Hi Sasha: My husband and I have been married for 13 years now and we have a group of friends we get together with sporadically through the year. This group is made up of my husband's friends since high school (22 years ago) and their wives, girlfriends, and kids. Recently, they have started to have get-togethers without inviting us. Three years ago they arranged a camping weekend with the group and we were invited but couldn't make it due to work commitments (my husband has deadlines!) so we had to back out 2 weeks before the trip. So, now, this group gets together every year for camping and they have stopped inviting us. We found out because everyone posted how much fun they were having all over facebook (I hate facebook for this reason)! Also, one of the friends had a 40th birthday party and, again, we were not invited. My question is: the group is having their annual Christmas party and I'm pretty sure we will be invited but I don't want to go! I don't like being downgraded from A-list of friends to D-list. Are we being petty? F
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Oh damn, there’s no doubt there’s some serious shade being thrown your way! Now, if it were only the camping trip, I would’ve given that a pass. I’m sure they just had an awesome time together and probably made some pact that it was only going to be the group of them forever and ever. Exclusionary and a bit juvenile? Yes, but so what. Who the f-ck wants to sh-t in a hole and sleep on dirt anyway?
What is strange though is that you guys got axed out of the birthday party too, which does indicate some sort of beef is brewing. My gut feeling is that something has been communicated or miscommunicated over to their side. They’ve either heard that you’ve talked smack about them (did you tell people that you were pissed about the camping trip?) or they just plain and simple don’t like you and your husband anymore. I know that comes off harsh, but people don’t just disinvite people they really like, so something is up. So your job now is to decide if you care enough to find out what it is.
If you could give two sh-ts then the answer is easy: don’t go to the party and find some new friends. The end. However, if you do care and want to mend things with these people then you have to go because if you don’t, it's pretty much guaranteed that they’ll cut your asses out for good.
One caveat: it will totally defeat the purpose if you go with your backs up, so make sure to be yourselves and have some fun. The only goal here is to reconnect. That’s it. And the good news here is that you’ll be able to tell right away if that’s possible. If the vibe is a positive one then, YAY!, hopefully over time you’ll get back to where you guys once were. But if it’s negative, well, you extended the olive branch and they didn’t want to take it. It’s a bummer but you can’t force people to like you, and you sure as sh-t don’t want to beg them, so you’ll need to accept the end of the friendship and move on.
Let me know how it goes and keep me posted! Keep your LIFE + STYLE questions coming to [email protected].
