Jubilee Party that wasn’t cancelled

[BullyBoss]

I’m wondering if I’m being unreasonable here. I have a friend, call her Susan, not her real name. Susan and her husband David are very sociable. I’ve been friends with Susan for over 30 years and considered her a close friend once although we’ve not been so close for the last five ish, I’ve put this down to covid, etc.

I was chuffed to be invited to Susan and David’s platinum jubilee party as they do throw a good party. A few weeks later the party was cancelled on Facebook as it all got too big and they were going on holiday a few days later. No problem, I understood.

Today’s Facebook is full of pics of the very much happening jubilee party with lots of our joint friends attending.

I’m really hurt by this. I know she doesn’t have to invite me, it’s her choice but I haven’t done anything to upset her. The party is clearly still on but I was uninvited. AIBU? Be kind I don’t have a lot of friends and my mental health is shot to pieces at the moment (not due to this but this hasn’t helped).

🍷 🧀

Yes it’s hosts prorogative to invite who they want. It is hard when you have a party you put yourself out there and risk upsetting people but if you are limited on numbers you need to draw a line somewhere or invite the world and his wife. It’s why having a party stresses me out!

True but it's a bit shite to invite someone and then go back on that invitation using what is clearly a false excuse...

Yeah agree it’s not great my guess is she over invited and then panicked when they all said yes…sorry frequent host here so tend to side with host. Too many guests love attending parties and expect to be invited but don’t ever reciprocate !

She probably prioritised those she sees often and who invite her and her family to their events. Which is fair enough.

Don’t waste time liking pictures block her from your fb

don’t get pulled in you have better things to do with your time

It was thoughtless to post the smaller, A List party on FB but I’m sure there was no malice involved.

That said, you know where you stand with her now ie you’re not regarded as a close friend. You can be content with that and stay in touch, or delete her on SM and distance yourself. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with casual friendships and I’m fond of all my “less close” friends, so I’d probably stay in touch. But it’s your call.

It's not about whether she's in the right not to invite someone she's not close to. It's the fact that the OP was invited and then the event has still gone ahead, despite her being told it was cancelled.
That doesn't feel good, regardless of all the other caveats people are coming up with.
So you're not being unreasonable to be upset. But what I would say is maybe think about putting yourself out there a bit more. I know you said your mental health isn't great, so work on that and build your confidence. Whether this friendship has anything left in it is for you decide.
Try and do something nice for yourself and remember you will get over feeling hurt, it just sucks in the meantime.

im sorry you feel hurt but my way of dealing with this would be to raise an eyebrow, shrug, close the social media and carry on as normal. It’s not worth stress. If parties get too big numbers have to go down, you can’t invite hundreds to a house party, lines have to be drawn and when they are sometimes you’ll be in sometimes out. I can understand the wanting to be in part but people create numbers limited events every day and it’s very rarely personal

It’s a normal thing to be bothered by, especially if you don’t have a whole bunch of friends and you’ve been feeling a bit low.

She wouldn’t have meant to hurt your feelings, it’s just that you’ve drifted apart.
Put this behind you.

Much more important, are you getting support for your low mood? In the long run it would be good to increase your social circle, I agree that you can have old friends you don’t see for ages and just pick up. But friendships need to be tended if you value them, and it sounds like you need more people in your life.

It's always good to hear from the other side! The thing is whenever I decided -it's been a while!- to have a party, the first thing I do is to have an idea of how may people will come. Then handle the food/drinks. There's always room for the usual ones and a couple more. The OP's probably feeling like she's not part of the group, which is a bad place to be in for anyone feeling down. Besides, if they have a garden how many extra people did they invite to have to unvite others and why lie? I think lies are little daggers that erode self-esteem.

I think you're being unreasonable, OP.

By your own admission, the size of this party spiralled to a point where Susan was uncomfortable managing the numbers. And by your admission, you're not as close as you used to be. You weren't excited about going to this party because you missed Susan and David - you were excited because they throw good parties and you wanted the social boost. You wanted to go for you, not for them.

I suspect they needed to cut the numbers, and people they don't spend as much time with anymore just didn't make the cut. You say you don't need to see friends regularly to know they're friends. Is that the same on both sides?

I also have some friends where we're all perfectly happy treating our friendship like camels treat water, but not everyone is built like that. It's not an attack on you, it's just a fact that some people see things differently.

Yes, posting the photos on FB where you could see them was thoughtless. But that's the only thing they've done wrong.

I would see this as an opportunity to realise your friendship has drifted, and seek a way to rebuild it. After the party, of course.

At some point, invite Susan and David to spend some time with you - maybe at your place, so they're not 'hosting'. Just because the friendship has cooled doesn't mean you can't get it going again.

It's horrid feeling left out, OP.

One of my so called close friends had a party for her DD, and invited nearly every child from the village school apart from mine. She then posted it all over social media, and it felt horrid as my DD was really upset to be left out.

Next time she asked me to have her DD after school, I politely told her that as our DD's clearly weren't friends, it wasn't a good idea anymore.

I think you need to protect yourself from further hurt here, and accept that the friendship is no longer close.

I think I’d have to do something, even just to “like” David’s photos. And then that would be the friendship over for me.

Totally agree with theobligatory’s post

i agree

I am really sorry OP but she clearly doesn’t consider you a close friend any more. Some people are happy to let friendships drift and then pick up where they left off but you can’t expect to maintain ‘close friend’ status if you have minimal engagement with the friendship for five years.

If they lied, that's horrible. However, it seems the friendship has run its course and I would be tempted to block them on Facebook.

If someone did this to me I wouldn’t bother with them anymore. It’s very spiteful and mean, and hurtful too. She will have known that you would see the photos on Facebook.

I once phased out a friend after she organised a party for her dp’s 50th. I was really excited - got all dressed up and bought a nice gift. When we arrived there was no party.

This event was the decoy party she had arranged to distract her dp from the real surprise party she’d thrown him a week earlier. We were not invited to the surprise one which had marquee, lovely food, music etc.

She had cancelled the decoy party but forgot to tell me and my ex dp and four other people…

I once phased out a friend after she organised a party for her dp’s 50th. I was really excited - got all dressed up and bought a nice gift. When we arrived there was no party.

This event was the decoy party she had arranged to distract her dp from the real surprise party she’d thrown him a week earlier. We were not invited to the surprise one which had marquee, lovely food, music etc.

She had cancelled the decoy party but forgot to tell me and my ex dp and four other people…

Wow. How did she explain it to you?!

That is awful. You're very polite just to have phased them out!

I also think YABU OP. Especially as Susan didn’t even post the photos herself!

That's so so awful. Susan is a birch