Would you drop this friend

[ARunByFruiting]

Old work colleague but we've kept in touch. Went to her wedding evening do back in September, I got them a lovely afternoon tea with voucher with champagne that cost circa £100 which is alot for me as I'm not that well off. Put the envelope on the gift table at the reception.
After the reception I hadn't heard anything for over a week so messaged "lovely reception, hope you enjoy the afternoon tea". The reply i got was "Yeah we are looking forward to it, we will have to get your address to send a thank you card". Not heard a word since.
I know people are busy, I know especially after a wedding (to be fair theirs was very casual) that people have stuff to do. But not even a text to say thanks, I had to message them and then nothing since. Is this rude?

So... what's the actual problem then?! If you weren't expecting them to see you home, why are you annoyed that they didn't?

I think a week after the wedding is a bit soon to expect thank you notes. You did take a nice gift and there should have been one, but later. But you didn't give her your address. Is she supposed to extract it from your brain by telepathy?

The tubes, well it was half 11 at night, i'd been drinking and navigating getting across London on your own in a strange city that time of night can be quite scary, especially when some lines were shut.

Girl. You're a grown woman and you can't find your way around public transport and what did you expect her to do, escort you home on her birthday? I found the London tube system really easy to navigate. If you were so drunk you couldn't figure it out, you could have used Lyft or one of those services. And it was 6 years ago. That's a long time to hold a petty grudge.

I think you should distance yourself because you don't seem to like her.

So what exactly were you expecting? Most people would, quite reasonably, expect a grown adult to be able to catch a train/tube/bus independently unless there were significant learning difficulties involved.

Her friend was supposed to be going to the next stop from me but changed her mind at the last second. I would have felt bad leaving my friend to navigate across London on her own at 11.30pm when she'd been drinking and then get a train to an area she's also not familiar with (i don't live anywhere near London or Hertfordshire). That's not her fault but she didn't even message the next day. I didn't think it was that big a deal until my sister questioned it and then I looked back in hindsight and thought actually that was quite dodgy.

She also said she’d have to get your address to send you a thank you card. You seem to be ignoring that bit. Then you didn’t give her your address. Why did you not just send your address then you’d be justified if she still didn’t thank you?

Dump her then as you obviously have resentments.

If after a month i'd finally gotten around to sending thank you cards after looking after my neighbours friends ill dog, i'd think oh, so and so didn't give me her address so I better message to remind her. This didn't happen so unless she sent out 20 thank cards and left mine out then something tells me these fictional notes never happened. Or perhaps she put it with the phantom birthday present she said she'd got me but forgot to bring it 😆

Expecting you to travel back from a party by yourself as a competent adult really isn't dodgy. Nor is not texting you to check you got home safely the next day. Some people do, some don't, but it's not a big deal either way. Her friend changing her mind was outside of her control - and I wouldn't have given it a thought either, because I would have assumed you were capable of navigating public transport on your own as an adult. If you weren't, the responsibility is on you to say so and ask for help.

Ditto with the thank you cards/texts - it's a very Marmite type thing on here, very polarised between "it's so rude not to, you must!" and "life has moved on, it's pretty old fashioned and not required".

Presumably you give a gift to celebrate your friend -so her enjoyment ought to be the main thing, not your need for expressions of gratitude or validation.

Try just assuming that your friend is of the other type to you, and not getting offended at something that likely has zero intent, zero thoughtlessness and zero ill-feeling behind it.

You clearly do have lots of resentment "Doesn't seem to care about my feelings" - when actually, that only stands up if:

1. She has all the same beliefs as you about "the right way to behave" in these incidents
2. She is intentionally not doing "the right" thing

What's far more likely is that she has different beliefs, has zero bad intentions, and it's just never occurred to her that you would feel that way.
You'd feel better in life generally if you endeavoured to understand that people might see life differently and not take those differences personally.

Tbf then its partly your own fault if theyre sending cards and asked for your address and you didnt give it.

If shes sending say 80 cards I can understand why she might forget to text if she lacked 1 address amongst the 79 cards she did send

It's old fashioned to say thank you?

There wasn't 80 guests, 20 max plus her own late teen dc. It was very casual above a pub and they didn't where traditional suit/wedding dress.

For heaven’s sake, OP. Even Debretts says thank you cards should be sent ‘within three months’ of the wedding.

But I wasn't expecting a card

I agree with this.

A casual wedding s casual and won’t follow all the traditional wedding rules.

I’d be surprised to get a “hope you enjoy my present” text one week after receiving it, especially as it’s an experience gift.

You expect her to remind you to send your address after she's asked you to and you didn't? Pot, kettle.

No, it's considered by a reasonable number of people to be old fashioned to think it important/necessary to send thank you cards or even texts.

If you e.g. gave a gift at a 121 meet up, then say thank you then.

At a wedding, people are busy with, you know, getting married.
So for those of us who don't care, we'd think "I'm happy for them they're having a nice time, I'm pleased they invited me, I hope they enjoy the gift". End of. And wouldn't think a moment about whether they specifically said thank you or not, because I think well of my friends and don't need them to act a certain way to validate me.

I find it quite telling that that is the only part of my reply which you responded to.

She said she was looking forward to it. Presumably she'll send a thank you once she's actually done it?

You shouldn't have spent that much if you're struggling. Unfortunately she might not be aware that it's such a big expense for you.

But as far as you knew she may have been writing individual notes or cards.

You appear to have overspent on the present and then got arsey and sent a passive-aggressive ‘Where's my thanks?’ message. Very poor manners on your part.

Sorry OP but you do sound like just a bit of a fusspot. Texting after a week is very needy. Most people would send a photo of themselves having the tea, whenever that might be (could well be months) or as others have said, perfectly usual to send handwritten thank yous some months after the event.

I also agree it was overly generous financially for an evening invite to a pub reception and a gift that wouldn’t be right for everyone. It’s true, as a pp said, some vouchers do end up being a bit of a burden.

I’d just match her energy and try to relax about it all a bit.

After my birthday I managed to send thank you texts and I have young dc and a full time job. I guess everyone is different because after opening lovely gifts my priority was to say thank you to everyone. Leaving it a few weeks to send a text just looks half arsed. I understand if someone has a big wedding/going on honeymoon/orders lovely thank you cards to send/has young dc or elderly parent caring duties then it takes longer, but those weren't the circumstances in this case.

I don't understand why you'd want thanked. They paid for you to come to the reception, you gave them a present. Deal done surely. Be happy for them no thanks is needed surely.

Time to ghost this so called friend op!

she doesn’t appreciate you and nor does she seem to care about you in the slightest

It sounds like it might just be her op. Are they less well off than you? It was a very generous gift for just being invited to the evening. Id let it go and wait for her to make next contact.

It's not telling, I've just already replied in the thread about the stuff you wrote so don't want to keep repeating myself.

In any circumstance, wedding, birthday, Christmas you always say thank you otherwise it's just rude! If someone says thank you in person as you give them the gift then that's fine, no need for a text/card. But not saying it at all and thinking that's OK it just weird imo.

You didn’t give her your address! How could she send a card?