Wondering why friend keeps bringing this up - AIBU?

[Aboutafriend]

So over lockdown I had a husband WFH (still do) while I was on maternity leave and I tried to come up with ways to break the day up.

Once I did drive some distance (maybe 2 hours) to go to the beach.

Anyway, friend keeps bringing this up. Not as in it was the wrong thing to do because of lockdown rules (technically breaking them but definitely no one was at risk, just walked alone) but just talking about laughing about it like it was the weirdest thing to do ever.

Its making me feel really uncomfortable and like I’m being laughed at behind my back. AIBU?

Tell her it’s old news. Might have been funny then (it wasn’t) but certainly isn’t now.

Why is that even worthy of comment? You went for a day trip with your baby on maternity leave. It's hardly bizarre!

Well yeah but I don’t even really get the chance to - she’ll just suddenly erupt into peaks of laughter and ‘remember when you went to …?’ I mean, I’m just wondering if I’m really odd

She doesn't sound very nice, does she laugh at you in other ways?

@Hugasauras that was how I saw it to be honest.

Baby would sleep in the car (it was so hard getting him to sleep otherwise) and I got a change of scene.

I am just feeling like a real weirdo!

I think I'd say 'Are you okay? You seem to find the weirdest things amusing! Is something up?' with faux concern. Or just 'I do remember, it was lovely. What's funny about it? I don't understand'

@howareyoutodayagain i don’t think it’s intentional exactly, I think she genuinely does think it’s worthy of comment / amusing … I just don’t really understand why!

Remember? I was there you know?

She’s clearly trying to make some sort of passive aggressive point. I’d just ask, “You keep laughing at this event months later even though nothing funny actually happened. What am I missing?”

If you think she genuinely does find it funny and isn’t being snide then it’s easy to just ask her.

Are you sure she is not laughing at the fact that going to beach was against lockdown rules at the time? When you look back on it, it was bonkers.

Agreed

How odd! What's his problem? I walked the Ridgeway with ds in a sling during my maternity leave. I did it in sections so often drove 70 miles to get there. Does he expect you to sit at home watching countdown? 😁

She, not he.

It’s her problem, not yours.

I don’t really understand why she thinks that’s funny. She’s being a bit odd.

@XenoBitch positive, this was the 2021 lockdown when things were generally a bit more relaxed than the first one anyway, and I had a period when DS was about 6-8 weeks where his daytime sleep was poor and to be honest my own mood was very low.

I did have a period of about 2/3 weeks where I’d go a bit further afield, mostly just around 40-60 minutes from home but on that occasion we went further out and it’s that one she keeps bringing up.

I could ask but every time it’s been in a largish group of people and I don’t want to sound hostile.

It does get to me though. Sorry for self pitying moan but this has always happened where I’ve done something perfectly normal and someone or several someones have found it HILARIOUS and feel the need to bring it up all the time and I hate it.

Just practice in your head.

Why is that funny?
Why do you keep saying that?
It was a beach, not a comedy club.

Or any other sentence you like the sound of. And next time she starts just let your mouth say it.

She is being weird!

Why would you think that makes you odd, and not her? You sound quite suggestible, tbh.

Suggestible?

Your friend is behaving oddly, by anyone's standards, and you're prepared to accept you are the odd one.

It does get to me though. Sorry for self pitying moan but this has always happened where I’ve done something perfectly normal and someone or several someones have found it HILARIOUS and feel the need to bring it up all the time and I hate it.

If this refers to a wider friendship group you have then it’s probably a dynamic that’s developed over the years either by intention or just because of personality traits - they take turns taking the piss and laughing at your (perfectly reasonable and normal) behaviours/actions/experiences and it’s just something they do to make themselves feel good and a bonding exercise between them, and you’re supposed to put up with it because that’s the role that’s been allocated to you and you’ve always ‘been okay with it’. But you don’t actually need to sit there and accept it. You hate it and you can shut it down. Yes it might be cast as hostility but it isn’t really, so don’t worry so much about that. Just say straight out in a polite but firm way, it’s actually a perfectly normal thing to do, I really don’t see why you’d think it’s so odd or find it so hilarious.

I'd probably store it in my memory under 'weird things me and my friends dud during covid'. It's not odd in itself to go on a drive to the beach, but to have to do it in secret because of the law makes it a strange event. Like feeling like a rebel for sitting on bench in a park to fees my son, or walking endlessly around the same lake for our allocated hour of outdoor time per day.

She's a bit weird to bring it up all the time and for finding it really funny. It should be a total non event, the circumstances making it illegal I do find interesting though.

She's only making herself look odd, not you OP.

Yes

How strange. How on Earth is that even mildly amusing?