To feel annoyed at this evening

[Malteser71]

We went out for dinner tonight with another couple. I’ll call them I’ll call them Tom and Sue. We’ve known them for almost 20 years so they are good friends, however we haven’t seen them in a long time due to covid.

I’ve also been WFH for 16 months now. I’m really lacking in adult company. We have two teenage kids and a dog, they are mainly the only people I’ve had to talk to. DH works outside the home.

Tonight was the first time I’d been out socially since last summer, I was very much looking forward to catching up with them and just having some adult conversation.

When we arrived at the restaurant, it seemed Tom had invited a friend of his that we loosely know (Andy). It seems that Andy had suggested seeing Tom tonight, but rather than telling Andy that he already had plans, Tom invited Andy to join us.

Andy’s wife has gone to London with work, so he brought his teenage son instead. I know the son, I find him very hard work, I wouldn’t choose to go out socially for a meal with him (I’m nearly 50, we are all a similar age).

It turns out that Tom told my husband about this change of plan earlier in the week, he didn’t think it important so didn’t mention it to me.

So basically I thought we were going out with friends but I’ve just spent the evening next to a teenage boy who I don’t really like, listening to him holding court on a variety of topics, interrupting, stifling our conversation and being a bit of a knob.

My own teenage children were at home. They’d have loved to come out for a meal, but I didn’t invite them because it was supposed to be ourselves and another couple.

I’m just furious with DH for not telling me about this change of plan, or for agreeing with Tom that it was fine to invite Andy and his son. I’ve had absolutely no adult conversation, I’ve just eaten an Italian meal listening to a teenager going on about why we should all be vegan.

aIBU to be really annoyed and feel cheated of my night out? It feels as though I wasn’t considered important enough to consult.

@BigSandyBalls2015

I had a friend that used to turn up with her teen son all the time, drove me nuts. Then he'd eye roll and yawn ... don't bloody come then! They rarely do anything without each other, very odd.

She thinks it's odd that I don't facetime my DD at uni every day .... clearly believes she has a much closer relationship with her son. I've had to distance myself ... covid has helped tremendously.

This is a friend Presumably a good friend if meeting fairly regularly socially

Why the heck didn’t you ever call her, ask her why? Find out if there was a specific reason or perhaps she was leaning to heavily on him.

But no - instead you chose to just get pissed off and post about it on mumsnet

It's all very well for posters to demand other people "call it out" when it comes to their friend's children - but in reality this is so hard to do whilst saving a friendship because most people are very defensive of their relationship with their child. Especially people who are so attached they bring them to days out with their mates

Especially people who are so attached they bring them to days out with their mates

Try replacing "attached" with "inconsiderate".

@HollowTalk indeed! I have cut ties with friends who does this not for lack of childcare but because they can't bear to be away from their 10yo

@FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop

It's all very well for posters to demand other people "call it out" when it comes to their friend's children - but in reality this is so hard to do whilst saving a friendship because most people are very defensive of their relationship with their child. Especially people who are so attached they bring them to days out with their mates

Call it out??

I’m talking about picking up the phone to a close friend after presumably many times of it happening and talking about it. Not in a judgemental, dramatic fashion.

“Sometimes, as much as I like getting to catch up with your son, I’d love to sometimes have you to myself to chat, as some pretty personal stuff going on my end and possibly give you the chance to talk a bit more freely?

I’m talking about picking up the phone to a close friend after presumably many times of it happening and talking about it. Not in a judgemental, dramatic fashion.

"Sometimes, as much as I like getting to catch up with your son, I’d love to sometimes have you to myself to chat, as some pretty personal stuff going on my end and possibly give you the chance to talk a bit more freely?

My point still stands - it's so hard to raise issue about friends' children with them because it's such a sensitive topic. It's going to be even worse for someone who takes her teenage son everywhere with her.

So you were there to keep the child company so the men could chat to each other. I would be livid.

@FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop

I’m talking about picking up the phone to a close friend after presumably many times of it happening and talking about it. Not in a judgemental, dramatic fashion.

"Sometimes, as much as I like getting to catch up with your son, I’d love to sometimes have you to myself to chat, as some pretty personal stuff going on my end and possibly give you the chance to talk a bit more freely?

My point still stands - it's so hard to raise issue about friends' children with them because it's such a sensitive topic. It's going to be even worse for someone who takes her teenage son everywhere with her.

With some friends yes

Old friends with whom I meet very regularly - I would definitely feel comfortable saying I have something personal to talk and would love some time alone with her.

A good friend would not hesitate.
Unless there’s an issue her end
In which case, I would also feel comfortable asking why, and whether there was anything I could do my end.
With a good old friend - with time and patience, you’d get to the bottom of it eventually

Was the OP and others have a conversation about their sex lives in the middle of a restaurant, for example?

Actually, maybe the OP should have tried that. ‘Honestly, I’ve been missing decent conversation - all we’ve been doing through lockdown is shagging and watching porn, and I’m red raw south of the border’. Andy wouldn’t have brought his son out again, I tell you that much.

There's no way I'd sit there for several hours and be talked at/lectured by a teenager. I'd have just talked across him to the other adults or just said 'hmm' when he spoke then turned to one of the adults for a conversation.

I couldn't care less if it makes me rude. That teenager sounds like a rude idiot!

The teenager sounds like a brat but I feel a bit sorry for him too, because he'd been invited / welcomed along (by a person or people who should have known better), to take part in this dinner. Of course he's going to behave the only ways he knows how to behave, he's a bratty teenager, without the social experience to know what's appropriate. The inviting adults gave him license to disrupt.

I'd be upset to be invited to something then told I was only welcome if I behaved a certain way. Or resented for just being myself. If you don't want me there, don't invite me. Inviting someone then resenting them is awful.

Of course we tell children how to behave and caveat their participation. But at adult functions, we don't do that (except in the invitation, with dress codes, event descriptions 'relaxed dinner with friends' etc).

I look back at my own brattiness, self-absorption and social awkwardness as a teenager and feel thankful I was given 'safe spaces' to develop social skills; with family and friends who had children or had volunteered to be around them at 'family' occasions; rather than being imposed on unwitting, furious adults, at their 'relaxed dinners with friends'.

There is so much I'd want to talk to my friends about that I wouldn't say in front of a teenager. My own DC and theirs, for a start. Everything about the style of the conversation would be different, because so much in a conversation with friends is based on the friendship, on everything that doesn't need to be said.

Of course I feel sorry for the teenager in question. I actually like most teenagers unless they’re utter shits. Being a prick once in a while is just what teenagers do, it’s all part of the natural order of things!

Sounds like a shit. evening.

I’d be arranging an adults only meal asap to make up for it as I wouldn’t count that as a proper evening out tbh.

Surely the teenager would be better navel-gazing amongst peers rather than dominating a whole post-pandemic evening amongst 20+yr friends catch up being circumvented to accommodate a “safe space” ie the floor for patronising others and preaching about their personal causes.

If anyone would be upset to be invited if then required to behave in a certain way, then I’d suggest future socialisation situations going through life may be unnecessarily challenging... as this is normal.

YANBU if you knew the teen was coming you could have invited yours too.
I definitely understand how you feel cheated out of a night out. Could you rearrange with a friend or 2 and have a girls night?

It’s not necessarily inappropriate conversation, it could be that you just want to have a laugh about old times or talk about old music/tv which leaves out the teenager. It would be the same as if they had brought granny or a random neighbour along.

I'm agreeing with you Amelia666 I'm saying this was not a family occasion, it was an adult one, so not a suitable socialisation opportunity for the boy. I'm blaming the person(s) who invited him.

I'm retrospectively cringing at the idea of my own brattiness being imposed on unwilling adults. That's why I'm grateful for being mostly confined to the land of the willing.

3. Andy for being the sort of parent who doesn’t see fit to ‘brief’ his socially inept kid before imposing him on others.

Or being the sort of parent to bring him at all!

I'd be upset to be invited to something then told I was only welcome if I behaved a certain way

@lottiegarbanzo what even if that certain way was "not a condescending prick".

Teenagers aren't toddlers they know fine well not to be rude to people

Andy couldn't be arsed and was looking for entertainment for his son. I'd have made my excuses and left them to it.

I don't think teenagers do necessarily understand they're being a condescending prick, no. They probably think they're being interested, interesting, passionate, engaging.

I don't think I understood a lot of things about how I came across at that age. I did have reasonable manners, so would have waited to be spoken to but then, I might well have got into something that interested me, with a bit too much detail and certainty. I didn't know how to do light, social, adult conversation.

How would be like it if tables were turned and he was thinking he was going off dinner (for the first time since ages!) with another couple and when he turned up it'd be two women and a teenage girl?

And then you'd refuse to understand why your husband if annoyed.

It's ridiculous he can't see why you'd be annoyed.

Yanbu but I did have a chuckle when you said he brought his teenage son instead of his wife like they are interchangeable. I can't imagine thinking ah it'll be fine what's the difference. Idk Tom, 30 odd years of life and friendship?