My boyfriend has a yearly friendsgiving, and earlier this year we just moved in together. He planned everything from the guestlist, to the space and menu. He asked if I could cook a few dishes and I said yes. He also asked if I wanted to invite anyone and I said no.
I reposted a food spread picture of the friendsgiving, and posted a picture of me and the girls on my Instagram story. Later that night my friend (Friend A) texted me in a group chat with my other friend (Friend B) and was upset that they didn’t get an invite to my friendsgiving, and that as friends for 15+ years they expected honesty and transparency. They said they wouldn’t have gone anyways if invited, but it was the principal and the conversation led to them pretty much calling me a bad friend for not maintaining our friendships.
In my defense I said I didn’t plan friendsgiving although we live together. I also have trouble maintaining all relationships, not just theirs, because I’m an introvert and have social anxiety. They know this about me, however we were always still able to be close friends. Since last year we really fell off where we only communicated occasionally, while Friend A & B remained close. They also have never really had a great relationship with my boyfriend since I’ve been with him for years. I thought that extending an invite to them when they openly dislike him would bring tense vibes and I did not want that.
Should I have invited them?
” I also have trouble maintaining all relationships, not just theirs, because I’m an introvert and have social anxiety”
You had an opportunity to do some relationship maintenance with an invitation and you chose not to.
You’re posting pictures of yourself and other people, it’s a little hard to swallow the “I’m so socially anxious I can’t invite my oldest friends to dinner at my house”
YTA
If you were truly worried that your friends would be rude to your partner, you could have extended the invitation with a conversation about expectations.
“I would like you to join us, Todd and I want this to be a fun night. I know you don’t always get on with him, but I need you to keep it polite if you come. “
I’m leaning towards yta, mainly because you’re hinting at this being a repeated issue.
The reason I’m only leaning is because Im getting a feeling that you are undermining the importance of engaging in friendship.
Personally if I was your friend and voiced this without you trying to salvage it I would match the energy you bring to the friendship. The result is most often a slow death of the friendship.
This is the natural and healthy course of unequal friendships.
Mild YTA. You probably should have invited them, and social anxiety isn’t an excuse for that.
“My bf planned it” doesn’t really make sense as an excuse, either. Most couples who host parties host them together, and invite both of their friends. Your bf suggested that you invite them. You just didn’t.
YTA
> I’m an introvert…
Being an introvert does not mean that you don’t have friends and can’t do what it takes to maintain those friendships.
> …and have social anxiety
What are you doing to get over it?
Regardless, social anxiety should not be an insurmountable issues with friends of 15 years.
I hate it when people use introversion and social anxiety as excuses for being a shitty friend. You are aware about of these issues. That means you should be able to work through them to be decent to others.
You posted about a big “friendsgiving”; it’s reasonable that uninvited close friends might be hurt.
Complaining about not being invited *while telling you they wouldn’t have attended anyway* is a major AH move.
ESH – ~~you and your bf need to talk about how to handle things like this in the future, so that you can accommodate all your friends. That might mean separate get-togethers for your friends and his, alternating holidays (his friends at Thanksgiving, yours for a Christmas thing), or something else entirely…~~
EDIT: OP’s bf specifically asked if she wanted to invite anyone, and she refused…that’s ALL on her.
To be fair, the boyfriend did offer to include her friends. This is all on OP.
>He also asked if I wanted to invite anyone and I said no.
YTA and not only to your friends, but to yourself.
If you’re holding Friendsgiving and don’t invite your friends, then have the audacity to post photos on social media, you’re sending a strong message. I have to say that it’s very strange you seem confused about why they’re upset.
To be clear, it’s often impossible to invite everyone we’re close to to everything. If your table can only seat six people (for example) and your boyfriend’s two oldest friends happened to be in town with their wives/girlfriends, then it would have been fine to have dinner for only them and you. In that case, it would have been smart to mention to your friends or in your social media posts that the dinner was for the visit.
But to have an event, call it “Friendsgiving,” and not invite your own friends is hurtful to your friends and sad. Because it means you are distancing yourself from your friends. What if you and your boyfriend break up or something happens to him? Why don’t you care about your friends’ feelings?
It’s not good enough to use being introverted as an excuse. You may be introverted, but that doesn’t stop you from knowing how rude it is to exclude people. Of course you know basic manners.
If I were your friend or family member, I would be telling you to think very carefully about why your friends don’t like your boyfriend. It sounds like you’re cutting your friends out of your life because you don’t like what they have to say. If they are genuinely concerned for you and are decent people who you respect, then you should be thinking about why they don’t like your boyfriend.
You owe them a major apology and you owe yourself a talking-to. Stop using the introversion as an excuse. You will hurt yourself.
YTA. Introversion is not an excuse to not invite people you call friends. Social anxiety also is not an excuse. You should be less anxious around your friends, and probably more anxious around any of your BF’s friends that you don’t know well or at all. It’s one thing not to invite them for Thanksgiving; it’s entirely another to not invite them to Friendsgiving and *then* post stuff to social media so they know you had it, and they weren’t invited. And your defensive, “I didn’t plan this” falls flat since you said at the beginning that he asked if you wanted to invite anyone and you said, “Nope”. You had a chance to, you just chose not to. I think it’s understandable that your friends would feel hurt, especially after seeing on social media that your social anxiety apparently didn’t apply to your BF’s guests.
You seem comfortable relying on your boyfriend to handle social occasions, fine. But if you leave him to handle YOUR social responsibilities (ie maintaining your own friendships), you’ll find that you’ll end up with no friends of your own. You can’t have friends without putting in the effort. Gently, YTA
Not required to invite anyone but why post the event in social media then?
YTA
So you’re ok to spend time with your bf friends but don’t maintain your own friendships? What happens if the two of you split and you’ve lost all your friends from lack of attention? I’m an introvert so I tire easily with people and I can’t be with people 24/7 but that doesn’t mean I never see anyone. I just go home and read a book
Info- do you like your friends? Do you want to have friends outside of your boyfriend’s friends and their partners?
Because if you do, yeah you’re the ah.
If you wanted to maintain those friendships, yes, you should have invited them. And you didn’t just not invite them, you posted a photo of the Friendsgiving you excluded them from!
If you had invited them and they had been rude to your boyfriend and co-host, sure, you don’t invite them in the future. But shutting them out like that, and excusing it by saying they didn’t have a good relationship with your boyfriend, no specifics, leaving the implication that they couldn’t or wouldn’t have been polite to him for your sake, under your and his roof?
YTA