my (21f) best friend (21f) and i have bdays 3 days apart. i had planned to go out next friday with her and two of my friends to celebrate but hadn’t said it out loud yet. she texted me today inviting me to go out that same night with her friends to celebrate her bday.
i told her i could come but that i had been planning to use that night to celebrate mine too so i wasn’t sure what to do. before i could suggest combining the groups, she said "i would say we could just fully do it together but i don’t really wanna go out for my birthday and half the people don’t know me."
i understand she had her own plan originally but i didn’t see the issue with adding two more people, one that she’s met before. i thought it might even be more fun. she then suggested i celebrate with my friends seperately and just meet up with her later that night.
when i asked why we couldn’t all go tg from the start she repeated she didn’t want to spend her bday with people she didn’t know. then she said my two friends are very "ig baddie" and look better than her, and that she’d feel insecure on her bday. she said her own friends already make her insecure and she’d "rather die than feel ugly" that night.
i reassured her and told her she had nothing to be insecure about. i also said if i celebrated separately and met up later that i’d feel sad missing a big part of her celebration and sad she wouldn’t fully be a part of mine either. it’s my bday weekend too.
she didn’t really acknowledge that and instead mentioned she wasn’t sure if her bf was coming. i asked why that was relevant and she said "i don’t need him to be around them lol." she also said if we did meet up that she probably wouldn’t want to stay long after seeing my friends.
at that point i felt confused and hurt. like she doesn’t want to celebrate together simply because my friends are pretty which is out of my control and unfair.
now my options are either celebrate my bday earlier in the week which feels rushed, or celebrate seperate on friday and meet up later which feels awkward after her comments.
neither of our bdays are really on friday it’s just the day we chose to celebrate. i understand insecurity is real, but i feel like my bday was dismissed entirely. she never really acknowledged that i had plans too or just didn’t care. i feel like i put a lot of effort into my friendships and don’t always get the same consideration back. aita ?
Sounds like you are ignoring or dismissing her insecurities and boundaries because you want it your way. If you want to spend time with her, you should be respecting what she wants too. She doesn’t like your friends and that’s ok. YTA
YTA.
Celebrate separately. She can choose to celebrate her birthday with whomever she wants, however she wants. Same applies to you and your birthday, but it’s kind of shitty of you to try to guilt her into celebrating her birthday the way you want her to.
YTA. I get that it’s annoying and inconvenient, but I think she’s actually been pretty mature and vulnerable with you admitting that she’s having these insecurities. If she was constantly insecure and refused to ever be around women she perceives as more attractive, that would definitely be a deal breaker, but I can understand that on her birthday of all days, she just wants to be able to relax and celebrate without feeling the need to measure up to two strangers. Some people also don’t do well around new people full stop, so I can see how combining celebrations wouldn’t be ideal.
Meeting up later, or even just having a second joint celebration together just the two of you on another day, sounds the most sensible.
She was honest about feeling insecure which is fair
YTA – as someone who has separate pockets of friends for different interests, the idea of them all being in the same room together makes me deeply uncomfortable as I know they won’t share much in common other than me. If someone was to try and push them all being together I’d be pretty annoyed. Sure, in an ideal world she wouldn’t feel insecure but dude, just let it go.
damn i don’t understand where everyone replying is getting the idea that i was being hella pushy i let it go pretty quickly😭 it was hard to give all the details with the character limit but i reassured her insecurities multiple times and told her that i didn’t want her to be uncomfortable like when she told me my friends and i could meet up with her later that night, which she clearly doesn’t really want. separate celebrations it is
Good heavens YTA. How did you manage to contort this into such a bizarre little tiff!?
You’re both annoying.
I have a friend whose bday is 1 week after mine. We celebrated together plenty of times by combining groups.
If y’all don’t have mutual friends, that’s ok. Y’all can just do your own things with your own friends and then get together later to celebrate each other.
It’s truly not this deep.
You should be more empathetic to her insecurity though. It is tough to be around the sort of people your friends are – ig baddies – as they have a tendency to even unintentionally overstep or outshine others. I’m not saying they need to diminish themselves for others, but it’s understandable why your bday friend doesn’t want to be around them…
You also keep saying “she’s dismissing my plans” etc, but you didn’t have plans. You were only *thinking* about what to do. A thought does not equal a plan.
she doesn’t have any set plans either she doesn’t even know if she’s going out for sure yet? both of our ideas were simply just that, ideas. i sent her two separate paragraphs telling her she has no reason to be insecure and that she’s beautiful i don’t see how i could be any more empathetic than that. i told her we could just do it separate just that i was a little sad about it but still willing to do it nonetheless and that i didn’t want her to be uncomfortable? idk if i wrote it weird bc i had to cut out a ton of detail for the character limit or what but people are getting such a wrong impression.
YTA. You’re being selfish on the part that you feel dismissed but isn’t even taking her own feelings into consideration. She can celebrate her own bday how she wants it and you can celebrate your own.
ESH
If you had told your friend of your plans earlier, this might have all been avoided. What’s done is done, of course, but maybe with this friend who has insecurities it’s better to plan things well in advance. I don’t know what age group you both are in. I’m guessing 20s-30s. I hope your friend grows out of some of her insecurities about her appearance. You telling her she doesn’t need to be insecure about her looks isn’t a bad thing in my opinion. That’s coming from someone who was the fat and poor girl growing up in the 70s-80s. I was bullied a lot for it. It almost seems like because she’s so insecure, she’s not considering your feelings. It’s really easy to be self-centered (trying to not say that in a horrible way) when you have issues around self-esteem. I didn’t really get over that until I had kids and lots of therapy. 😄
It seems to me that you both hurt each other without trying. Find a way to communicate better with her if you value her as a friend. Every relationship, even friends, takes work if you want it to be healthy.
we are turning 22! i really appreciate your thoughtful input. it’s definitely important for me to look at things from her side of view too. for her sake i hope she is able to grow out of some of these insecurities too, she’s a very beautiful girl and deserves to feel good about herself and not let others beauty make her feel less than.
i will talk to her more about it tomorrow and apologize if she felt like i was being insensitive or trying to persuade her to do something she doesn’t want to do. really was never my intention but the responses here have told me i didn’t get that point across very well lol. thank you again.
the responses between this forum and the other that i posted this in are COMPLETE opposites. one is in total agreement with me and my point of view and here not at all so i’m kind of at a loss still🤣 nonetheless i will take the advice from both. i appreciate the kind, and not so kind, words regardless lol. thanks