What to do with friend?

[Wafflewombat]

I'm struggling with how to handle a situation that's arisen with a friend.

I'm not someone who has lots of close friends & don't have people over to my house very often. Friend invited herself & her brothers (never met them before) over to mine for lunch, as they were doing an activity close by. The activity overran & she sent a short text saying that they no longer had time for lunch. There was a very brief sorry but no follow-up or explanation.

She's always been one to have a tight schedule but has never been flaky. Very much an extrovert, so doesn't understand that cleaning up my house & preparing the food she'd requested was a lot of work, as my house is very much not "visitor-ready". Was left with lots of food & I'd been nervous about having strangers in the house too. This was last year at a time when it was allowed, tho may have been stretching the rules, which I was pretty strict on observing, so that was probably an issue for me then too.

Anyway, she's been in contact since & now wants to meet up. I don't quite know what to do. I feel a bit bullied. I have adhd, so it's very likely that however polite I want to be if I saw her, it might not be possible as the emotion of feeling bullied will bubble up.

This is probably a small issue but it's stuck in my head & I could do with objective opinions to move my thoughts on to something more positive.

Why on earth would you feel bullied?
Can you not just explain to her that she let you down last year and move on.

If it was a regular occurrence and she was always letting you down, then I’d reevaluate the friendship. On this occasion, whilst you were hurt, she didn’t deliberately let you down or behave in a flaky way - she couldn’t help that the activity overran and she had to be elsewhere afterwards. She couldn’t have foreseen you’d become inordinately stressed and were very nervous about it. By all means let her know that you were upset she didn’t come to see you in the end, but is it really worth losing presumably an otherwise good friendship over?

And if part of how you feel is around you feeling she invited herself and her brothers over, then this is something you might benefit from working on with yourself, around how to respect your own boundaries and maintain them, so that if you don’t really want to do something you feel able to say “I’m sorry, I have other plans / don’t feel able to do that.”

I would have blocked her after that, it’s incredibly rude of her

Yep, all simple stuff but I really do struggle with simple friendship stuff.

She has a tendency to comment on how I don't do much but I do as much as I can cope with, which isn't a lot! Problem is that I look confident when I'm not...really, really struggling with socialising, leaves me exhausted. We used to meet up for a walk, much better as it calms the adhd over-thinking, but I can't walk too far now.

Brain might just click & move on tho, who knows...😁

Yep, boundaries might be an issue. I never know where they are because of not ever really knowing what I think.

That’s quite a long time to hold a grudge op. Im sure she didn’t let you down on purpose. It feels like you’ve taken against her, the way you’ve written this, so if that’s the case and you’ve decided you resent her and dislike her just say no.

If she is the kind of person who easily welcomes people and their family members into her house and wouldn't be fazed by preparing lunch for a bunch of strangers or having them cancel on her, then she probably just didn't realise it was an issue for you. Bullying is an intentional act most of the time, or an unintentional but sustained act of putting another person down. Is she guilty of either of those?

You could choose to say you aren't free to meet up or equally choose to get together with her and say you went to loads of trouble and felt hacked off at how she and her family had casually messed you around. How she reacts if you tell her will be revealing. If she's dismissive or defensive, I wouldn't waste time. If she's apologetic, give her a chance.

I disagree with others who are implying that your friend's behaviour is no big deal. I think she's been really rude, selfish and thoughtless. I don't like her comments on how you live your life, either, what has it to do with her? I would not meet her, tell her you're too busy.

I would've been bothered by the lunch incident @Wafflewombat. It was pretty bold of her to invite herself AND guests and to follow that up by not turning up and barely apologising...

She also thinks it is ok to comment that you 'don't do much'.

What do you get out of this relationship? These are two negative things - what are the positives for you? Is she a good match for your personality? Do you feel slightly drained after seeing her or uplifted?

I would have been quite upset, especially if I'd gone to the trouble (and expense) of making food for her and her brothers. Did you also say that she'd requested certain foods? I'd say she's been quite rude and thoughtless