Friend said separate birthday party for Scots versus Brit-Asian, AIBU to be wonder if I should be offended?

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Sorry that is to be wondering* in the title
Hey so my friend and I are both Brit Asian community based in Scotland.

She has a birthday party organised for her DC1 one for school friends at a party venue for kids, and another party at home for I suppose predominantly neighbours Asian friends to bring their DC to. Their are overlaps , as I only know about the school party from another asian friend who's DC go to same school as first friend. so there must be some asians at school party and presumably some (I think the right term is) white ppl at the neighbourhood one.

Unfortunately we are now going to be away on the date of the neighbourhood party, I didnt want her to think her DC birthday wasnt important so asked if my son cud go to the other one instead given he will know the local school kids from the neighbourhood (he goes to private school in the city), it was a long shot that I thought was politer than declining the invite and I was perfectly okay with no sorry DC prefers to have school friends time be separate to other friends .

But instead she said

My DC go to local school not private school and therefore has a big list of non Indian friends.

I have just reread her message exact words are ' going to local school, my DC has a really long list of non Indian friends'

Huh ???

DId she just insult Asians,Brit Asians, local white ppl, all in one sentence.

Anyway , I have said no worries, we will defo make it to the one we were invited to , if we are not away that date. It ended tersely. I hate it too when ppl who are invited try to make it about them rather than the birthday child - I genuinely wanted to try and have my DS be there for her DC spl event to show that we care and would have been okay with a better worded no response than the whole Indian , non Indian terminology (like what?, my Indian friend is going to the other one with her DC , and why would the two not mix? I cant even get my head around this.

Nope :-)

I really like this explanation, well thought out.

Then an already weird thread

just became a whole lot more weirder

I’m guessing that her main reason is that she doesn’t want a 16 year old boy at her 12/13 year old daughters class party

it is unfathomably strange that you can’t see how odd you are being about all this op

Yes the combination of the bonkers ness (appreciate that’s not a word) of the ops posts combined with the judgement of the friend is wild. Both women convinced they are right/superior. The dads meanwhile having nothing to do presumably with the whole situation and good on them.

Trust me, I don't feel superior

I don’t think the other mum is being weird at all

the op invited her 16 year old son to this woman’s 12 year old’s 13th class party. The poor woman felt on the spot and just spouted whatever came to her mind

op given how you behaved in this scenario, given how you have come across on this thread - I am going to guess that you have left many people in RL quizzically scratching their heads following exchanges with you

Ok thank you for your feedback @Wayhome

If it's at a children's party venue then there might be limited spaces. She can't be that racist if she's got some Asian kids going already. Your DS was invited to the Asian community party and the other party is for her daughter's school friends, where the usual is probably that only kids at that age will be invited, unlike many Asian parties which are more about family and the community with kids from a range of ages. If it is a same-age party then her predominantly non-Asian friends would most probably find it pretty weird for an older teen, from a different school, to be there, Asian or not - those are just the cultural codes of that type of grouping, and that might be what she was clumsily referring to.

I think you're probably taking offence when none was intended. Everyone has racial stereotypes and prejudices which come out occasionally, you’re deluding yourself if you think you don’t. What’s good is living in a world where we try to make sure we don’t act in racist ways. Pointing the accusatory finger at someone else’s social groupings when they’re not maliciously racist helps no-one apart from the offended person who wants some kind of moral victory.

I wonder if you feel rejected and a little embarrassed about inviting yourself to the other party (this was rude and inappropriate) and you’re reacting defensively by making this about what she’s done wrong when she turned you down and not about what you did in the first place. It’s all no big deal - don’t make it into one.

Doesn't she mean 'he has a lot of friends that you may not be aware about because they aren't Indian and come from the school where your DS doesn't go?'

You were rude asking if you can attend the other party. If you can’t attend the party you are invited to, then just politely decline…!

Done now thanks

I think she was probably quite surprised that you were proposing that your 16yr old ds might attend a party for a 13yr old girl and her school friends, tbh! How uncomfortable for all concerned. Much more acceptable for multi-aged family/neighbourhood get-together.

She was probably searching furiously for a suitable way of saying no, without saying outright that it would be…odd, if your ds came. It’s obviously nothing to do with race, as the child herself is British Asian and you said there are other Asian school friends attending the school party. Also nothing against your ds, but it really would be strange if there was a random 16yr old at a 13yr old’s party. None of my ds at that age would have countenanced being a lone 16 yr old at such an event, and it sounds like your ds is of the same opinion!

I think her message was the equivalent of blurting something out in a panic to get out of the immediate awkward situation, but unfortunately creating another awkward situation in the process. She didn’t think it through!

edited for typo

This is all so weird. Why on earth would you invite your 16 year-old son to a class party for 13 year-old girls?

I think, possibly, what might have happened here, is that she was surprised by your request that your son attend the 13 year-old class party. She should have just said, "sorry but they are a younger age group than your son and he would feel out of place and would not know anyone." But, in her confusion in trying to explain to you that this is not a party for neighbours' kids / relatives / wider friends, she has focused on the fact that this class party will not be predominantly Asian - ie. age doesn't really matter when it's relatives, friends' kids beyond school etc. Perhaps she thinks this is a politer way of turning down your request for your son to attend what I can only imagine would be a predominantly girls party of 13 year-olds!!! This is all I can think of.

Agree. Also I did not think it through at all either, in the fear of offending her with a straight out decline on the house party. If she had said yes, it would have been extremely awkward having to tell her later that my DS cant come to the other one as well due to 'made up reason' as he certainly would have refused to go any where near a bouncy castle , trampoline party with younger kids

Sorry - I cannot understand what it is you are trying to say.

Ok. Read the posts. I get it now.
I would need to know more tbh. What is the nature of the parties. Why does she assume the groups won’t get on. I don’t see it as her insulting anybody in particular (if I have understood correctly.)

It’s the fact that your 16 yr old son doesn’t want to go to the party (thankfully given it’s a 12 year old’s turning 13 year old girls class party) that is probably the weirdest aspect of all this

If it’s affected you to the point you have to post it on a forum then I don’t understand why you really need to still go to this party or carry on being besties. Tell her you can’t make it and distance yourself- simple

@Wayhome , the house party invite was for the full family , as a community families event - ordinarily my son would have liked to come along to that one because his ex-gf who is a year younger than him , and who he is still very close to , said she would go to that one if he was coming along. So they had a plan that is unfortunately impacted by us being away. I mis-stepped asking for him to attend the other one instead as I thought it impolite to say we were not going to engage in her daughter's birthday celebrations altogether. In my mind, I saw him and his ex going together and keeping each other company, I can see how I was extremely presumptuous though now. She was right to say no to switching invites to the other invite, it's the race and class aspects that were the confusing red herrings though last night.

I think I was in a low mood as the place I now work for for the first time in 25-30 years is non British , and is headquartered in the EU - I think I was low key offended that the head keeps referring to me as 'Indian' rather than 'British' , I have been mildly stewing over that for a few weeks now - I thought my English report writing skills far superior indeed to the Portugese, Belgians and Turks in the team - a number of them can barely string a coherent sentence together in the report - and the head of needs to rewrite everything - and from my perspective instead of leveraging off my 'British' ease of writing in English langauge they were missing out on that skill by labelling me repeatedly as 'Indian' - although after the number of people on here who said my post was confusing and ill-written , I am now no longer confident of that skill either :-)

It seems very odd that she’s brought race/ ethnicity into it. You are both from the same community so I wonder if she thought there was a “code” of sorts that you’d both understand.

I think she’s saying that the other party is just for school friends, which is fair enough. Sometimes having a non-school friend along can shift the dynamic in a way that is hard for young people to navigate.

re my post above, strangely enough no Boss here in Britain has ever done that, called me non-British / 'Indian' repeatedly like that , or even as a one off.

I think I was feeling a bit sensitive due to this already, re workplace situation , when the messages with my friend happened and I projected. Yes , technically, she can't be 'racist' given she is a POC herself. Post perhaps should have been about the boss at work and his labels mixing nationality and ethnicity , but then maybe I am overreacting to that as well.

Thanks to everyone who spoke to me on this thread, I think you helped slow me down from a mini meltdown on race , with my friend and - God forbid - with my boss :-) . You have given me a lot to reflect on as always mners :-)

So the kid is having a party with their school friends and then another with their non school friends and you tried to invite yourself to the one you weren't invited to? Yeah I'd be annoyed too.

Yes have definitely reflected and decided this friendship was not meant to be - I don't like who I am , when I am with her. As she is extremely strident and pushy, I think I have adapted by mirroring some of that in my interactions with her over the past 24-30 months. She lives very close by and is the type to walk in if the door is accidentally left unlocked even in the first few weeks of knowing each other. She was invited to our anniversary party and multiple times insisted that we do this vow exchange ceremony (renewal) in her (North) Indian langauge. We didnt want to do a vow renewal , let alone in a langauge we hardly know (our ancestry is from the south - the north versus south are almost two different races and cultures in themselves, with the south being a softer milder people).

Requesting to switch is very mild meek behaviour compared to her behaviours but I see where two wrongs do not make a right , and that as I said, overall , I don't recognise who I am becoming when I am with her, best to let this one go. Thank heavens my son was/is dating another neighbours girl and not this one, they are from the same northern part of india (although the girl was born and raised in Dubai before they moved here) and we are more compatible. So there really is no reason to go to each others parties with this one anymore.

Why do people ask if they should be offended like it’s a choice?

She just wants to keep one party for school friends and one for wider friends and family in the community. I get that, once you have outside friends at a school party they don’t know anyone well and often only know the birthday child which can lead to an awkward dynamic. The same friends and parents will go to every single school party all year every weekend and that’s the norm.

You were invited to her home friends, non school friends party so clearly she doesn’t have an issue with you being Indian or you wouldn’t be invited at all?

I was half offended as instead of saying school group versus neighbors group she said Indian versus non Indian - but there are Asians presumably at the school and there are non Indians in the neighbourhood (95 pc of the total neighbourhood). I had not realised how strict the race segregation was in her mind previously . Thought this was 2025 but overall glad I posted and understood half or more than half the views on here as well re the strict grouping by race. I am naive I suppose as very laidback and my parties are all mixed and easy.