Friend didn’t invite me to birthday

[Spikeyplanty]

Found out a good friend of mine had a birthday last week and didn’t invite me. We’ve been good friends for many years and a few days before her birthday I met her up with to give her presents etc and she didn’t mention anything about her plans. Found out that on her birthday she went out with her other friends and I wasn’t invited. She changed jobs this year so I understand she would have made new friends but the last few years we’ve always celebrated special events together.

She's not as good a friend as you think she is. Step back

That's hurtful OP. Have you asked her why you weren't invited?

She's not as good friend as you believe her to be. Time to put some distance in.

Do you know any of the other people who went out with her? If not, maybe she didn't want you to feel awkward?

Do you know the friends she went out with?
It they are new friends and they suggested taking her out, then maybe she just didnt want to bring someone along who didnt know anyone.

You met up for a birthday thing together. She went out with some people you dont know another night. I dont see the problem.

If you know them and are usually part of the group then that's different.

Are they a totally separate group of friends from you, e.g. work-based or school mums etc?

I can definitely understand you feeling hurt. Could it be possible she didn't know about it. As in she maybe thought she was just going for q meal or a drink with one friend and once got there it was more of a thing? Have you socialised with that particular group of friends before? Was there plans to do anything else with you or no?

Are they friends you both know or just hers? Is it possible the friends organised and your friend might have just gone along with the plans? Why dont you suggest going for dinner this weekend to celebrate?

When you met up did you not say what are you doing for your birthday?
Did you invite her anywhere?

Ouch. If she'd have wanted you there you would have been invited, it's that simple so as tempting as is to try and find out the why, maybe you're just not as close any more as you thought. People do outgrow each other, friendships wane. It's nothing personal and just means that you're moving and changing in a non parallel way, which when you think about it makes sense.
Put your energy into developing other friendships, rather than digging into why this one is fading.

Agree with pps i think it depends who the other friends were. A group of mutual friends i can understand being hurt but not if its a separate friendship group.

Depends on whether you are friends with others in the group who went out or not. If they are a separate group of friends then you shouldn't expect an invite.

So everytime you go out, you invite every friend? Doesn't matter what friendship group they're from, you invite them all.

I've gone out with a group of mum friends I made at the school gates for a birthday lunch. I didnt invite my oldest and closest friend of 27 years because she doesn't know any of them and we're all be talking about the kids and the school and gossip from our town. It just want a thing to invite her to. Does that mean I dont care about her and she should pull away from our 27 year long friendship?

When you say other friends, do you know these people? Are these new friends from the new job, in which case perhaps she didn’t consider inviting you? If these are mutual, long term friends and you were left out then yes, I’d be quite upset too, but not if they’re people you’re not friends with.

Did the new friends organise it?

@WeAreBob no, because that's not realistic. However if on the birthday itself OP feels she would have expected to be celebrating with her good friend of many years, I feel OP's and her friends view of how close they are now isn't the same. Not suggesting she should never speak to her again.

Maybe her other friends organised it. If so, she can't really start listing people she wants to invite.

That's quite hurtful.
Is it possible it was a completely different friendship group to the one you knew her from? And she didn't want you to feel like the spare part?

That's the only excuse I can think of that I would accept if it were me.

If it's not that... she's not as close to you, as you think you are to her.

It sounds like she went out with a group of people you don't know? In which case YABU - you two did meet up for her birthday, and the other outing may have been planned/instigated by the other group.

the thing is OP she might not of made these plans and it might be a complete different group like family and cousins or friends from uni etc I have separate groups and I do stuff individually with each group. If I tagged one of my mum friends to my uni friend gathering it would be awkward and change the atmosphere not in a horrible way but you share certain life experiences with different groups and comfortable making certain jokes etc and have a lot of inside jokes.

she did something separate with you which is what counts

i have a few different groups of friends. I would t mix them, I would do separate things. I can’t see a problem with that.

That was not cool of her, I’m not surprised you feel hurt. I think it’s time to reduce your investment in this friendship.

If its a group of friends you are not part of, I wouldn't get all bothered about it.
I have some very close friends that I wouldn't invite out with my work friends because they would have nothing in common and we might chat about work stuff and they would be left out.

And you did see her just before her birthday so you did celebrate it together.

Depends.
If it's a birthday bash with colleagues then you probably wouldn't have been invited.

Parties where colleagues and personal friends are invited often don't mix well... they tend to split up into two camps.

Colleagues have their 'in jokes' and personal friends wouldn't relate to the office gossip.

Maybe it was a surprise?