To feel excluded from a 'mums night out'

[Poppins2016]

I'm a member of a group of relatively new friends and we keep in touch through a WhatsApp chat (as well as in person).

We all agreed that we'd like to go for a 'mums night out' sometime soon (we usually see each other with children in tow). There aren't many of us and we've been able to agree on a date easily in the past.

A couple of dates were suggested. The majority said they could make date 1. I said I couldn't, so asked whether date 2 would work.

Lady A said she couldn't make date 2.

Someone else suggested an activity on date 3, which everyone (including me) expressed interest in.

Lady A (not the person who actually suggested the night out, in case it's relevant) responded to say that we should 'go for date 1 this time as she'd already booked it' (without confirming anything first or checking to see whether I minded missing out...).

This feels like a 'big deal' to me, but I suspect there's an element of PND/PNA clouding my judgement... I admit I burst into tears when I read that I was the only person who would be excluded from the group meet up. The friendship group is quite new and I haven't said anything because I don't want to become known as oversensitive/overreacting/'that' person... I joined the group as making/maintaining new friends and a social network is important to me at the moment, even though I find it difficult (from an anxiety point of view).

So I suppose I'm wondering how people without clouded judgement might view this.

AIBU to think that a group meet up should be held on a mutually convenient date for all the people who want to go?

It's pretty difficult to get a date that suits everyone and sometimes you miss out.

@BobbinHood

In my friendship group if we waited for the date everyone was available, we’d never see each other.

When was date 3? If date 1 was Thursday, date 2 was Friday and date 3 was Saturday then it would be reasonable to wait for Saturday.

But if date 3 is in another month, it’s not unreasonable to go for the first one. Something else would happen by the time you get to date 3 meaning someone else couldn’t come and by the “everyone must be able to attend” logic you’d then have to look for another date…and so on and so on into eternity.

Totally agree, I’ve got a few groups of friends and have to accept it’s too complicated to always wait until everyone can do a date.

We tend to go with the majority and put another date in too, or it’d go on for months.

Thanks, everyone. I appreciate all of the different perspectives and it's really helped me to get a grip!

To those who have said I'm being oversensitive... I know (and it's partly because I have PND/PNA and my hormones still seem to be all over the place 5 months after giving birth). That's why I've posted here rather than make a fool of myself on the WhatsApp group! I've maintained a completely breezy, relaxed approach in the group as I know that doing anything else would be counter productive.

@MajorCarolDanvers

It's pretty difficult to get a date that suits everyone and sometimes you miss out.

But they had a date that suited everyone!

And one of the group took it upon themselves to arrange instead on a different date, excluding OP and only OP

I would be upset too and completely agree if everyone was free on the third date then obviously that's the one to go for. I would definitely say "looks like I'm missing out this time have a great time and I'll look forward to next one. " or similar so people are aware as not everyone alway read messages properly so people may have missed the fact you couldn't make that date. My dh and I have a friendship group of five couples and there seems to be this unwritten rule that we all have to go it's a bit of a nightmare tbh because we probably try to arrange meet ups every couple month and at least 50% end up not happening due to scheduling clashes. So my preference would be go with the majority date. The issue is there was a date you could all attend. Friend A sounds abit ruthless. Also don't know if this is a new babies mums group but I found with those groups people would start to drop out once they went back to work/kids started school. I would recommend cultivating individual friendships within group as well. My first dd our mums group disbanded after about three years, some totally dropped contact, a few stayed friends in smaller groups but I wasn't included so I basically lost all my friends. It was a shock, with ds I made friends with three mums from the group and we are still close 7 years on. The rest of the group are more like acquaintances now.

@Poppins2016

Thanks, everyone. I appreciate all of the different perspectives and it's really helped me to get a grip!

To those who have said I'm being oversensitive... I know (and it's partly because I have PND/PNA and my hormones still seem to be all over the place 5 months after giving birth). That's why I've posted here rather than make a fool of myself on the WhatsApp group! I've maintained a completely breezy, relaxed approach in the group as I know that doing anything else would be counter productive.

Well done OP. MN can be a good way to get impartial advice from strangers with no skin in the game