Hi, I feel a bit embarrassed tbh about asking advice about this. The daft thing is, all the very important, serious things in life I seem to be able to settle myself, yet sometimes the smaller things throw me off track and I need some advice. A bit of background, although I do have many friends, school, college, workplaces etc, you know what it’s like, you might see people once a month or so, or if they live a while away every few months.
For over 18 years I was self employed, working through the day, then a carer from when my son came home from school he is severely disabled. I didn’t realise at the time how isolating this was, I’ve got a great husband, but day to day interactions when he was at work were minimal. So, used to see friends now and then, but time wise not as much as I would like. When my child turned adult, they moved into a care facility nearby, so now I only have a caring role part time, so had more time to myself. I am a naturally friendly person and fell in with a group of women at the local swim club. This was a few years ago, and on the face of it, it was quite invigorating, seeing people more often, having a laugh etc. But it wasn’t long before I realised that when certain people weren’t there, there was a lot of bitchiness, nasty stuff sometimes. After a while I tried to distance myself, never ghosted but just said I was busy etc. I found that it was like being stuck in glue because if I didn’t go along with social stuff I’d get texts, why aren’t you coming to this and that, oh, if you can’t make it we will change the date etc. I was looking at it short term I’ll be honest but ended up going along with it - I’m a people pleaser there is no doubt about that, always have been.
I’m not saying that I haven’t had some good times, to be honest sometimes we have a good laugh, but there is ALWAYS a drama over something or other, petty jealousies galore. I never thought I’d think it but it makes me realise that being self employed wasn’t that bad after all! At least no mean girl s**t when some of them are even grans - they should know better. Anyway, bearing in mind I’ve had some friends for thirty odd years, and in that time haven’t had any real dramas or whatever, I’m fed up of this lot and all the “noise” around the group, I know some will just say, tell them where to go, but I live in a very small town, and I can tell you, even if I pop to the local shop I see someone it’s not as easy to get out of it. And I don’t want to hurt some feelings either, they aren’t bad people as such, although a couple of them can be shockingly nasty about each other, ( and no doubt me too) and just got into nasty gal habits,but a few of them aren’t like this, on their own they are nice, but there is no point thinking that if I turned my back on the group they would want to meet up separately, like all gangs there are a couple of alphas lol, so it’s just turned stressful. How do I manage to separate myself tactfully ? how do I manage to not offend the ones that are ok? Is that not possible? Any suggestions ?