Friend has gotten really funny due to my weekend away with man

[Laurenn25]

I’ve been single for three years, single Mum to primary age DC who I’ve put first during that time. Only recently did I start looking to date again, I’ve met someone who I get along really well with and we’ve arranged a weekend away for mid-July.

My best friend had been on for a while about the two of us going away for a weekend, but for various reasons I didn’t outright commit to this. I told her it would depend on a few factors including finances.

I’ve told her about my planned weekend with the man I’m seeing and she got really funny and asked is that why I can’t go away with her. I said it wasn’t as simple as that. She said we’ve been friends for years and as soon as I’ve got a ‘sniff of cock’ I’ve dropped her. I haven’t dropped her at all.

It’s true I probably could have gone away with her, but I didn’t commit to it and can’t afford two trips now. She has made me feel a bit crap.

“Never let friendships interfere with your relationship or worse your marriage. A true friend knows your partner in life takes priority.”

How about if the relationship is new and a flash in the pan? Never let your relationships interfere with lifelong friendships. You’ll be fucked when you need your mates again if they go tits up.

Whilst her phrasing is a bit crude she's not wrong from her point of view. It does very much look like to her that you've fucked her off for a new man. You've been saying for however long you can't make plans for a weekend away with her for financial and whatever reasons you gave her but now you have a new boyfriend suddenly you can go away with him but not her. I'd feel pretty put out if I was her too, I've been in similar position to her and it definitely changed how I viewed and prioritised my friendship with that person, even when their relationship ended.

I’d be annoyed as well. You’ve but a bloke first who you’ve been with 5 minutes before a friend who you’ve know for years. I’d be pissed as well.

It's the way she has wanted to post sneering comments abut her "friend's" size, toilet issues and snoring - all of which are totally irrelevant to the thread because, unless she has said to the friend "I don't want to holiday with you because you are fat and stinky and you snore" then they are not even relevant to the friend's response which we are supposed to be considering.

We only need to know what was actually said and done and how the friend responded. OP just wanted to make fun of the friend, evident in the way she phrased them, as though we all wanted to enjoy having a sneery laugh about her friend. I'm not sure how you can't see that.

No one mentioned having a family. That’s not in everyone’s plans.

A couple can be a family unit.

It does. But people who value their friends don't relegate them to bottom priority just because they happen to be dating. Or if they do, they shouldn't be surprised if they end up with no friends at all.

I don’t think that matters much. People here hammered her for not spending money to go away with the friend and she expanded on her reasons. She specifically did not say those things to her friend. The things she did say made them incompatible as travel companions—elsewhere on the site a woman has complained that she and her husband don’t want another couple friend to share in their “second honeymoon “ trip and she has described thd friend in quite similar negative terms (wants a diff trip, can’t walk far, too expensive) bit she has not been insulted and berated by mumsnet.

I think the “friend “ is an overreactive, selfish bitch, actually and if any woman berated me for choosing to have a bf with the phrase “sniff of cock” I would boot her out of my life. A friend would support OP’s moving on from her period of enforced celibacy.

I don’t see why you can’t see that.

As others have said, she’s upset because she has repeatedly asked you to go away with her and you’ve refused stating finances were an issue. Now suddenly you’re able to go with some guy you don’t even know, you’ve just met him. Surely you can see how this would hurt?

Also: for the hard of reading on this site: she didn’t “relegate” her friend “to the bottom” of anything! No plans had been made! She cancelled or moved nothing! She does not “deserve to lose all her friends” at all. What a ridiculous, sulky, narcissistic take on a woman’s choice to resume dating.

Missed the part where friend didn't want to holiday within OP's budget?

Your friend is right

No, I didn't. But it doesn't sound like OP really wanted to go away with her in the first place, for all sorts of reasons, and she hasn't been clear about this. Naturally to the friend it looks like she was just holding out for a better offer.

Maybe neither of them likes each other much, and this friendship of (in)convenience will recalibrate itself.

Presumably OP has more than one friend/frenemy and, if she is looking, possibly more than one prospective man to date. It is not some kind of zero sum game between Mr Unknown Cock and Ms Expensive Escape.

Not every woman is obsessed with getting a man. You shouldn’t abandon your friends because you might develop a relationship. I’ve known a couple of ‘friends’ like this, they always come back when the shine wears off.

I am not dealing in rules of life. OP wants to date and a friend would cheer her on!

To be honest if my best friend, who has been single for so long, had started a new relationship that has now progressed onto travelling together, I would be celebrating with her and telling her to have an amazing time, send photos, have a lot of fun rather than offending her with very crass comments to make her feel guilty for missing on the amazing opportunity to travel with me! 🤣 It is simply, a different type of trip.

All my friends are like that, we tend to cheer each other when they are doing something nice with their boyfriends, partners, family rather than sulking because they may not have as much time for us when they are busy with their own lives.i

You can have random friends who come & go. You can also have friends you've known since school days and try hard to keep the group alive with regular gatherings. The sad fact is as life moves on resulting in each member of the groups circumstances changing, sometimes dramatically, so then does the group dynamic. Friends are important. A romantic relationship with a potential partner is more important. The OP may have met her life partner. It's only right she gives this every chance from the very beginning. Her friend deemed it to be choosing cock. I would choose to distance myself from her.

🥱 Yer another post where the OP argues every point that’s made in favour of her being unreasonable.

Only on Mumsnet…. :-)

@Laurenn25 i was going to say I can see her point it would feel like you have a better offer with someone you’ve known less time. But on reading the reasons why I completely get it and is don’t blame you. I also had a good friend who I went away with once a year but she has several things that grate on me and it’s just not enjoyable for me so I’ve had to distance myself from the weekends away unfortunately she took the hump I didn’t go away with her and she doesn’t even know why 🙈🙈🙈as yoh say didn’t want to offend her. Can hardly say you spend all the entire time texting, calling home and watching your ring doorbell 😂

Op you are going to have to be honest with friend if you want to carry on the friendship just say it as it is she will either flip out or accept you won’t be going away anytime soon.

The friend won’t cheer her on if she feels like she’s been cast aside. And no, not because she’s jealous.

Feeling cast aside by a friend she sees regularly just because OP is having a romantic weekend away is not only childish but toxic.

Op has a right to her own time and life, if that is not enough for clingy friend… she is not a friend.

The only toxic friend here is OP.