I moved to a new area in September and my little DD started reception the first week of octopus thus missing out on all the on-boarding.
She's settled well but I've struggled to make friends sadly. My hopes were high, my mom's closest friends were made in the playground 25 years ago and they all have a great relationship one on one and in groups, holidays nights out, supportive through hard times etc etc. I think my expectations were high, but I've stood mostly alone twice a day in the playground since October despite being really friendly. I've been quite sad, perhaps it all would have been easier if we'd managed to move before the school year had started 🥲.
I decided last week to try and help out on the PTA both for the benefit of the school and maybe it would help me socially.
There's one group of moms (they have older DC at the school so have bonded well over the years) that always stand together in the playground and they're all massive big contributors in the PTA, so I bravely went and sat near them at the meeting last Thursday and tried small talking to them and I felt Okayish, making some progress.
During the meeting I offered a voucher for a free meal at a Nice Restaurant in the centre of the city to be used as a raffle prize. I had the voucher as I work for a different restaurant within the same company, and my manager kindly gave it to me for the school. We got chatting at the meeting about my work etc and I left the meeting feeling good.
The next morning got even better, one of the 5 moms came up to me and asked if I'd like to join them at the said restaurant on the Saturday night (the following day) as they'd got a table booked for 5 for a festive meal, and thought I'd like to join them. I felt so welcomed and joyous by this and immediately said yes and went straight into the city to buy a nice outfit ad these women are always so well groomed, I didn't want to let the side down on this important first night with the girls. I was thrilled. And my mom was really pleased too when I phoned her to tell her about it all.
The night was lovely, obviously they all know each other and I'm the newbie, so the dynamic was slightly strange because they're so close but I felt welcomed and it's early stages, I feel this could be the start of something great. 💞
We left the restaurant with them all promising to make a date for another get together soon.
Gosh that's long, but here's my AIBU I guess.
I get a 33% staff discount (I know,I know it's fabulous) so we did go a bit wild with cocktails 😂🍸, but my discount got the bill for 6 down from £500ish to £330ish so £55ish each I thought.
But I said I'd got a £50 M&B voucher (most 5 star reviews in a month 😇) from work, so just got £10 cash out my wallet to cover the remaining.
But one of my new friends saw the voucher and said we should take that off the £360 and then split the £310 6 ways so pay £52 each and I kinda didn't want to rock the boat when they'd been do welcoming and kind to me, so I went along with it and I put another £45 in to cover the rest.
We ll them decided on £5each as a top for the staff, all good.
I'm sure as is an infancy friendship, it was the correct tactic to go along with being amenable with the group thought but I do feel I pay a bit extra that I should have.
YANBU, best to roll with the majority to avoid awkwardness
YABU should have said something really. 😬