AIBU to ask a friend’s guest not to join private breakfast?

[Ano1n]

Regular meet up on a weekend morning for coffee with a group of female friends - not a formal arrangement and anywhere between 5 - 10 of us.
End of last year one friend brought a former colleague with her - who is an utter boor who inserts, interrupts & talks over any conversation & added her to the group WhatsApp. This has changed the dynamics of the group & people privately message more rather than use the group message.
Yesterday morning I met another friend for breakfast & planned to join them for coffee after. Said person was early & went to plonk herself down when I stopped her by saying it was a private conversation & I would join them later. Cue a load of blustering, marching off & slamming down. Really couldn’t be arsed with it so we settled bill and left.
Last night the intro friend puts a message on the group how we are about women supporting women & bullying won’t be tolerated!!!
Have responded back a few times (not actually sent) as the theme is fluff off but am I in the wrong here? Is asking her to leave bullying or is she rude for plonking herself uninvited?

Yes, I suspect that - for all the OP thinks it's the other woman who has ruined the dynamic - her being so rude and then not even joining will have meant the others all had an opportunity to discuss OP's behaviour. I don't think the person who posted on the group will have been the only one who felt this way.

If I saw someone I was meeting for coffee, I would go and sit with them. I would assume that they had brought another friend with them. I would think myself rude if I ignored them and went to sit on my own when I was meeting them for coffee. And yes I would then think it horrible if they told me to leave as they were having a private conversation.

I’m thinking that the newbie thought that you were starting the group event where you were sat, a simple mistake to make, unless it was very obviously a table just for two, I think that the best way to have dealt with it would have been to say that the group table was elsewhere and that you would join them when it started, maybe got the attention of a waiting staff member.

It sounds like you really dismissed her and that would have felt a bit humiliating tbh.

I think on balance I agree with OP - this woman approached OP mid-meal with another person she did not know (i.e not a member of the group). They were rude and intrusive.

I would do as others say and simply reply with: ‘I’m sorry if you felt I was rude, but I was having breakfast with a friend who does not know you, to discuss private and sensitive matters. It was not appropriate for you to join us when we were both going to meet with the group in 20-30mins time. I am not sure how protecting my friend’s privacy might be considered bullying, but going forward I will ensure I don’t arrange to meet at the venue with anyone else prior to coffee to avoid confusion.’

This nails it. Arranging both meetings in the same cafe makes it very likely that someone would arrive a few minutes early and assume you had brought a friend to join the main group. Would you have told one of your old friends to go away ? Does the woman you dislike have a habit of being early?

I'm actually with Op on this one she was clearly having a separate planned breakfast date with a friend the other woman didn't know and she intruded on their date !
That's rude and shows lack of social etiquette.
Obviously because op has a dislike to this woman maybe you pulling her up sounded abrupt but u wasn't in the wrong I would have done the same !
Maybe u should respond and say I was on a personal breakfast date and (other woman ) Rudel y sat down and interrupted so I kindly asked her to leave and I would join for our coffee meet up after that shows u being truthful instead of ignoring it's not bullying it's having boundaries and it's factual if that's how it happened and do it in the main chat ! Stand on your business !

Yes indeed. These are group dynamics and this is exactly how it will have gone. People will side with whoever is there.

OP my advice is to message the group to smooth things over. Apologise for being abrupt, play the private conversation card...and apologise directly to new girl. They like her more than you think they do. Intro friend is not impressed with you.

I think it was a big mistake to organise a ‘private’ breakfast at the same venue where you’re going to be meeting another group of friends an hour later! I think it would be fairly normal for someone to turn up a bit early, spot that you were already there and come over. You say that the larger group can be up to ten of you, so maybe boorish friend didn’t clock at first that private friend wasn’t part of the bigger group?

If it had been me in that situation, then yes, I imagine I would have come over, said hello, picked up on the fact that you were in the middle of a private conversation and said ‘I’ll leave you in peace, see you in a bit!’ Life experience trained me from childhood to read the room, though. Maybe it’s not a well-honed skill in boorish friend. Again, if it were me faced with someone who had read it wrong and sat down, I don’t think I would have had the front to ask them to move on! It’s bound to come across as very rude and would be quite unusual in an adult social situation, so maybe that’s why it was construed as bullying - of the playground type? Just out of interest, if any of the others in the large group had come over, would you have felt and done the same?

If you genuinely needed a sensitive conversation over breakfast, it was daft to have it at the coffee venue.
Any of the big group could have arrived and made the error of thinking you and private conversation friend were there for the planned social and tried to join you. It would be weirder surely to ignore you and sit elsewhere.
The woman may not be the best at reading a room, but the error was yours, and the socially mature thing would have been to accept with good grace rather than tell her to leave. Of course she will feel embarrassed. Who wouldn't?

Saying 'can you grab that table for 6' is as rude as the OP - it sounds like she thinks the other woman is her staff! Would you really have found it a normal dynamic for one woman to sit on her own at a table for 6 for 20 minutes while the other two sat elsewhere, probably within eyesight? Should she also sit with her hands over her ears lest she accidentally hears any of OP's very important and confidential conversation?

There are more polite ways to tell someone that you’ll join separately for coffee rather than immediately say “this is a private conversation”.

Your reasons were fine, but I suspect your method of delivery was rude and abrupt.

But the new woman probably doesn't think she has "elbowed her way" into the group. She was invited along by a friend and has been meeting up for months. She sees OP and another woman in the venue and assumes OP is early and either met someone else she knows or has brought another person to join the group. It's hard to say "You can't sit with me and my friend" without sounding like an 8 year old.

I think whatever she did would have been wrong. Poor woman.

well the women wasn’t there to eat. She was there for a coffee and a chat. As far as she was concerned her friend was early and had brought a friend.

But as the woman OP doesn't like was brought along 6 mths ago and introduced, I don't think it's unreasonable to think she might have thought oh Sue's brought someone along to coffee and they're getting a bite to eat first.

OP said the group coffee meet up isn't a formal thing, it happens regularly and can be 5-10 people so obviously some people go sometimes and some go at other times.

If I had an informal regular coffee meet I wouldn't think twice if someone brought someone else along.

If it was a dinner or a birthday night out or a rare catch-up that'd be different

I think it's only OP who doesn't want anyone else to come so would assume no-one new might be joining in.

I think it's quite telling that you had to stretch the time out to make OP sound more reasonable - and even then failed.

If the other woman had arrived the full hour early then I would agree that it should have been a bit more obvious to her that something separate was going on. She was the sort of early that happens often if you use public transport or have to plan for unreliable traffic, and naturally assumed this was just part of the bigger group thing. Clearly no one else has OP's absolute horror of someone adding someone new to the group, so she assumed this woman would also be joining them rather than being told she must go in 20 minutes because then OP's schedule would have moved on.

I think it’s easy to assume the other friend was simply someone else in the group she had not met yet, or was new to the group.

the issue here is it was the same venue, with near over lapping times, a group whose members fluctuate, and is clear a more tne merrier type, she obvs didn’t realise, and if hazard a guess the bullying accusation was less on the fact she couldn’t join and more how it was delivered that aappeared bullying

Congratulations for having a life where this kind of thing is the most dramatic and worrying part of your weekend.

My initial reaction was: I am so confused, who sat with whom?
After a re-read: grow up
On balance because telling you to grow up sounds rude: it's OK to not want to spend your spare time with people you don't like. However, it's also a bit weird to meet someone at the same venue as another meet up and not expect any kind of crossover. Also, that "women supporting women" is such an odd way to frame what I assumed is friendship, socialising, a couple of flat whites and a poached egg on smashed avocado. It's networking speak.

The whole thing sounds hard work.

The person who blustered and got offended at you saying it was a private conversation needs to grow up. But was there a tone "um, sorry you can't sit here this is a PRIVATE conversation" like mean girls or "oh hey, we'll join you in a minute". So maybe it's completely reasonable in a public space where she's already expecting a social gathering including you to come and sit at the table.

Solution: meet other people at another venue.

Also: it's not bullying. Bullying either needs an imbalance of power or it's repeated over time.

Why is it ‘telling’? You know nothing about me?

I think she was perfectly entitled to finish her breakfast date with a person that the other woman did not know? They were likely sat at a table for 2/4 - not a large table for the big group? When I did these sorts of things, we had a set area that we always gravitated to, with the larger tables to accommodate the groups of 5-10 - I think intruding person missed all the cues and it was totally reasonable to decline her joining.

I wasn’t there so can’t speak to the tone, but would have had no issues with telling someone that I was just finishing a private breakfast with a friend and would be joining them and the group at our usual group table in 20mins time (or, yes, 30 mins if I was finishing up with someone else first - it’s a casual coffee morning, not a military procedure).

I think it wasn't handled well. You were at a cafe were a large group meet up was planned, so of course a member of that group would come to sit with you when they arrived. You might not like this woman, but she was hardly doing something unusual.

If you didn't want to sit with the group, you should have met elsewhere really.

The bullying comes in because, if it had been a member of the group you liked more you might have responded differently. Maybe let them join, at least been more gracious in how you spoke to them. I think it had real "you can't play with us" playground vibes.

"Congratulations for having a life where this kind of thing is the most dramatic and worrying part of your weekend."

Bit harsh, especially as you go on to write quite a long post about it yourself. That's ironic.

These social interactions really affect people.

OP says ‘another friend’ and that she was planning on joining ‘them’ the other group later. Not that ‘they’ were joining them after. I have inferred that this friends i entirely separate, but perhaps OP can clarify.

Anyway, this thread seems to be creating its own drama and I have better things to do, so will leave it now.

I didn't mean it was telling about you, as such, but about how flimsy the OP's case that this woman was being rude was, that adding 10 mins on was supposed to make sound OP less bonkers.

I think anyone who wants to have a private conversation in a venue used by a big casual group they're part of at basically the same time is being a bit odd. Then getting so worked up about it that she stormed off is much more so.

I see mean girls (you) never grow out of it. Sad.

Well yes which is why I said you’d surely ask the question or at least go over and say

”hi, I’m a bit early are you planning on joining us when you’ve finished your breakfast”

to which the OP could have responded

“hi Emma, this is sarah we were just having a catch up but feel free to join us, we were just chatting about the CoL crisis”

or

”hi Emma, yes I will be over in a bit, Emma and I are just chatting about some family stuff, would you mind bagging those tables in the window and I’ll join you later”