For leaving my friend's 30th early?

[doritstew]

My friend turned 30 today. A group of 15 of us went for lunch at 2 pm. At 4 pm friend had arranged a party bus that drove us around our home town for an hour. At 5 pm the bus was arranged to go to the nearest city. I didn't fancy it. Number 1 - I was tired after lunch (this happens when I eat and drink), 2 my dogs were at home so needed back for them and 3 I don't like the feeling of it taking a while to get home.

Out of 15 of us, only 5 went to the nearest city. The rest of us got off the bus at the same time. Some were pregnant, some just didn't want to go.

My friend is now giving me a hard time as I am her best friend and she thought I should have made the effort. Bearing in mind she never made my 30th as she was on holiday with her boyfriend. I gave her plenty of notice I wouldn't go to the nearest city. And the 10 of us that never went said multiple times that if she stayed local, we would have stayed out.

AIBU?

She chose to book a holiday when she knew it was your 30th, some mate.
No you are not being unreasonable, you warned her you were going to leave early , she said fine and is now complaining. Sounds like she’s miffed that she had a rubbish time and is projecting it onto you.

YANBU

Oh gosh, this is a bit sad having just come back from a 30th birthday weekend for a dear friend. For someone that's my best friend, there's no way i'd leave their birthday celebration that early unless there was something else I absolutely HAD to do, even if it's something I may not have necessarily enjoyed.

It's interesting hearing people's thoughts on big birthday celebrations and not having to endure occasions just because people are your friends. Many women these days especially will not get married or even have kids, their birthdays may be the only time they will be able to celebrate themselves and get all the people they love together in one place. It's actually really disheartening that people think it's a selfish or childish thing to do.

Come on, though, a multi-hour event spanning two meals and involving a party bus!?

A nice long lunch and a few drinks at the pub would have been enough.

I love getting together with friends and am super sociable. But that is just way too much.

A high % of the women at this event were pregnant, from what the OP says, and many of the non-pregnant ones probably had a baby or even a couple of kids at home. Birthday girl should have canvassed everyone more carefully; the ones who didn't fancy such a massive event should have been more assertive, and should have told birthday girl that this was too much, let's tone it down. The OP did inform the birthday girl beforehand; I don't think she is to blame.

YANBU It’s time these big self-indulgent Birthday ‘dos’ adults arrange for themselves stopped. They put pressure on people (the guests) and often result in bad feeling. Your friend needs to grow up. I might understand if she were 10, but 30?!

The diabetes is a bit of a drip feed OP.

If you had texted her 'I'm sorry I had to leave early, my diabetes is playing up' that's a much better reason than 'meh, I didn't fancy it. I wanted to see my dogs. Was a bit tired.'

I'd be hurt if most of my friends bailed halfway through my birthday party as well, but I wouldn't have organised a party like that. It sounds like she needed to read the needs of the group a bit better and realise not everyone wanted a half a day long blow out.

I don’t know if it’s a case of YABU or YANBU. However your friend has absolutely every right to be upset and she is probably questioning who her friends are right now. It isn’t something that I personally would do to my best friends, i would always try my very hardest to be there at their big events.

I don’t think your birthday is relevant her, as if you had really wanted her there you would have changed the date of your birthday celebrations.

if you hadn’t arranged care for your dogs your clearly had no intention of staying out whether they did or did not stay local.

I think your excuses area a little weak and as her best friend, when you saw the majority of the group drop out, didn't it occur to you to step in and be a good friend and try to make her night celebrating fun rather than go home too?

Sounds like you're still resentful that she was on holiday when it was your birthday. Couldn't you have arranged an alternative time to celebrate that too?

You get from a friendship is what you put in, this is a way to lead a life.
If the friend could not be ar$ed and preferred to travel with her BF, why does she expect people to be bothered in return? Some poeple love to have all eyes on them all the time, and it's tiring.
Another great maxim is, don't be a doormat.

@CatsnCoffee not sure there needs to
be a blanket ban on adult birthday celebrations on the grounds that they are sometimes misjudged! However I don’t think people should feel bad for acting according to their preferences. I’ve had friends bail
on me for bday get togethers quite a few times (reasons including variations on ‘don’t feel like it) and never minded.

I’m surprised anyone is criticising the friend for being on holiday when it was OP’s 30th. Do people expect friends to arrange holidays around their birthdays? OP and friend could have got together separately after the holiday.

I agree.

I all the times I've ever booked a holiday I've never thought to myself to check that no friends birthdays fall within the timeframe. It's hard enough coordinating it with work, flights, when I can get leave etc.

I think you have to let that one go OP.

I don’t see the problem! If you told her beforehand and didn’t back out at the last minute, I think that’s very reasonable. You were still there to celebrate her birthday with her, it doesn’t have to involve a long night with a big drinking session!

This hits the nail on the head. Of COURSE you put yourself out for your best friends birthday. It’s your best friend!

Yes that’s the sensible approach, but the OP did not agree to the last part of the day and I’m assuming the pregnant person and the others who didn’t go didn’t agree to it either. So why is the “friend” trying to guilt trip OP? That is making demands of people, she would have had OP go on to the night out despite her tiredness and her family commitments. A good friend would just want the friend to do what suited her own circumstances. She still got to do what she wanted, just with less people, so she is being demanding and cringey by expecting her own 30th birthday celebrations to trump everything.

Good for you - you’ll probably be pleased to hear that you come across as about 15.

Actually I do have a dog, who I treat as a dog not an infant child. I would and certainly have left him for longer than 3 hours and if I have to be away for longer periods, he either goes to kennels or a friend or neighbour comes in and gives him a quick walk. He is a rescue who has a good life with us, who is treated very well but I'm afraid my human relationships come first

So sorry about your friend and glad you got to spend that precious time with her.

Nobody is criticising the friend for being on holiday during OP’s birthday. She can holiday when she likes.

The criticism, is around the hypocrisy the friend is demonstrating, in her attitude now. In that OP’s friend shouldn’t get pissy about OP not staying out all night for her birthday, when she wasn’t around for OP’s herself. It’s double standards.

The very fact you came home to write this on Mumsnet shows you know it was wrong, yet you're seeking validation to try and make yourself believe you're somehow okay for being shallow?

This is more than unreasonable, this is you being an arsehole.

@doritstew Still expecting you to come back and say you meant it would have taken you 2 hours to get home, not 20 mins instead of 10 mins.

Did you REALLY mean 20 mins? 😂

@doritstew You need to tell your friend to grow up & get over it.

The invite was a request for you to join the party not a demand, you had commitments & were not feeling up-to an evening out in the city, which is totally understandable, & you aren’t the only one who didn’t go to the city.
I would totally have reminded her that she didn’t even go to your 30th, wouldn’t feel petty about it either, because she felt it was ok to go on holiday instead knowing when your birthday was.
How inconsiderate of her… lol
In all honesty I would be distancing myself from the relationship purely on her double standards attitude never mind what else I assume she tries to guilt trip & manipulate you with.

To be honest op you've now drip fed a load of random excuses half of which contradict each other

• you had to be back for your dogs but you were willing to stay out if it had been local (so the dogs would have been fine left alone if they knew you were nearby?)
• as well as the dogs you have a young dd -so presumably someone was looking after her who could have also checked in on the dogs?
• you told your friend in "plenty of time" but refuse to specify how much time this was i.e. the key part did you originally agree to the whole night out and then change your mind after she had booked everything
• you've been partying since you were 11 (ok....) but you've only JUST realised that eating and drinking spikes your diabetes and makes you tired but again that's only an issue if you leave the boundaries of Essex
• the journey from Essex to London apparently only takes 10 minutes?

Either you were well enough to stay out and your dogs would have been fine as long as you "stayed local" (even though not atayibg local only adds 10 mins on)....or you weren't feeling well and needed to get back to them in which case why even bring the local bit up?

Basically you're just chucking every random excuse you can think of out there to justify the fact you just didn't want to and couldn't be bothered to stay out. Which is fine. You don't have to do things you don't want to do. But friend is entitled to be upset that you essentially couldn't be arsed, less so if you told her from the start, more so if you changed your mind and started making all these half hearted reasons last minute.

Ive got a friend who always throws out about 200 excuses for not coming or leaving early - she seems to think the more reasons she has the more it validates her whereas actually it does the opposite and just makes it sound like she doesnt want to come in the first plce...just make your decision, give 1 reason and that's fine!

The whole concept of 'excuses' should be irrelevant to an equal friendship. I don't mean in the case of cancelling at the last minute - that does require an excuse- but of not choosing to attend all proposed events or activities. A friend is not your boss or your tough P.E. teacher! If you don't share ANY interests or preferred activities with someone, then it's probably not much of a friendship; but you should not be required to attend an all-day drinking party because that's what your friend feels like.

If it's very important to the friend for all her friends to be present throughout het birthday party, then she should have discussed arrangements with them in advance and taken their wishes into account. If an all-day drinking party is more important to her, then she should accept that not everyone will stay the course.

And if she really couldn't accept it, then she should have said so from the beginning, not 'that's OK' and THEN kicked off later! I hate capriciousness.

The one thing that I think is U of the OP is her even bringing up her friend's absence for her own birthday party. Just as the OP has the right to place her health and her dogs above all-day partying, her friend had the right to place a holiday above a birthday party.

I’ve only just seen this thread. I would have done the same as you and would have warned her beforehand that I was likely to leave early, which you did. Don’t feel bad, sounds like she’s taking it out on you because others left early but you’re supposed to be her best friend, so you’re the easier target. Socialising can be tiring especially after lunchtime drinks and dogs can’t be left alone for hours 😊