Friend invited her friends to my birthday meal

[Donotfitin]

For context I haven’t celebrated my birthday in many years (and have never celebrated my birthday with these friends). Anyway, so one of my friends messages me today and says her friends are visiting and if they can come. I said it was fine, but I’m not necessarily happy about it. So AIBU for thinking she shouldn’t have asked? (She was very aware I haven’t celebrated my birthday in 10+ years).

Surely to God you just say you’ve phoned the restaurant and unfortunately they can’t accommodate anyone else, and as her friends have unexpectedly shown up you understand if that now means she’d rather not abandon them.

If they are staying with her I assume she couldn't come to your birthday celebration without bringing them. She asked because it was better than her saying she couldn't attend. If you are happy for her not to come and you don't want her guests to attend just say sorry its not convenient.

Perhaps she thought inviting other people would be more fun for you and give you an opportunity to make more friends?

How many people are coming?
If she’s literally the only person you can bear to spend time with, she may find the whole thing a bit intense?

Oh missed that all the husbands are coming except hers. That’s bad OP. I get it’s difficult, but you need to be absolutely clear and straightforward with people, and treat them the same. Don’t assume anything. Ever. Just ask. And state.

I don’t think the onus should be on me really.

It’s your party - so of course the onus is on you.

To a point, I get it. I reckon there are two types of people in this world - sone are “the more the merrier” and the others genuinely recoil from that. I’m at the latter end myself; if I want to catch up with a friend, then likely as not I’ll think that the addition of someone else changes that dynamic. But this is a party - and she asked you. There are ways of saying “no, just no” in the first instance which would allow her to back down gracefully. You didn’t have to say yes (although I fully accept that you felt bounced into it to some extent).

@Donotfitin I'm really sorry to say, you sound like very hard work! Your relational skills appear to be poor.

You were going out. In order for your friend not to let you down, they asked if their visitors, who inconveniently and unexpectedly arrived early, could come along. Maybe she didn't feel able to say no to them, but still didnt want to let you down, knowing you hadn't celebrated for many years.

You expected her to know you meant no, when you said yes. That's actually the most concerning part of all this. Yes should mean yes, no should mean no, and maybe should mean maybe.

In order to avoid any future disappointment I think you would be wise to work on your communication and your ability to communicate exactly what you mean.

Of course the onus is on you, you're an adult for heaven's sake.

A friend visiting her is arriving a day or two early; she asked if the friend could come along. You could have said no. You could have said "I'll get back to you." You could have said "I'm not really comfortable with that. You know I don't like social events where I don't know people."

You have agency. It's not her fault you choose not to use it.

Side note - inviting everyone else's husband and springing it on her that she's the only one going stag is really rotten.

I mean I just had a quick chat with my DH about this and he said, it was best if her husband didn’t come. He thinks he’d make everyone uncomfortable (which is a possibility) and he’d have to babysit him to avoid this (which my DH has said he doesn’t want to).

It's not just "a party" though it's OP's birthday meal.

Most of the time I am a "more the merrier" type. I don't mind last minute add ons to days out, cinema trips, etc. but if I organised a birthday meal for myself with friends I would think it quite odd tbh if one of them asked if they could bring along some people I hadn't met before. So odd that I can't actually imagine any of them doing that to me or anyone else in our group.

ETA: I'm multitasking so hasn't caught up on all the posts but it sounds like OP's friend is in a tricky position because her friends are arriving earlier than expected.

Exactly! I wouldn’t have minded in a party setup but it isn’t, it’s an intimate dinner with the only 3 friends I have

If they are staying with her I assume she couldn't come to your birthday celebration without bringing them.

Utterly ridiculous. They're adults, not toddlers.

If I had friends staying and had a birthday get-together to go to, I'd leave them at home, show them how the tv/shower works and leave food delivery info.

I bet they'll be glad of it after a long journey to be able to chill out.

No-one wants strangers sprung on them during their own special day. Makes for a whole different dynamic too.

I had this on my 50th where we had a free bar in a cocktail place we had the whole bar. A friend wanted to bring another couple but said they would pay. I said no. No repercussions at all.

How do you think she will feel when it's obvious her husband has been excluded and everyone else was 'allowed' to bring their partner? Including a partner you don't know. The more you post, the more I think you think that give and take applies to everyone else but not to you. I'm not posting anymore.

Maybe she’d understand why? Like I said as much as we love her husband he’s literally a liability.

But op’s friend has agreed to spend time with her other friends on the same day 🤷🏻‍♀️
Surely the “your own special day” lark stops being a thing when you’re an adult? It’s not her friend’s special day regardless, she’s allowed to spend it doing what she chooses.

Understand when? On the day? When everyone else is partnered up and it's embarrassingly obvious that her spouse has been excluded? When her cheeks are burning because it's clear to everyone that he's an undesirable and how that might reflect on her? When she is the only person there on her own? As I said, stopping posting now, the fact that you would let her turn up and experience that is deeply insensitive, regardless of any diagnosis you might be waiting for, logically you can see how unfair that is to spring on her. A real friend would have a conversation with her beforehand about who is going - I mean you had the opener when she asked you about the friends. I think it's deliberately dodgy to withhold the information that everyone else is allowed to bring a partner.

I mean he was not even invited to her own birthday celebration like 4 weeks ago….

but regardless I never explicitly said he wasn’t invited, and he’s always invited.

While I think it's not ideal to ask, I have very little sympathy for people who won't say no in these situations and then complain.

It sounds like she felt she was in a hard place - either pulling out of your dinner or asking if the friends could come. How I felt about that would depend a lot on why she was in that hard place (i.e. why she's got friends staying when she'd already committed to my birthday).

Or, as someone else suggested, she could simply have told her friends (who said they would be arriving early) that she already had plans that night, made sure they were settled in, pointed them towards Netflix, and gone to the birthday meal she'd already committed to.

People keep saying the onus is on OP because it's her birthday meal and she could have said no. I'd argue the onus is actually on the friend to find a solution when she's the one who's ended up double booked. Why should OP have to manage the awkwardness created by someone else's scheduling problem?

Apparently the friends are arriving one (or two) days early.

But that was because nobody was bringing their husbands. It is a completely different scenario. You also can’t say she should know he’s always invited. He’s clearly not. You are being a really rubbish friend to her, you are singling her out and making sure that she is unwittingly going to a couples dinner by herself.

Thank you. I thought I was going mad there for a moment. This is how I interpreted it too.

Jesus, that sounds thoughtless of you. Isn't it basic manners to reveal who will be at a meal like that?
You didnt even mention it when she asked about bringing her own company? May be one of the couples told her.
Poor woman might have taken some pretty weird messages from all this.

How would that have happened? They don’t really talk to each other….