Issues with friendship group - there's nothing I can do, is there?

[NearlyMonday]

Just a feeling I’ve had, and what I’m about to recount probably won’t sound much, but when you know, you know. I’m finding it hard to sit on my hands about this, so I’m posting here.

There’s a group of us who’ve been friendly for a while (we all used to work together), regular nights out, lively Whatsapp Group etc etc. Good fun and I really appreciate it. About six weeks ago, Friend1 was quite off with me, totally out of character, and while she’s maintained contact, she’s definitely a bit cool towards me. Last night, she was due to join me with a group of my other friends, and she cancelled at the last minute with an odd excuse, and when I questioned it, she was really short.

Next Friday, my friendship group is going to an event, and usually we make ‘together’ travel arrangements, I’ve just messaged the group to see what the plan is, and Friend1 replied to say she’s travelling with Friend2, and that she’d see me at the venue.This is very unusual . And complete silence from everyone else, even though they’ve read the message.

I saw Friend3 and Friend4 earlier in the week and they were both fine with me. So I’m guessing I’m right than Friend1 has some sort of issue, I’ve no idea if Friend2 agrees or not, but they’ve clearly been in touch about travel arrangements and obviously know I haven’t been included. We are all women in our 40s, I haven’t navigated this sort of thing since I was at school and have no idea what to do, but my gut tells me not to chase? It sounds like we’re all still getting together on Friday, and who knows how this will pan out. I’m itching to start messaging people to see if anyone knows what’s going on, but I think this would be a mistake.

Sorry, I know this is garbled. DH is at work this afternoon and I need to offload.

Not touchy. You were rude.

I'll be interested to see how this one pans out. In my experience, sensing something is off is usually spot on.

The responses on this thread saying that you’re spiralling, overreacting or creating drama are just awful and extremely unhelpful. Ignore those.

I heavily suspect that you haven’t just whipped up this drama in your head and actually you are just responding to a person who you previously thought was a good friend cooling right off with you for seemingly no reason which can be very hurtful and of course you’re going to start looking for answers as to why!

I get shitty peri menopausal symptoms too but guess what, I don’t make it my business to give people attitude or push my friends away.

anyway I hope it went ok last night. FWIW I would have not said anything beforehand, gone along to the event and if they were still being bitches I would give them one chance to explain why and if they were still not forthcoming I would walk away from the friendship. Who needs this petty bullshit in their 40s?!

Great to see someone agreeing with me - it is odd and if you’ve been friends for ten years your right to perceive it and attend to it

Are you this rude in real life or just on anonymous forums?

UPDATE

What happened last night is the sort of thing I haven’t experienced or witnessed since junior school, but here goes:

We all arrived at the event, it became clear the wider group was fine with me, but Friend1 was distant/frosty. If you didn’t know any of us, you would never had noticed. Then just as we’re preparing to leave, Friend3, who I was travelling with, mentioned she was looking forward to her Christmas hair appointment. Friend1 replied to her (whilst looking pointedly at me) “I’ve booked in too, and it’s a good job, because someone thinks my hair looks shit” and headed for the door. Friend2 overheard this, and looked genuinely puzzled.

On the way home, Friend3 and I were trying to make sense of this (Friend3 had picked up on the atmosphere and strange lift arrangements).

The next morning I realised I had to get to the bottom of this. I messaged Friend1, asking why was she upset. She sent me screen shots of some messages from an earlier conversation about hair, and said she had been really offended. Background - Due to grey coming through, I alternate between permanent colour and semi permanent colour, as per my hairdressers suggestion and it’s working well. Friend1 had mentioned she now needs a better grey-covering solution and I suggested she try permanent colour too.

And that’s literally what caused the issue. In her second message (after my enquiry today) she admitted she may have taken it the wrong way and overreacted. I was stunned, and said I was simply sharing the advice given by my stylist and it certainly wasn’t a criticism of Friend1’s hair.

She apologised profusely several times, and said she wished she’d messaged me at the time, rather than spending 6 weeks fuming, plus failing to attend last week’s social event.

So whilst I’m relieved this came to a head and was finally resolved, I’m incredulous at the huge overreaction to a very benign comment. The other girls have been messaging normally today, so i don’t think there are any other issues.

I’m sorry I don’t have a more logical update, but this is literally now it played out. But I appreciated the supportive comments from MN posters, and am now more sure than ever that if it feels off, then it probably is.

Glad you got it resolved

always trust your instinct

Knew it would be something pathetic..... glad you had it out with her though!

Blimey @NearlyMonday so she turned your advice into ‘she said my hair looks shit’. I’ve had someone say stuff like that when I’d said nothing of the sort. She’s a twit then isn’t she. Lucky you asked!

@NearlyMondayas you say you knew something was off and trusted your instincts. I’m glad she profusely apologised and saw that she was BU. I didn’t agree with any of the less kind messages to you on here saying you were spiralling. As a single parent my relationships with my friends are the most important ones that I have bar those with my DCs (which is obviously different) so I really understand how unsettling it is when you feel something isn’t right or that someone is being off with you. I’m glad it’s all resolved. Hopefully friend 1 will take something about the way she reacted to this issue too.

She’s an idiot. So you were literally just passing on some hair colour advice from your hairdresser and she took offence! Glad she apologised.

Hope u ok op. My friend can be over sensitive sometimes. It can be annoying though can cause tension in groups

OMG how ridiculous of her - and she obviously realises it. I didn’t doubt for a minute you were not imagining it but assumed she might be jealous of you in some way. Glad it’s sorted but it might make you be guarded around her going forward.

Bloody ridic.

Good grief. Who can be arsed with that level of pettiness.

I would ignore the thoughts and vibes from the distance and engage, and make the choice after being around them. Do not be afraid to lose friends.

So glad you got to the bottom of it and you didn’t get the breezy denial! I too have been astounded by some of the dismissive and minimising comments you’ve received. Even my comment to to you was reposted and called silly by one poster! It’s been fascinating to see the polarity but I would imagine at times quite hurtful to read. Hope you’re ok OP and that you have a lovely Christmas 🎄

Ok, so it wasn’t ‘Mean Girls’ and your entire friendship group turning against you, OP?

Maybe what you should bear in mind, as well as whether you really want to continue a friendship with a 40something woman who goes looking for insults in the most trivial comments and sulks about them for six weeks, is not catastrophising? Because Friend 1 isn’t the only one who made a big deal out of nothing.

Because Friend 1 isn’t the only one who made a big deal out of nothing.

So who else was making a big deal @LiddySmallbury? I didn’t have a clue what was going on, and it seems the rest of the group didn’t either?

You were, obviously! Go back and look at your own posts. At one point you were convinced the entire friendship group had turned against you in some ‘Mean Girls’ type scenario. Talk about a mountain out of a molehill.

I don't think OP was "convinced" of that at all (as someone who's just come to the thread and read the OP's updates). She thought that one of her friends was angry with her (which was right), couldn't work out why (which was fair enough, as it turns out), didn't know whether the other friends they have in common did know, and was worried they might be taking sides because the arrangements for this outing were different to the usual set-up.

Most people in the real world who value their friendships would find all of that quite unnerving.

But I didn’t actually DO anything, other than vent on MN about something I was sensing. And as it turned out, my senses were correct, something was definitely off.

There's always a sizeable contingent of posters who will come on and tell you, as is the case here, that you were making a tremendous fuss about nothing but also that you should absolutely dump a friendship of 10 years over the same incident they think you were making a massive fuss about 😆

One friend, whom you’ve admitted can be moody, behaved like a loon. I’d have thought ‘Well, her shit is her shit — if there’s something she needs to say, then I suppose she’ll eventually find words’, got on with my life, and not given it a second thought. The result would have been the same.

No conspiracy theories about Mean Girls and posting on the internet your about entire friendship group possibly turning against you necessary.

Well, I think it would be mad to end a 20-year friendship that the OP values over a minor incident, but it does frequently appear on Mn that ‘friend ’ means ‘someone I’m not that keen on but hang around with nonetheless’.

Important to think ‘Is this someone I value, or just a habit?’ If it is a valued relationship, then minor incidents are just that. If, on the other hand, they’re a wake up call that this isn’t really a friendship, that there’s no real liking involved, then acting on that isn’t unreasonable.

Utterly mind boggling that this is your close friendship group of 9 years