no one else could see an issue with it - but I don’t know if they were trying to make me feel better as I was in a bit of a state worrying about it at the time.
Should I make an effort to sort things out?