Friend inviting their friend to our rare meet up - AIBU to be upset about being multitasked?

[bluesofacushion]

I just had a new baby, my 2 friends who live nearby have older children and asked to meet up with me and new baby and it's so rare this happens and I really love these friends. I was really looking forward to it. Date in the diary for about 6 week.

A few days ago I get a message saying can we meet near them (fine but I'm a bit freaked out about the driving/parking) and they've invited another friend - I know this lady, she's really nice but not my friend, I don't see her socially etc. this additional friends wants to come to have baby cuddles apparently. Well for a start he's not a doll so I feel irked about that.

I also feel upset that they don't seem to really want to see us and it's more a case of social multitasking. I feel quite tearful and overwhelmed and I just want to see my friends and catch up.

I'm thinking of making an excuse and leaving them to their meet up and try to arrange another day.

AIBU?

Oh, sorry OP, it was a bit insensitive of your two friends, or rather the one at 'fault' is the gatecrasher. I've had this once, no baby involved, but my friend/former neighbour who lives abroad arranged to meet up with me for a day out while she was back in the area and staying with a friend. The friend, who I had met only once and didn't really know, tagged along, and it was a bit constrained all round. It does affect dynamics, as you and the friend(s) have shared experiences/backgrounds or whatever, and bringing another person into it does make a difference.

It's knowing that's my friend is more interested in seeing other people and not really me.

I think you're reading too much into it, understandably with the hormones, but don't feed it by feeling so hard done to. Sounds like your friends are gregarious and haven't understood the mindset you're in right now. They clearly wanted to see you and so did this other woman. It was still about you and your baby, as much as anything needs to be (the world doesn't revolve etc etc), and your feelings of being multitasked and not of interest feel OTT, like you're feeling bad about yourself and letting this feed into that. But honestly, they didn't realise and have made a mistake. Don't take it to heart. Set up another meeting on your own terms when you're feeling more up to it.

OP I completely agree with you and think you’ve done the right thing.

I went for a coffee with a friend once and was suprised to find she had also invited her other friend and their child in what was clearly a social multitasking situation. I wasn’t happy as although I had met her before we weren’t friends. I don’t want to play nice with strangers, I want to have a coffee with my friend and be brutally honest about how knackered I am, how my husband winds me up and what twatty things the kids have done that week.

I definitely would not be impressed if someone openly wanted to just come to have baby cuddles with my baby. She’s not a toy, not a doll, and I don’t really want her being passed round everyone and anyone. Babies are lovely, but it’s not a nice feeling to feel used just so someone can get a baby cuddle in 🙄

for me the key factor is this: if it was just you and your friends going for a coffee (without baby) would she have been invited/want to come? Or is she solely coming for the baby and not particularly bothered about you?

I've no pregnancy hormones but being introverted I would feel the same way- it's exhausting enough for me to socialise and the ones I do it for are the ones I particularly care about and if I hadn't seen them for ages and they added someone else in without asking me first, I'd feel annoyed and likely cancel.

I'm forever having people try to match me up with other people because they think we'd get on - I barely manage to see the friends I do make the effort for, why would I appreciate extra?!

But to extroverts it's always the more the merrier and they refuse to accept- actually I don't want more friends or more people when I do socialise

I don't think some folk really understand how much importance you gave them to let them in and rightly or wrongly if they go adding somebody else it feels like a rejection (tho they might not have that motive) like you aren't enough by yourself or something

OP is completely right. The friends decided to change the nature of the event without even asking her and included the new person in the discussion making it a done deal.

She's right to simply say no thanks to the new version they have set up. They have effectively cancelled the original arrangements and made new ones.

Hopefully they will reflect on their bad manners. Offering up someone else's baby for cuddles is extremely pushy and inconsiderate.

I think you are perfectly fine to cancel as your feeling a bit fragile and in need of some support as it's early baby days and I'm sure we all felt that at some point.

I personally wouldn't have liked it if my friends had invited someone I didn't know to cuddle my baby either!

Just reach out to one of them, and tell them how your feeling and hope they understand... if they have kids they might remember how they felt in those early days?

I wonder what the replies would be if this was a man posting that he had a meet up booked with his 2 mates and a 4th person was coming along so he cancelled. I think the replies would be very different.

I understand hormones will be everywhere, I've had babies I understand. But times like this I'd have bit the bullet and understood that my hormones were everywhere rather than isolate myself.

No. I'm with you. Completely. If you have a group, say you are 1 of 4, there are 3 others, and you meet regularly. And then you arrange it, but last minute one of them invites .... Sandra. You don't know her or you don't know her as well as you know the others, it changes the group dynamic, you have history of the four of you meeting up and then someone says can I bring my sister or my other friend or someone else that you all know, and you're just thought is no, just no.

It's not a man it's a woman with a very young baby who is clearly feeling a bit fragile and in need of some support from her friends. And yes her hormones do have a part to play in this, but we can't change that. As women who have given birth we are trying to support the op, and help her through so she doesn't feel to down about it and potentially cut off friends that she needs right now.

You have done what's right for you. It's much better than going and being stressed out and resenting them and yourself afterwards.

Some people aren't socially apt and think it's fine to invite extra people and change plans unilaterally. They're the ones being shitty to you on this thread. You have social awareness and know it isn't okay; you're not wrong.

At the very least they could have offered to meet near you... you're the one who's tired with a very young baby.

I really hate it when a friend invites someone else along to a catch-up - it absolutely changes the dynamics. And it's awful when they invite the other person and then ask if it's okay. So if you say no, the gate crasher knows you were the one not happy.

OP, I hope you're able to reschedule with your two friends.

I would hate this OP

My friend has another friend who I despise; this another friend is loud and pass remarkable.

I refuse to be around her as she is a rude drink driving self righteous cunt.

I don't think this is pregnancy hormones at all. I think most of us would be bothered, at any time. These women are clearly on a different planet to op and they don't see it the way she does.

To invite a new member to your established group, without consultation is questionable. As OP said if she wanted to be friends with her, she would've before. Unfortunately this, the including her is the kiss of death for the old group dynamic, and I would be very upset indeed that this hadn't occurred to the other members.

I think you’re being extremely over-sensitive op as you’ve said third person is nice so I really don’t see your issue. Don’t be surprised if these friends don’t make as many plans with you in future

Hang on, why so many post blaming hormones? Do you know not everyone is an extrovert who enjoys being a social butterfly and meeting new people. This is me.

I want friendships which are deeper. It means I have less friends than most but we are good friends. Those social situations with one or two friends appeal to me more than a group. That’s not hormonal; it’s my personality and that perfectly good. Stop making out there is something wrong with the OP.

OP I hope you manage to meet up with your friends soon.

it was a catch up with two friends that has turned into a catch up with three friends

the third woman is not a friend and OP doesn't see her becoming a friend.

I think you’re being really over sensitive with this OP and now you have shot yourself in the foot. It will definitely be the hormones at play but now it will be awkward for you moving forward. It was a group meet up with one additional, nice person. I think you would have enjoyed it when there.

I don't think it's fair people are blaming your pregnancy hormones for your feelings, it's actually quite dismissive and a bit misogynistic - just because you are a new mother your valid feeling aren't necessarily due to that. I would be a bit miffed too - if it was a group of 5 or 6 of you meeting up and someone invited another person, then fair enough. But a meeting of three close friends is quite an intimate situation, and a fourth person completely changes the dynamics.

Some of the replies here are just awful, suggesting no-one will want to be OP's friend etc.

Firstly OP congratulations on your new baby! It's a lovely but also overwhelming time.

YANBU to want to keep it to your close friends. I think I'd have asked if you could just keep it to the original two, rather than cancelling, but I do understand why you replied that way.

At another point, meeting up with someone who is just an acquaintance is fine too, but that wasn't your expectation this time.

I have never been pregnant and I still despise the person I mentioned earlier.

That’s fine but in that case I think you have to accept that others might not want meet ups on those terms, especially when everyone has busy lives. It doesn’t mean they can’t be friends but OP is the one with the issue so why should the others change their plans?

Whilst your feelings and wants are really understandable, I just wonder from this thread if your friends will understand what happened as it seems like you might not have expressed it to them. As someone else said, it might be an idea to give one of them a phonecall and just explain, otherwise it might seem a bit strange to cancel. The reply "okay" doesn't really say it all to me. It suggests they might be confused if you suddenly cancelled without saying why.

On the original question, I'd have said, why not do both things: go to meet them all together with the other woman too, but also ask if one or both of your close friends could do a catch-up on their own and fix another date for that? I think perhaps having more than one friend going maybe made it seem more like a group catch up. Maybe the other woman is going through a hard time or lonely and your friend is being kind asking her along. You don't really know the circumstances if you haven't spoken to the friend who invited her. Asking to see either one of your close friends one-to-one might be easier to keep more small and intimate so you can feel more properly relaxed maybe? Having two meet-ups surely wouldn't be difficult to do, would it?

You must be tired out with a new baby, so I just want to extend sympathy because you do sound disappointed not to see your friends this time, but I'd really just try having a chat with one of them on the phone and make another arrangement. Probably make you all feel better.

I think the world is divided into people who think "the more the merrier" and people who don't. I am definitely in the latter category and hate it when friends bring or invite other people to planned meet-ups. It changes the whole dynamic and means you have to make bland small talk with a stranger or acquaintance instead of being able to talk to your actual friend(s) properly, refer to running jokes, etc. There are different types of socialising and sometimes you're in the mood to meet new people, sometimes not. "The more the merrier" people don't seem to make this distinction. I cannot understand their mindset at all, and I'm sure they feel the same about people who don't want them to invite extra people.

Fuck that

They're friends but you don't see them regularly so this is a big thing. In the diary for six weeks.

Firstly they change the location to suit them. Despite knowing you're a new mum. Why aren't they fucking asking what's easiest for you? They've been there. They know how overwhelming it is.

Then they invite someone else along. Doesn't matter who the fuck it is. She wasn't part of the original plan. Why can't she have a catch up with her old friends. Time and a place to catch up with a random you never actually see and it's not now

And yeah the 'she wants baby cuddles' would fuck me right off.

And no. No pregnancy hormones here. Just basic manners and treating friends with a bit of respect.