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?

The ‘private’ friend was not part of, or joining the larger group, but ‘boorish’ friend wasn’t necessarily to know that. The poster you were responding to was merely pointing out that in the situation as described by the op, it would have been an easy mistake to make.

The OP isn’t rude though! The person inserting herself into a conversation, not being capable of waiting 15-20 mins when she herself arrived early (if op wasn’t there she would have been by herself), and then causing a huge drama and boohoo with a bullying allegation is clearly out of line.

And yes I would absolutely ask someone to secure a bigger group table (obv that’s not the entire conversation but didn’t think the ‘hi sue, yes looking forward to chatting, I’m finishing up a private chat with Mary here’ was really necessary but apparently people need handholding and spelling out the obvious). I absolutely would not take offense at all at being asked to do the same.

I think it has been repeated over time. OP took an instant dislike to this woman and it sounds like she's been privately messaging people about meeting up instead of in the group coffee chat hoping that the woman she doesn't like doesn't get wind of it.

Unfortunately for OP, the other members of the group seem to like her, haven't played along with OP and have been inviting her which has OP seething because she thinks it's her friends and her group and no-one else is allowed.

And the rest of the group are sick of her playground shit and trying to exclude the new person and after OP stormed out of the cafe in a huff had a good old chinwag about it and came up with the solution of putting a message in the group chat to make sure OP knows excluding or trying to and being rude is bullying and not okay.

You were really bloody rude.

You met someone in the place you regularly meet a group of friends. One of the group walked in early, saw you and presumably thought "oh look, X is here early too". When she quite logically went to sit with you, one of the people she was expecting to meet, at the place she was meeting them, you abruptly told her it was a private conversation and to leave.... honestly, that would be unreasonably bitchy if you were 14.

I'm not surprised your friend was angry with you, you acted like a mean girl in the school cafeteria. If you were having a sensitive conversation with your friend you could have politely and apologetically told her you would join her soon (or done the sensible thing and not arranged two back to back meet ups if you weren't happy for this kind of cross over to happen).

I don't think you were unreasonable.

If this had happened to me, I would have been so mortified with embarrassment at not reading the situation, the last thing I would do was complain to someone else and refer to it as bullying. I would likely apologise later.

The fact that she did this speaks volumes.

She has probably inserted herself all her life and had this reaction all her life and complained about being bullied for it all her life. That doesn't make the bullying allegation true.

OP i really want to know how you are so sure that the bullying comment applies to you?

Gosh, you sound like Amanda from Motherland OP!

I think it was a mistake to leave with your friend Op, that made it look as if you were so annoyed by the other woman you left in a strop, which you did really. If the new woman winds you up so much I'd find another coffe group, this ones going to be awkward for you all after this

I think the rudeness was compounded by you leaving instead of joining the group for coffee. If after breakfast you'd gone over to the group and said "So sorry Jane, I was having breakfast with an old friend who has been having a tough time recently. How are you?" everything would have been fine.

This thought crossed my mind too.

The fact that this group have known OP a significant amount of time but, presumably upon hearing what happened when they arrived at the cafe, it seems the general reaction wasn’t “that sounds totally out of character, maybe somethings going on with her, I’ll drop her a message and see if everything’s ok” makes me wonder if this wasn’t an isolated event, but was instead the nail in the coffin to it needing to be addressed. In most instances the term bully wouldn’t be used to describe a one off.

But who knows.

At the age of 50 I no longer involve myself with social groups, bar one. They have been my friends for 25 years and it works because there's not a queen bee among us. Get-togethers are sporadic but brilliant.

Otherwise, I don't like social groups. There's rules to stick to, people you don't really want to hang out with, inter-bitching and power play all going on at once. Don't even get me started on group chats. Ugh.
It's too much for me and I don't enjoy them. Good friends rarely come along in a handy multi-pack.

The pay-off for wrinkles, sore knees and grey hair for me, is the absence of social pressure.
It's something for some of you younger women to look forward to.

Anyway.

Yeah shaming someone like this for doing something so normal is textbook bullying. Surely you see that OP? Especially with there being two of you and one of her.

Also you haven’t said if you were actually having a private conversation about something sensitive or if you just said this to make the interloper feel awkward? Strongly suspect the latter, in which case - bully!

but I think there is a big difference between being abrupt and being a bully which is what I am not happy about
A while ago there was a post on here that defined bullying and as I recall part of that definition was repeated behaviour. You only abruptly told her you were having a private conversation once, so no, you didn't bully her.

I do see how she may have thought you had arrived for the 10am group coffee even earlier than she had and she may well have assumed the person you were with was new to the group as she had once been. And her angry reaction probably came from embarrassment.

I think it would have been better if you had called her out at the time, every time she was boorish once she had become part of your group rather than let it fester. Now it looks like what has happened has come out of nowhere and that you kind of set about her when she was on her own and you were with your pal. It has already caused a division in the group and you will probably find it will be you who is given the slow fade rather than the boor. Even if others do find her irritating, they haven't jumped to your defence so they either don't want to upset the existing set up or they don't dislike her as much as you think they do.

Also you dislike the interloper because she does not adhere to social norms such as not interrupting, but you yourself are behaving against social norms too by sending away someone you know when they come to sit with you…

you sound like a bully OP

I think you were rude and abrupt. If you wanted a private breakfast with your friend then you should have had the social awareness to pick a different venue!

I think you were in the wrong this time. It sounds very childish and I imagine the other woman felt awful. Like a pp said it sounds like schoolyard “you can’t sit with us until we tell you” type of thing. I get you don’t like the other woman and that’s fair enough but what has happened here has made you look like a nasty person. If it’s a work meeting you could have said that nicely to her but she assumed you were also early for the coffee catch up which was a reasonable assumption to make. I think you handled this badly.

I think if I'd arrived early for coffee and saw two people I was meeting already there, it wouldn't occur to me to sit anywhere other than with them. It would have felt rude, or at least odd, to sit apart from them.

I'd have been really upset to be treated the way you treated this woman, I'm not surprised you're getting some grief from the rest of the group.

If you want to meet privately, why on earth would you do it at the time and place you're metting the others?

Honestly. I don’t know how some mumsnet commenters survive the day. OP can meet whoever she wants, whenever she wants, wherever she wants and she was absolutely within her rights to tell this boor to go away!!

OP, I’d be blunt with your original intro friend and say this woman is overbearing and upsetting the dynamic. Has anyone ever tried pulling this new woman up when she gets overbearing?

Quite.

You think she's a bore, wonder what she thinks if you OP?

Surely it's 'bore'?

misses point of the thread

Of course she can do whatever she wants, and take the consequences of her actions. In this case the consequence seems to be at least some of her friends viewing her as a bully. I’m not sure your proposed message to intro friend is going to help with that…

YANBU. I would just tell her you were having a private conversation with your friend who is not in the group. I think the woman who tried to join you is very thick skinned. Talk to the others.