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).

It was a massive amount of “stress”. Made me feel super awkward and not something I think I should have to ever say openly, but it is what it is

I don’t really understand why you think others should be able to read your mind when you’re deliberately telling them lies, but YMMV.

To me the whole point of being friends (or at least a big part of it) is to be able to know how they behave, what their likes or dislikes are, and what are their “redlines”.

this friend know ALL of this and even joke about it. It’s not like I met her yesterday, we’ve been friends for like 8 years, so I would expect she’d know what my preference is

I even told her how much I struggled to even try to organise this because of my own social hang ups. That’s my annoyance, it’s like she didn’t have any context (like the other 2 friends)

You've decided to take your problem - that you would rather tell lies than feel awkward - and turn it into your friend's problem.

You're rather fixated on what she should be doing to be a good friend to you. What about what you should be doing to be a good friend to her?

What lie did I actually say, that it was fine? Besides I’m a very good friend to her. You’re not her, so you would t know.

Maybe she thought that as you don’t have friends of your own , she’d bring some of hers along to make it more of a celebration rather than a meal for two.
She gave you the option but if you’ve changed your mind, let her know. I’m sure she’d prefer that to there being an atmosphere and you not enjoying your celebrations

You're clearly here to rant rather than to learn, so I'll bow out now.

She knows I hate meeting new people in small circles… and overall hate meeting new people unless heavily engineered (by me).

Maybe she thought that as you don’t have friends of your own, she’d bring some of hers along to make it more of a celebration rather than a meal for two.

As far as I can see, the only social crime OP has committed in this scenario is to say "yes" to something she would rather have said "no" which whilst not ideal, is something I suspect all of us on this thread do from time to time for various reasons.

On the other hand, bringing your own friends along to someone else's birthday meal "to make it more of a celebration" is not a normal thing to do.

I completely get you OP. You understand yourself very well. You’ve explained it to your friend. She’s appeared to understand it and then she’s done something that either demonstrates that she wasn’t really paying attention or did understand but was going to ignore it because it didn’t suit her (i.e because she’d already invited these friends and it’s easier to upset them than you).

I hope you get the birthday you actually want. I always regret it when I compromise when it’s my celebration. Happy to compromise for other people’s or not go if that’s the only other option.

Exactly!!!!! And thank you!

we’re actually having a mini staycation as part of the celebration, so I’m sure it’s going to be a great day!

btw I had already cancelled in my head this “meal out” but one of my friends asked me about it (the newest one) and I felt bad to just cancel it, so I put my big girl pants on, and arranged it!

I know for a lot of people it might not be a big deal, but to me it is.

If I didn't want to I would've said no.

I don't see why it would necessarily make your birthday celebration worse? If you find them not to your taste you just speak mainly to your actual friends. They could be lovely and add to the fun atmosphere? Presumably they'd pay their own way?

But If there's limited space and it's meant to be more intimate then that's a perfect reason to politely decline.

Meeting them (as complete strangers) would give me social anxiety, why would I want that?

Im terrible at saying no, which is definitely MY problem.

I can see it's hard with the people pleasing and social anxiety. If it will really spoil it for you just send a polite heartfelt text, briefly saying you've thought about it and it will cause you anxiety so you'd rather not. Any decent friends would understand that and entertain themselves for a night if your mate just said it was an intimate do that had been booked for ages.

That’s what I tried to do (I didn’t admit to the social anxiety as I thought she’d get the message) but alas she didn’t…. And kept saying she could come, until I had to say that unfortunately I would not feel at ease with complete strangers at my birthday meal. Then she finally got it.

It's good you stood your ground and now she understands your boundaries.

I guess for some people the more bodies in the room the better. I'm much more of an intimate friendship type person. I can imagine you're similar.

But some can only seemingly socialise in large groups. And think nothing of putting very different people who are sometimes strangers all together!

Which is absolutely fine! But she knows I’m a lone wolf and hate being around people (for the most part).

that’s my biggest grievance.

But you are the one who's created that situation. You only have yourself to blame.

I’ll have to disagree…. The whole situation gave me tons of stress that I didn’t want. Just by asking the question she gave me stress.

that’s my biggest grievance

This seems a huge overreaction.

She was invited to your birthday dinner. She is having house guests arrive unexpectedly a day or twoearly so she texted you to ask if they could come along. You weren't even put on th spot by her asking in person.

You've now turned her into an uncaring person who should never have considered asking because she's expected to know in advance that she's (disproportionately) stressing you out. And that your "culture" means you have to lie rather than say you'd rather not.

That's both unhealthy and unreasonable.

Asking if her friends could join is a potential solution.

To you it might be, but to ME this birthday meant a lot. I haven’t celebrated for years (I haven’t celebrated with an actual group of friends in maybe 20 years? - the last time I celebrated 10 years ago they were mostly my ex husbands friends) because I used to be ashamed that I don’t have that many friends. When I got married, I didn’t invite anyone (nor had a hen do or anything) for the same reason.

I'm not disputing the birthday means a lot to you.

I'm disputing that it's ok to have your "biggest grievance" that she did not anticipate your reaction completely. She's your friend but she's not a mind reader. It's ok that she perceives things differently

Your friend isn't a mind reader and I think she was trying to make the most of an unfortunate situation and be considerate of you by asking you.

To be honest you've tied yourself in knots here with wilder and wilder excuses trying to justify your feelings. We all have feelings, we can't help them, that's fine. But that doesn't mean that they're always reasonable and how you deal with them is on you.

She didn’t have to be a mind reader I told them for like at least 1-2 hours about all the stress that I went trying to decide (and the reasons why) I tried to organise this birthday.

and she knows I don’t like people, she even once said that she knows she’s “special” as we’ve been friends for so long (and it was an honour) it was very tongue in cheek but you get the gist