My fiancé and I just moved to Canada where he has several “really good” friends. When we would come up to visit, before we moved, these friends seemed very, friendly. Even the girlfriends and wives of his buddies seemed like they liked me and would want to be friends when we made the move. But now that we are here, I can’t get anyone to come over, not even for dinner and drinks. Three of the friends have stopped by individually, but we haven’t been able to have a “couples” night or dinner pray because none of them will commit. Now we are being asked to participate in several pre-wedding events for the upcoming wedding of my fiance’s supposed ‘best friend’ whom he has known since early childhood. After being invited to our house several times, some with no reply at all until a month later (with apologies about how busy they are) now they are having a house warming “get together” at their house, for their new place. If they are too busy to come over, how do they suddenly have time to throw their own party? They moved across town. We moved 1200 miles. It’s been over 3 months since we arrived and his supposed best friend and fiancé haven’t stepped foot in our new place. We are not the only ones invited to the get together this evening, so it’s not like they are having us over to spend time with us. Just feeling like its a big slap in the face and needing some perspective. Am I being a cry baby, or is this rude?
I’d say it’s somewhere in the middle. You’re not being a crybaby, and they’re not being rude, but they are maybe being a little thoughtless. It’s not that they literally have no time. It’s that to them having a housewarming party and getting ready for that is important and they make time for it, but coming over to your place is less important so they haven’t gotten around to it yet because it’s lower down their list. I sympathize, it stinks when you feel like you’ve been left out. Especially when you know there’s something that you’re not invited to.
Maybe there’s a different approach you can take for organizing social things? It can be hard to predict what people will respond to. It seems I get different responses from different people depending on if I send invitations by text, email, or Facebook. And for some people and events it helps to send the invitation a long time in advance, but sometimes that means that people will forget about my invitation and end up committing to something else. Or if I invite them to do X activity they’ll be noncommittal but if I ask them to do Y activity they’ll be much more likely to join in.
Sorry if I’m rambling. Hope you find something fun to do tonight so that you’re not thinking about the other people at the get together.
Maybe they are “big party” people and aren’t into quiet, initimate dinner affairs.
I know that for me, if I’m going to socialize, I’d rather it be a big party focused on specific occasion (like a wedding) rather than a vague “let’s hang out”. The former is more predictable and structured. Plus, it takes pressure off of any one individual to behave properly. Like, you can bail out early from a big party and no one will notice. If you don’t like the food, no one will notice if you aren’t eating.
Not gonna call you a crybaby, but I would try not to take it personally.