I am based in a small village this is not unimportant. When we moved here twenty years ago I made good friends with ‘Belle’ and our dc were friends and we spent many Christmases, birthdays, holidays and were super close. Over the pandemic we only grew closer.
In the interim we made separate groups of friends with different circles of friends but still sharing many local friends. Somewhere along the line once the lockdowns lifted she started prioritising some newer friends and I noticed she didn’t invite me to her birthday etc any longer - I asked her about it, if something was wrong she said no, but was vague and blamed other people for messing up the guest list. Really feeble excuses regarding dinners and parties etc but she still claimed we were the best of friends and nothing had changed. It happened repeatedly.
I continued to invite her to the things I was doing for a very long time, not wishing to be petty and to avoid tit for tat. She accepted all of our invites but never returned them for years! Instead she continued to invite others. Eventually I eased off including her, assuming our friendship was cooling, and moving to a different stage. It was sad at the time ofc but just one of those things.
I have some very close friends elsewhere and have been spending more time with them in the last few years. I have accepted this particular friendship has changed, and even after we spoke about it nothing changed for the better in terms of reciprocity. I am planning a birthday party in the summer and have invited local friends and others.
I have now received an outraged message from this friend demanding to know why she isn’t invited and really kicking off. It appears she expects to have birthdays and parties and not invite me, but I am expected to continue to roll out the invites and red carpet for her…
Can someone please share with me their thoughts on this. I am stumped.
Should I have invited her?
Why is she doing this?