Friends meeting without me

[CocoBean22]

Me and two of my friends used to meet up once in every school holiday with our kids who are the same ages.

Last time in the Christmas holidays I was meant to go but couldn't make it due to work commitments so had to drop out.

I found out yesterday from one of the friends that she is meeting up next week with the kids and the other friend, I acted cool when she told me and said 'oh that will be nice' but deep down I'm a bit hurt and not sure if I'm over reacting but feeling like this?

Part of me feels like messaging the other friend saying 'Hope you have a nice time next week with friend X' just to make a point that I'm aware they are meeting up without me but not sure what this will achieve 😔

AIBU for feeling a bit miffed they haven't asked me this time or should I let it go as obviously we are allowed to meet who we want when we want and don't have to be invited every time and still be friends?

I wouldn’t send a passive aggressive message. I’d just be honest and ask why you wasn’t invited? It’s hurtful, I would want to know why.

Are you 15?!

You need to stop being so immature. People are allowed to meet without you, they don't owe you an explanation nor do they need your permission.

Maybe it was something they planned at the last meet-up that they had?
If you found this out from one friend that means you also met up with one and not the other?

Thanks for replying, I saw the other friend yesterday at a gymnastics competition where both our children go.

The dynamics are different between two people compared to three, maybe they like to catch up with one another sometimes in a pair? You could organise something and invite them both if you want.

I think as people move on through their lives, they have less energy for organising group social stuff. It probably came from them having a conversation and deciding to meet up. That's simple for them and an end to it, rather than adding other people in. I agree it's a change and can feel exclusive, but you can do the same, especially if your kids don't see each other that much anyway.

Yeah they probably arranged when they met.

If you want to go, why not just message the friend who told you and say 'hey, nice seeing you at gymnastics, <my child> would love <the cinema> if you're still going? Friday at 5pm wasn't it?'

Do you only ever meet as a 3 and not as a 2?

I'd have just said "oh sounds fun, can we tag along?"

I’m sorry to hear this, OP. But you are taking this very personally and the fact that you are considering sending a passive aggressive message gives me some indication of why you might find yourself excluded from social gatherings. I get that you feel hurt, but if you habitually approach friendships with an attitude of grievance and victimhood, people will feel like they have to walk on eggshells not to upset you, and that doesn’t make for a nice atmosphere where people feel like they can relax and be themselves.

Try to consider that they wouldn’t have told you they were meeting if they were trying to keep it a secret from you; it’s just not that big a deal. A group of three doesn’t always have to be a group of three - there is room for individual friendships.

How often do you do the arranging when the 3 of you meet up?

Why not just message them and arrange a meet up with them both at a different time?

It's fine for people to meet separately, it's not a personal slight against you, although if you send the PA message then I imagine you wouldn't be meeting up again.

Why didn’t you just ask if you could go to the meet up?

I didn't want to come across as pushy, and also didn't want to just invite myself when they had arranged it already just the two of them. I would have felt a bit awkward saying that 😕

Do not do this! It will just make things more awkward.

Sarcastic messages will help no-one and won't make you feel better

Perhaps you could ask to join them? Or, get ahead and invite them to a group meet up for Easter holidays

@CocoBean22 Been there and remember the sting of it, but I realised when this happened with my friends (also a group of 3) that a meeting would be arranged and I had to bow out in advance, they'd go ahead and then get giddy planning something for them both to do another time and I was kind of out of sight out of mind rather than that they were deliberately excluding me.

It didnt happen very often and only once did I mention it in passing and they were mortified. It reads to me that possibly the same thing happened with your friends and they set this up during the meeting you missed. I would arrange something for you all to do soon and see if that reblances things.

Edited to add: absolutely DO NOT message them. It will needlessly create bad feelings and actually after an initial buzz wears off you won't feel any better for sending it and will probably feel more anxious.

Have you always only met up as a 3? How old are the kids, do theirs get on better? I would feel a little hurt but would not send a message.

I’m sorry to hear this op.

I had a fairly large group of so—called friends a few years ago and I found out they’d been going out behind my back and had been excluding 2 others too. While I was having a coffee with one of them one morning, she left her phone on the table right in front of while she tended so her child. She had the WhatsApp group open that we weren’t included in and I couldn’t help but notice they were arranging to go out. It made me feel awful and I assumed it was just me who was left out.

When I left, I messaged one of my other friends who I was closer to and I asked her if she knew about this group and she said no. After some detective work we realised that 3 of us were left out.

I couldn’t help myself and sent a passive aggressive message, and also I told them all that I am aware they have a WhatsApp group that we haven’t been invited to. One of them apologised in a lukewarm way, one of them dropped off a present and card with an apologetic letter inside to my house (Husband was in), and the rest simply ignored me and we have never seen each other, not spoken again. I hasten to add that I messaged the two who had apologised, they replied but that was that - friendships over. They all just dropped me, and my other 2 friends.

Would I do it with friends now if I found out I’d been excluded, probably not, but with the old friends I sensed that we were growing apart and I wanted to decipher who would really be bothered about me.

I’m still friends with 1 of the women who had been left out, and that’s it from that circle of friends.

Wow. Glad you're not a friend of mine. It's not about being 'allowed', it's about how people treat their friends.

The OP hasn’t been treated in a bad way by her friends. Two of her friends decided to meet up together, that’s all. They haven’t done anything wrong.

Dont help the OP to make this into more of a drama than she already has.

They are part of a group of friends, you're not. Therefore they don't consider you part of this group. Don't send a message and just move on.

Exactly what have they done that would constitute treating OP poorly? Like genuinely, I'm not being snitty, I truly cannot see how they've treated her badly here.

So you see one without the other, but they aren't allowed to see each other without you?

Honestly, if you want the 3 of you to meet up with your kids, then organise something. But you don't have to be invited to /included in everything, nor do you have to always see both of them together. It's perfectly possible to sometimes see each other all of you together and sometimes just two of you just meet up.

I think it’s really important to distinguish being excluded from something (I.e people have deliberately decided they actively don’t want you there because they don’t like you for whatever reason) and other people meeting independently of you, where it might be nothing at all to do with you, and more to do with a separate friendship dynamic they have (particular interests and experiences in common, etc).

Being excluded hurts, of course - but people are also allowed not to like us, or to want to pursue friendships with us. And nothing good can ever come of trying to force someone to be our friend if they don’t want to, or reprimand them for not including us in social events that are entirely their choice.

How are get together normally arranged? WhatsApp? Group text? If they are your friends and you want to see them, contact them on the usual means and ask if anyone fancies catching up.

Thanks for the replies.

For people saying 'so they aren't allowed to see each other when I see one at Gym'

It's not about that, of course we are one or the other separately outside of our group meets.

The point here is this is our 'usual once a school holiday term time group meet up' that they are having on their own.

There's have been occasions when I've seen one and not the other and the other way round but the difference here is that's usually when we all catch up during a half term.