"best friend" and birthday

[quiddity]

One of my very very few friendsshe's my best friend, in fact, although I'm not hershad a birthday yesterday. I e-mailed her (not good with phones) last night to say I'd been hoping to see her, but there were complications re babysitter.

What I'd had in mind was the two of us going out for a drink.

But (I think) she thought I meant I'd been planning to come to her birthday dinner (hence my saying I had hoped I'd see her) but couldn't make it. So she sent me a photo of it and said something about it.

In fact I didn't know anything about the dinner because the mutual friend who organised it didn't invite me.

I know events like this are a massive trigger for some old hurts about being left out of things, and I am trying to console myself by being pleased that I realise that that's why it has upset me so much, but I'm still a mess.

I also know, or at any rate I've been told, that I'm too quick to think people don't like me. This event seems to confirm that feeling.

It's not a one-off either, which makes me think it wasn't an oversight. Whenever I've arranged an event I've invited the mutual friend, even though I find her very scary and hard to talk to, and she turns up, but she never reciprocates. She knows that birthday friend and I are close. If I were organising a birthday celebration I would never have left her out, even though she's not my friend.

This makes me feel that I'm right to feel no one likes me and that I'm doomed to be alone, if I don't even get invited to my best friend's birthday dinner.

I need a sensible explanation of why/how it might just be a harmless accident, please. Or some way to deal with it without concluding that I'm right to feel like a social outcast. Or how to make it not matter.

Do you think you should gently and without malice tell your best friend that you weren't actually asked to the dinner? Don't criticise the mutual friend but ask best friend if she can suggest another time that you two can meet up as you wouldn't have been able to make it anyway. Say it casually, even if it doesn't feel like that.

Did you pop round with a gift or are you going to? Ring and ask if you can and that can be the trigger for the meeting up.

It's sad that the best-friend-ness is not mutual. You can't force people to like you but perhaps you have another person who phones you sometimes. Maybe she will be a better friend to you if you cultivate the friendship a little.

You sound like a nice sensitive person and a lovely friend for some lucky people. Perhaps you shouldn't worry about the "best friend" aspect of it but rather aim for a few "good" friends in the plural.

Good advice from pippop.

Also I'm wondering if maybe this other woman is jealous of the friendship between the two of you?

Either way, next time I'd pick up the phone and make a definite arrangement so you know where you are.

I would try not to take it too personally.
You don't know that this mutual friend doesn't like you. When organising something like this, people tend to invite their group of friends, not "anyone who x would like to be there". Maybe that is wrong, but i am sure i've been guilty of it, it's not a wedding or big family event, it was just a meal for your friend's birthday. You need to make your own plans to see your friend, or she you.

yes tell your pal you weren't invited to the dinner, and that you'd thought about you two (JUST you two) having a drink

Stop inviting your friend's friend - it isn't going to make her like you. How odd that this person does show up to the things you've organised though. I wondered about jealousy too - and then I thought about the film Single White Female.....perhaps she's a nutter.

Friend's friend doesn't sound very nice and the fact is that not everyone is going to like us, in life. Why would you like this person? Has she shown you kindness and friendship? No. For reasons unknown she doesn't seem so keen on you and this is absolutely fine. What matters is your friendship with the woman you do like and for the sake of making that flourish, steer clear of her nutso friend. Do you want unpleasant people to think you're great? No. you want the nice people to like you.

It could well have been a harmless oversight (wrong phone no/email; thought she'd already invited you; thought someone else was inviting you; thought you weren't available on the date in question etc)but either way you and your pal will have a nice time together celebrating her birthday, without the company of SWF.

Thank you, ladies. Feeling much better now