AIBU to attend a friend’s party when another friend was excluded?

[Ricecrispiesatsix]

I have a group of friends from a mutual hobby. We live locally to each other so share lifts to hobby nights and over the years have become close.

Friend A (let’s call her Clara) is now devastated at friend B (let’s call her Steph) for not inviting her to her birthday party and is furious at me for going to the party.

For context, Clara is not someone who finds life easy. She’s been diagnosed with autism, adhd, borderline personality disorder and depression. She has a dysfunctional family and is basically no contact with her parents, struggles to hold down a job, and struggles to sleep/feed herself properly. She also has a heart of a gold, is one of my best friends, godmother to my daughter and when I broke my foot last year she was absolutely there for us in a very practical way. Still now she’ll often pick up our kids from school and have dinner with us (mutually beneficial as it gets her out the house and eating something nutritious!).

Clara went through a break up last year and for about a year things got really bad. She barely left her house, when she did come to hobby nights she’d cry outside the room while we took it in turns to sit with her. During these months, social occasions would often be dominated by her crying, sometimes until 1 or 2 in the morning. We’d have the same conversations with her over and over again, literally hundreds of times and it was quite emotionally draining.

She can also be quite argumentative, sees the world in black and white and has had a few autistic meltdowns when things haven’t gone her way. These look like her shouting, swearing and storming off. Often directed at Steph who has a very different approach to life than Clara. Steph is the kind of person who dances through life. She’s super bubbly and friendly, successful in her career, has loooads of friends and generally has rock solid boundaries around protecting her free time and her peace.

Steph is basically done. She values having a drama free life and has decided to only spend time with people who bring her joy. She has stopped inviting Clara to her events. Clara is understandably hurt and confused by this and feels excluded.

Last weekend was Steph’s birthday and she had a small party in her garden. On Friday Clara asked in the group chat whether anyone wanted to hang out at the weekend. None of us mentioned Steph’s party, we just gave the times we were free to do something with Clara. Clara then asked me directly “is Steph having a party for her birthday?” and I answered her truthfully. I figured it’d be worse if she found out afterwards that we were all there without her.

Clara spent the entire weekend and next 3 days at home crying. Which is probably an over reaction but Clara has lots of trauma from previous friendships that ended badly and I feel terrible. Should I not have gone to Steph’s party out of solidarity for Clara? And going forward can I be friends with both of them? Steph has clearly said she’s done with Clara’s drama, and Clara thinks Steph is a selfish fuck. I can see both sides. But now Clara is quitting the hobby that she loves because Steph is there and it’s all very sad and difficult.

Sorry it’s long. Hard to strike the right balance between brevity and not drip feeding!

Steph sounds like a Mean Girl to me. Once Mean Girls exclude one person from the group, they start looking for the next person to exercise their boundaries with.

Why Clara is confused -

as an autistic person who has also been totally confused and blindsided by being dropped by neurotypicals, Clara is likely to have been hurt and confused that

• Probably she didn't realise all her crying until 1am was as annoying to people as it is. Having also been inadvertently annoying myself, at the time I would say 'is this ok?' or 'am I being annoying?' and people because they are trying to be kind say 'noooo it's fine, don't worry' and I take that as meaning 'it's fine'. So then I'm blindsided when they stop replying to my texts.
• I imagine Steph hasn't formally 'ended' the friendship so Clara is in a liminal state hoping she can somehow repair things or that maybe Steph has just lost her number. Again, hard to explain to a neurotypical but autistic people are loyal till the end. I would never drop a mate (even the annoying ones) so when I've been dropped I just can't process it.
• Most autistic people struggle with things we can't see if that makes sense, so the idea a whole plan has been made which doesn't include her is likely to be baffling.

I hope this helps answer your question but as an autistic person I'm also aware that sometimes neurotypicals ask questions they don't really want the answer to so maybe it's that in which case disregard.

Any friend will put aside their hurt and wish you a good time. This is friendship.

Oooh a different take! Love it.

Autistic people literally don't have the ability to be manipulative. She's just socially clueless because that's basically what autism is.

"She has stopped inviting Clara to her events. Clara is understandably hurt and confused by this and feels excluded."
Someone, possibly you, needs to explain to Clara so that she's no longer confused why this is. Steph is not being mean spirited to not want somebody there who might be crying for hours to hours at a time and having meltdowns. I also don't think that you've done anything wrong by attending the party Steph hasn't been horrible to clara She's just not prepared to put up with her very intense behaviour Whatever the reasons for this, people have the right to enjoy their life peacefully and she obviously doesn't want the associated drama.

So you'd be happy to have your birthday party dominated by Clara crying?

How much has Steph done for you compared to Clara? It's a difficult situation, but I would weigh up which friend I owed the biggest debt of loyalty and act accordingly.

Sadly it's Clara who is the 'selfish fuck' - for many reasons some out of her control but the end result is that she is behaving very selfishly.

That's nuts. Friendship and loyalty isn't transactional.

I'm not without sympathy for Clara but tolerating/enabling her outbursts hasn't helped her manage her social skills, to the extent that some people have had enough and have chosen to withdraw from her.

I am trying to put this very carefully as I don't want to sound like I am minimising the very real and complex issues of neurodivergence and trauma. For context my elder child is AuDHD and he had a lot of difficulty navigating friendships. Friends were very important to him and he was good at making friends initially but often people would back off when he went off on rants or ended up leaping up and shouting because his emotions would erupt. I had to explain people do like you but no one likes the yelling and ranting so you need to work on ways to manage it, while still being yourself. He then put the work in himself (with support) but that was a conscious choice of his own.

I know it's not as easy as that but the attitude of "I'm neurodivergent and this is so I am, you all need to tolerate it or you are backstabbing bullies" is not realistic long term.

So I don't think you've betrayed Clara. You've been understanding and honest. You are entitled to have separate friends. Steph is entitled to step away from a friendship that isn't working for her. Clara needs to work on coping strategies or she'll need to accept that some people will find it hard to have her around if she's prone to kicking off or taking over with monologues about herself.

Just because Clara acts like a seven year old doesn't mean everyone else involved has to

Um yes they do!! Who told you that?

Why do people say things like this? Autistic people are like all other people. They have different abilities and traits. I’m autistic. I could absolutely be manipulative if I wanted to be. I could also be mean. I could lie. I could be rude. Sometimes I may do these things unintentionally. But I’m absolutely capable of doing them intentionally as well if I wanted.

There is a direct conflict of interest. OP had to weight up which friend to upset. It is completely rational to avoid upsetting the person who has done the most for you.

It would be foolish to let Clara dictate what events you can go to and who you can be friends with.

Shw will eventually cut you off and you will end up without any friends from this hobby group.

It's up to Clare to get the help she needs and make new friends.

OP has had a mutually beneficial friendship with Clara. That doesn't entitle Clara to exclusivity on OP's friendship.

OP is not the one upsetting Clara, Clara is upsetting herself.

I have a child (now adult) who is AuDHD.

she recently played with a bloke at a music marathon - he played guitar and she played flute.

they had a couple of rehearsals at our house before the marathon.

she said to me thoughtfully afterwards “perfectionism is really annoying when you are in the other side of it isn’t it?”

I just nodded.

telling people things has limited impact. Letting them experience them has much more

I agree the Clara sounds very very hard work indeed. But as you have said, telling her this does not go down well.

ultimately this is not your problem to solve. You can be friends with both.

I have been in a similar situation for a few years as two mutual friends fell out with each other and initially both expected me to side with them.

My strategy from the get go was to grey rock completely. Refuse to take sides and also refuse to even discuss one with the other. If I met one for lunch then I never mentioned it to the other. If one asked anything about the other I'd reply "they're fine" and nothing more. I just wouldn't be drawn as it wasn't my fight and I valued them both too much to lose either as a friend.

It wasn't universally popular but a few years on they still don't speak and I'm still firmly friends with both of them.

I dont think it unreasonable to attend a friends birthday party that another friend isnt invited to,
I don think it "selfish" for Steph not to invited Clara ,its her preogative to invite or not anyone she chooses and its understandbale given Clara has directed shouting,swearing and storming off at her.
Clara does sound to be mentally unwell and i hope she has support .

Clara’s feelings are her responsibility to move through. She can be as angry as she likes that you went to the party, but that doesn’t mean you were wrong to have done so.

Let her be angry, love her anyway, stay separate from her all-or-nothing worldview and rejection sensitivity. You can be her friend without having to inhabit her emotional world with her.

I think that you did the right thing attending the party. Steph is entitled to invite whoever she wants to her party. Clara does sound like very hard work and I can understand why Steph did not want her there. If Clara drops the hobby then that is her choice. Do not fall out with Steph over her or do not drop the hobby. If Clara does not want to carry on your friendship after last night then that is on her and not you.

Oh stop! Steph is not the villain here! She isn’t obligated to do tons of extra work to support Clara just because they have a shared hobby. Clara is using all her acquaintances as therapists and that is simply neither fair to them nor useful to Clara.

Clara needs to take this as a wakeup call that if she wants to have more people in her life and more invitations she has to do the work to manage her big emotions.

She is doing a very classic EUPD thing and “splitting “ people like Steph—and son the OP—into the good friend and the evil person. In reality they are just people who can sometimes satisfy her needs and sometimes can’t.

Absolutely team Steph and I have ADHD myself. Clara sounds like a total energy vampire irrespective of any neurodivergence. I would not want to spend my precious free time/hobby time having it constantly dominated by someone's whining and wailing. She shouldn't need to be friends with anybody out of obligation, perhaps Clara needs to spend her free time in therapy, rather than spoiling other people's spare time with her negativity.

I'm team Steph.
No way would I continue wasting my time and energy on someone who behaves like Clara. Friendships are not supposed to be constant drama.