Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Fairweather friends :(

171 replies

sizzlewizzle · 20/10/2020 12:39

Since telling my bestfriend I was pregnant and now being unable to mix with her as she's always out mixing with other households etc and I'm shielding as best as I can due to Covid and wanting to keep baby safe :)
She's not replied to any messages , texted or called and just stopped bothering with me, am I being unreasonable... did anyone else have this problem with friends who don't have children ? Hmm
Thanks in advance x

OP posts:
Cadent · 20/10/2020 15:59

@Janegrey333

HEATH?!?! Excellent. 😝A typographical error that makes me think of a busybody from the days when Heathcliff and Cathy roamed!
You’ve also got an apostrophe where you don’t need one. Disclaimer: I’m not a SPAG pedant and I make lots of errors.
CloudyVanilla · 20/10/2020 16:00

OP this happened to me. Not the Covid thing but I had a friend who progressed from ghosting me a month before one baby was born and then unfriending me on Facebook when I announced the birth of the next one.

I will never understand the motivation. We were best friends for years. We were/are in our early- mid twenties when this happened and she was single so I doubted it was anything to do with jealousy although it could be I suppose.

I did not dignify her rejection with a response, I have never tried to pursue her or get answers. She drunkenly messaged me last summer after having ghosted me for 2 years by this point and I sent nothing but a smiley face. Fancy rejecting your best friend due to them having babies and then sending footage of yourself at a gig of our favourite band. Immature as fuck.

Unfortunately we are at an age where people are settling in to who they really are, and their values may be fundamentally different to the ones you once shared with each other.

Good luck with your pregnancy! Flowers

GoldfishParade · 20/10/2020 16:01

@Cadent
Sound like a spag pedant to me

CloudyVanilla · 20/10/2020 16:04

Ugh please don't derail the OP's thread with grammatical bullshit

Worse than grammar is the criticism of clearly understandable phrases. The OP is an autonomous adult woman. Who the hell are you for ridiculing her completely irrelevant choices of wording.

Chailatteplease · 20/10/2020 16:05

Everything @Speedyspunker said, with bells on!

Congrats on the pregnancy OP Flowers

Bluntness100 · 20/10/2020 16:12

The OP is an autonomous adult woman

As the ops friend is going to uni then she could easily be seventeen and not yet reached the age of majority.

grapewine · 20/10/2020 16:15

I'd love to go and have a party with her but my life doesn't accommodate for that now , also no I don't think their party's do comply with the guidelines after many positive tests in Their uni flats

This will be why. You're coming across not so great here. She's not a fairweather friend. You just want different things. Doesn't mean your choice is better. Why the covid dig?

Leave her to it and enjoy your pregnancy.

Janegrey333 · 20/10/2020 16:25

“...Heath Visitor’s style.”

That is a possessive - the style belonging to the Heath (sic) Visitor - so a possessive apostrophe is required.

  1. If a noun is plural and ends in s, then add an apostrophe to the end; otherwise, add apostrophe then an s." This sounds a bit awkward at first, but it always works.
  1. The general rule is that the possessive of a singular noun is formed by adding an apostrophe and s, whether the singular noun ends in s or not. The possessive of a plural noun is formed by adding only an apostrophe when the noun ends in s, and by adding both an apostrophe and s when it ends in a letter other than s.
Cadent · 20/10/2020 16:29

[quote GoldfishParade]@Cadent
Sound like a spag pedant to me[/quote]
I’m only correcting someone’s grammar because they corrected someone else’s.

So next time RTFT before commenting.

Cadent · 20/10/2020 16:34

@GoldfishParade and any reason why you’re not calling out Janegrey who is annoyed OP said ‘baby’ and not ‘my baby’. Or is it just me that you have a problem with?

CounsellorTroi · 20/10/2020 16:37

People who don't have children aren't a different species

It does feel like that sometimes!

Speedyspunker · 20/10/2020 16:38

I'd be surprised if the OP came back to this thread and that's a shame because this is what I've gathered about her so far:

She's probably very young.
She's pregnant.
She's vulnerable to Covid because of issues with her own immune system.
She's caring for two vulnerable parents.
She feels abandoned by her best friend so is probably a bit lonely.

If anyone needed the support of some kindly strangers online then it was the OP.

Mediaevalmiss · 20/10/2020 16:47

Indeed @speedy I hope you are still about @sizzlewizzle

allthegoodusernameshavegone · 20/10/2020 16:54

She’s at uni, so has a lot going on & you’re shielding so, not so much. Cut her some slack, what do you want her to do? The baby conversations are very dull, I am so to say. Congratulations though

katy1213 · 20/10/2020 17:00

You're both starting out on new paths and maybe this friendship has had its day. She might be partying; she might simply be stressed by the workload and disappointment that university life is not what she expected. She's probably not hugely interested in your baby - it's a big event for you, it's a congrats card to anyone outside the immediate family. If you value the friendship, the onus might be on you to keep it going over the next few years. And I can never understand why people who want to keep in touch don't simply pick up the phone and talk. Messaging isn't friendship.

LavaCake · 20/10/2020 17:01

Any real woman who has experienced pregnancy (or trying) or childbirth tends not to do this.

All women are real women and it has fuck all to do with whether you have kids / want kids / are trying for kids. Womanhood is nothing to do with whether or not you have or want children in your life.

Janegrey333 · 20/10/2020 17:03

@LavaCake

Any real woman who has experienced pregnancy (or trying) or childbirth tends not to do this.

All women are real women and it has fuck all to do with whether you have kids / want kids / are trying for kids. Womanhood is nothing to do with whether or not you have or want children in your life.

Exactly. That contribution is pretty provocative.
Bluntness100 · 20/10/2020 17:03

@allthegoodusernameshavegone

She’s at uni, so has a lot going on & you’re shielding so, not so much. Cut her some slack, what do you want her to do? The baby conversations are very dull, I am so to say. Congratulations though
I think that’s unfair. They were supposed to be friends, I can see how rhe op is hurt.

The friend has asked her out thr op said no, ans asked for a lift, the op said no, but if they were good friends then she shouldn’t have ghosted her.

The friend is likely just absorbed in uni life, leaving home, making new friends, partying, starting her course, and the op is now on a very different life path. And likely a very different life path to most folks her age, which would be isolating.

grapewine · 20/10/2020 17:05

@LavaCake

Any real woman who has experienced pregnancy (or trying) or childbirth tends not to do this.

All women are real women and it has fuck all to do with whether you have kids / want kids / are trying for kids. Womanhood is nothing to do with whether or not you have or want children in your life.

This a million times. Thanks.
Cassilis · 20/10/2020 17:11

@CounsellorTroi

People who don't have children aren't a different species

It does feel like that sometimes!

ODFOD
Bluntness100 · 20/10/2020 18:08

I think let’s not be distracted by some weird random posts about womanhood sad fucks and incels.

Seems to me this is a very young woman, maybe who has just left school, unmarried, maybe not even in her own home, having a baby and who finds her friends are drifting away.

Most folks this age are more interested in uni, socialising, leaving home for the first time, living independently etc, and the op could increasingly find herself being othered more and more.

Parenthood is very hard and stressful and most teenagers will have no concept of just how hard it is, so having a new support network will be important here.

Op, how old is your boyfriend, and do either of you have your own home? How will you both financially support this baby? Do you both work? Will you be a stay at home parent or will you work/study? Do you have a supper network?

CloudyVanilla · 20/10/2020 18:18

To all the posters saying it's expected the friend won't be interested anymore...

In a similar vein to not only childbearing women being "real women", women who are pregnant and who have children are not solely childbearers, so why would or should a friend "lose interest" in her just because she is in the early stages of pregnancy?

OP, maybe your friend hasn't lost interest in you at all. Maybe she has taken your communications about distancing the wrong way and you just need to talk out with her. Not saying she's right to take your comments the wrong way but it does happen obviously

Bluntness100 · 20/10/2020 18:20

In a similar vein to not only childbearing women being "real women", women who are pregnant and who have children are not solely childbearers, so why would or should a friend "lose interest" in her just because she is in the early stages of pregnancy?

Eh because they are possibly seventeen eighteen years old and on completely different life paths and will have little to nothing in common going forward. Most teens have no interest in babies, and it will be nothing more than a polite catch up. The op unless she’s a strong support network is unlikely to be doing any of the social activities for the next few years any of her school friends will be.

TheYearOfSmallThings · 20/10/2020 18:28

unlikely to be doing any of the social activities for the next few years any of her school friends will be.

Ah hang on - in lots of areas and communities having babies is exactly what most young women are doing, so there is no reason to assume she's about to be socially isolated! It's just that one previously close friend is off to Uni, which is a different life and currently incompatible.

SecretSpAD · 20/10/2020 18:28

*CounsellorTroi
People who don't have children aren't a different species

It does feel like that sometimes!
ODFOD*

This, with bells on

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

Join Mumsnet Log In

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.

Swipe left for the next trending thread