40th bday big party issues

[Blessedwithsunshine]

I have NC for this because I know my friend uses MN.

Very good friend of 20 years + was 40yrs last month. We see each other every other week, text 2-3 times a week. We are very good friends. Friend said she was going on holiday for her 40th all good, she said she was planning a party in the summer instead.

Closer to the time she mentioned a friend was organising a small party for her - they share a hobby, and I was totally relaxed about it. Happy for her etc. Dropped her present etc over she didn’t even acknowledge the gift (which was expensive and thoughtful) at the time and went oddly silent for a period of time ( unlike her as she usually texts a few times a week)

We met up for lunch last week - it was a belated birthday lunch, and she tells me all about her party - turns out it was a huge, huge party including her parents, siblings, loads of friends. Friend would need to have been involved with the guest list as they wouldn’t have contacts for everyone there.

I don’t know if she misled me or I am being over sensitive? Despite her telling me all about her party, it’s oddly left a strange atmosphere between us. I paid for the lunch which again was very expensive but it is her fav place. No word of thanks. She mentioned my present was ‘okay’ I got the feeling she was underwhelmed, and I have worried since she is disappointed in it and i had messed up. So much so I thought I might get her something else to make up for it. It was a piece of jewellery and I don’t think she liked it.

I don’t mind per se about the party itself, and I know it is up to her who she invites but I feel hurt she couldn’t tell me, and now I don’t know whether just to downgrade the friendship? I have an intense job, 4 dc and I don’t have much spare time (understatement) and I feel she doesn’t value our friendship as much as I thought she did after this. I feel oddly used. AIBU?

This has to be a reverse?

Surely no one would be that unsure they were in the wrong if their friend had a huge birthday party, didn't invite them, slagged their gift and let them pay for an expensive lunch.

Unless they were 11 years old.

I wouldn’t get her another gift. I think it’s bad manners when people don’t show gratitude for for a gift especially when it’s carefully chosen. Simply something like ‘thank you, it’s really lovely/thoughtful/useful’ is the least you should say. I’d be miffed if someone said a gift was ‘okay’. It was also rude not to invite you, without an explanation. Maybe she didn’t pay for it so didn’t feel she could ask who she wanted.

I would give it a couple of months to see if any explanation emerges and then cool the friendship if you still feel the same

OP - on the chance this is not a reverse and there isnt a huge drip feed....

...your friend is not a nice person at all, stop investing time, energy and money in her immediately and distance yourself. What she's done is downright unkind, and I'd even say that the unintention behind it is worse than if she'd done it on purpose!

She doesn't sound that nice. I'd distance myself, let her contact you if she wants.

You sound very thoughtful, anxious to please, and probably easy to take advantage of. I don't think this woman is much of a friend to you - she's behaved very rudely.

How did she say your present was ‘okay’ and not thank you? I really can’t envisage that interaction?

She sounds very rude.

Probably:

"Did you like your present I got you?"
"Yes it was okay thanks"

Extremely rude.

I had this happen with a friend - who at the time I considered my 'best' friend - but it was over a wedding.

Known each other about a decade, used to work together but stayed friends after we both changed jobs. He'd helped me move, I helped him when he moved to another city and was very homesick...contact every single day, even being okay with him ringing me at unsociable hours when he was really struggling.

He got engaged to a girl, a good 7 years younger than both of us. She'd only just started university. They were dating for about 6 years, had got engaged but then he told me - and my husband, who was also very close to him, he'd actually been best man at our wedding! - that they weren't getting married after all. Of course with him being with this girl our level of contact had dropped, but we still texted/emailed at least once a week.

So imagine my shock when a mutual friend told my husband that not only had friend got married to the girl 6 months previously, but she was 3 months pregnant! I immediately rang friend and asked if it was all true...it was. He said that the wedding had been a small family one only...but then put his foot right in it by telling me about how he'd spent an hour at it talking to his parent's next door neighbour that he didn't even know!

I was beyond hurt and I let him know in that call. Sadly our friendship never did recover. That was 15 years ago, I've only seen him once since. His marriage to the girl ended about 6 years ago.

I wouldn't bother contacting this woman again. You don't want her at your party - don't invite her. Don't buy any more presents for her - she's already had more than she deserves off you.

Thank you to everyone for your posts. It’s made me feel 100% better that I am not overreacting.
Downgrade - I meant as in downgrade or stop my efforts and investing in this person. Not tiers! I don’t do tiered friendships. I meant is it time to pull out/away as clearly I am not that important to her.

My party is a belated milestone party that didn’t happen because I was having my youngest child and had hoped to do the party later but it didn’t happen because of covid. It is basically been changed three times already. It is meaningful to me and no she won’t be coming. No one ever is such amazing sparkling company that they get to treat others badly and still get invited!

That post smacks of the truth. In all honesty I don’t think I realised over time that she had put herself above me gradually, she always had to be going on the best holidays, looked the best, telling me how much weight she had lost and I have to admire everything and cheer her on etc etc.

In hindsight, I think I have been the ‘supporting act’ and second best for years. She has kind of always made me feel ‘not as good’ s her but I overlooked it because she can be fun and kind. I feel like a fool, and of course she does this because she CAN.

She is absolutely expecting another gift I am sure of it.

I will answer that - of course it’s not a reverse! She can have a party and not everyone is invited, I wouldn’t usually mind but clearly it’s not the small hobby party she said it was going to be..
She didn’t slag off the gift at all! I asked her if she liked it ( prompting a thank you or an acknowledgment that she had opened it) and she said yes it was unusual ( I had hoped to avoid her actual words) and then proceeded to show me a necklace some other friend had given her and it made me feel like mine was worthless and not good enough.

I offered to book and organise the bday lunch as our way of celebrating and marking it, at the time I didn’t know the party was a full on party. Had I known I wouldn’t have organised it obviously! As we were there and eating I wasn’t going to be churlish and refuse to pay.

Absolutely.

I would assume the relationship has cooled off, and match her energy.

You have a busy and demanding life, you don't need 'friends' like this. Focus on the people that bring you joy.

I just can’t get over her response to the gift.

I’ve been bought things over the years that just aren’t me at all but you say thank you and you’re appreciative. You just don’t behave like that, especially when someone has spent time and effort on getting you a gift where you can tell effort went into it. It’s not as if you gave her a pair of your old socks or something.

I wouldn’t be speaking to her again. She’ll come crawling back when she needs her next ego boost, and I’m petty enough to get great joy in telling her how her new hair looks “unusual”.

Don't ask her about the party. There is no point. She's shown you who she is and how much effort she puts into the friendship.

I would be upset too, but also I wouldn't bother being friends with someone who wouldn't thank me for buying my lunch or who acted underwhelmed by presents I give them. Not because I want loads of gratitude but because I prefer people who are kind and well mannered to people who are the opposite.

I have a friend who had a big birthday a few years ago (before covid). We were out at a kids thing just before her birthday and she insisted that she wasn’t having a party (not that I even asked).

Except I lived really near her at the time and happened to walk past her house while her party was in full swing. Looking through the window I could see people there I knew she’d hardly talked to for a couple of years (she’d talked to me extensively about how sad it was that they’d drifted etc).

I never said anything to her. We are still friends and I enjoy her company. She does initiate things so it’s not that I was dropped if that makes sense.

I’ve never forgotten it though. I’m always a bit sceptical about things she says and I am careful not to always accommodate her. Ironically, I think she’d now like to be closer friends but I pull back because of this memory. Again I’m younger (by over 10 years but our children are the same age).

I'd be hurt by this as well OP. I think downgrading the friendship is the obvious conclusion.

I wouldn't bother downgrading. Just ditch the bitch.

Please don't feel like a fool because of her awful behaviour. You are not second best because you don't need to make people feel like this and be constantly competitive with friends to feel superior and better about yourself.
I think her big birthday has gone to her head a bit and so has escalated it so that it becomes harder to ignore.
It's easy to look back and see a pattern, but you can't always see it forming at the time. You said that she can be fun and kind when she wants to be so this probably outweighed her flaws for you as none of us are perfect and had she not been so mean about her party, you might have overlooked the lunch.
So you are not a fool.
Its not foolish to be supportive and cheer someone on. That's what friends do, but friends also reciprocate.
Her behaviour has become so consistently blatant that it's no longer a fair trade and has rightly made you completely fed up of her.
I wonder if having been five years older, she was slightly "ahead" in terms of career/doing things/life experiences and so on and now you have probably caught up, she feels the need to keep trying to impress you like this.
I originally thought that saying something might deal with it, but on reflection and reading other pp I think that just taking a big step back is the way to go. Less drama for you.

Buy yourself a gift instead OP! You deserve it after all this.

Wow reading this made me so angry on your behalf! What an incredibly rude, entitled person this “friend” of yours is..party invite aside not thanking you for an expensive lunch and describing your present to her as “okay” is a clear absence of basic etiquette. Do yourself a favour and don’t waste any more time on this person, you sound lovely and there are much better friends out there!!

Ouch, that is really hurtful. I wouldn’t invite her to anything in future.

Exactly.

We started out on a level playing field, she is older and with older dc, so over the years I probably have chosen her as someone I can talk to and ask advice from, and maybe that altered the dynamic. It was so subtle.
I assumed she was insecure when she would talk about her weight etc, and would gladly cheer on all of my friends with their achievements, fun holidays. Somehow it got to the point where we were only celebrating her life and mine slowly diminished, even the big stuff. It’s impossible to say when it happened or pin point the switch.

Things probably would have carried on for another 20 yrs had the party thing not happened, and made me realise she isn’t a real friend anymore and hasn’t been for some time.

Is there any chance that she did include you on the list of people she wanted the-party-arranging-friend to invite, and they forgot or lost you name? And so from her point of view you didn't bother turning up and haven't even mentioned it, hence her being oddly quiet and cool about your gift? Maybe she's upset at you, and doesn't realise you didn't get your invite? Just a thought.

I think she would have said straight away and messaged me had I been missed off/not replied. She is fiercely intelligent and not the type to miss anything, and if she had then she had the whole of our lunch to address it.

I almost felt she was going into masses of detail about her party, because she had felt bad about it so she wanted to ‘be honest’ with me. To assuage her guilt, that she had no longer had to lie to me about it, but for me, I felt so upset listening to it. I sat there thinking wtf! And she even had the cheek to tell me her mum enjoyed meeting her friends!!!!! 😡

I have met her mum lots of times at bigger events in the past so clearly these friends were quite new. I am trying very hard to be gracious about it.

I would also be very hurt by this. Who wouldn't be?

This is not a kind or caring friendship and you deserve better.

op did you do anything?