I don't care, I'm making it my business (annoying baby announcement)

In My Humble Opinion
1

First the participants:

  1. Me, Yog Sosoth, the gate and the key, master of time and space
  2. Pregnant friend, let’s call her Shiva, god of destruction, but in sexy human female form
  3. Another close friend, let’s call her Isis, some Egyptian goddess or something, I forget

I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m making/made things worse, and that if I go through with what I want to do, things will be even more worse, I need people to talk me down I guess

So Shiva and Isis are close friends, we all are, but Isis is kind of a flaky person. When we have parties between the rest of our extended group, most of whom have known each other since high school, Isis is usually the last arriving and first leaving. She’ll stay, but won’t participate much in the festivities. If we’re having a cook-off, she brings store-bought potato salad. If we’re going to a restaurant she’ll come in for a few minutes, not eat, and leave. Despite that, when you spend time with her on her schedule, and she’s admittedly busy a lot, she’s great to have around. Its not that she doesn’t like us, she just often chooses to spend time with her boyfriend instead of us, even though she sees him a lot more (almost every week) and sees us only every few months (and some of us like a couple times a year only)

Shiva is pregnant, and its due in May. She, of course, has her own ideas about announcing it, waiting until after a few weeks have passed. For like the first 4 or 5 months though, she made the rest of us keep it a secret. Only people who made the time to see her in person got to know. Isis, of course, has flaked out on several gatherings to the point that she doesn’t even know right now. I’ve asked Shiva when she’s going to tell Isis, but Shiva gets all passive aggressive and says if Isis can’t make the time to see her in person, then she doesn’t want to tell her.

Despite this, about a month ago Shiva’s husband, I’m guessing with permission from Shiva, put the baby notification on his Facebook. That’s great except that Isis doesn’t have Facebook, and the rest of us who do are still sworn to secrecy.

Here’s where it bugs me. I don’t know why its bothering me so much, but I can’t stand Shiva’s stupid passive aggressive baby news hoarding. I don’t care if it isn’t my news, we’re all close friends, I knew the both of them since junior high school, that’s like more than half my life! And even though Isis is flaky, she’s a good person, its not like she’s purposefully ditching us (well I guess she chooses purposefully to do that but that sounds bad), its just that things come up in her busy life.

We have a party coming up tomorrow and 2 days ago Isis gave notice that she’s changing her mind about going for some reason. So if nothing happens, she won’t know about the baby until after its born. I don’t know how Isis will react. I know she’s usually pretty calm, but this is a big deal. She might, as I would, take it personally in some small way, not enough to never hang out with Shiva again, but I don’t want it to be some lingering issue. Shiva, of course, is annoyed and won’t change her mind about just calling her up and telling her. I’ve half a mind to just tell Isis and beg her to pretend to be surprised when she eventually officially finds out. But I think that would piss off Shiva a lot if she finds out, since I would too if I were in her position and wasn’t able to control how my friends get my news. But I can’t believe that she’s keeping our close friend in the dark over some stupid passive aggressive bullshit.

I’m afraid if I don’t say anything, that this will cause another rift between those two. I’m also afraid that Isis will get annoyed at me for not telling her, though I think she’ll forgive me. I’m more afraid that if I tell her, that Shiva will find out and she’ll be more pissed and won’t forgive me.

I’m leaning towards making people keep a string of secrets like on a sitcom and telling Isis but telling her to pretend to be surprised. This isn’t TV right? Its not for sure that Shiva will find out. And maybe I’m making a big deal out of Isis getting mad at Shiva for not telling her, maybe she’ll just laugh it off. I just wish I wasn’t caught in the middle. Maybe I can bribe one of our other mutual friends to tell Isis…

What would you Dopers do in my position? :confused::confused::confused:

2

Moving this, as an advice-seeking thread, to IMHO from MPSIMS.

3

I would mind my own business, but that’s the way I am.

4

I wouldn’t tell Isis. It’s not your place and she is kind of a crappy friend in some aspects.

That’s OK. It is OK to have distant friends. But if they are distant, then I don’t see any reason to go out of your way to inform them of any particular news. They can find out at the next get-together they attend. And, it is on Facebook, so the news is available.

5

It’s her news, it’s her baby, it’s her responsibility to deal with the (potential) shit storm of “who knew what, when, and why”. No need to get involved.

6

MYOFB.

That said, yeah, Shiva is being kind of “mom-to-be-zilla” about the whole thing but Isis also sounds like a shit friend. You’re worried about a rift between those two, but it sounds like there is already a rift between Isis and the whole group. People grow apart, it happens. Isis has chosen to reject the easiest way to keep in touch with old friends without having to actually interact with them in person (i.e. Facebook) and ditches out on social events, so she has no right to be mad at everyone if she’s the last to hear big news. If she gets mad at you, you can simply tell the truth; that Shiva wanted to tell her in person and asked everyone else not to let the cat out of the bag.

7

Wow… you have a literally insane amount of emotion invested in this flyspeck. That she chooses not to announce her pregnancy to a transitory friend who appears to be moving to the outer periphery of your social circle is entirely her business. You have no ascribed, assumed, imputed, or inferred duty to be the town crier for pregnancies in your social circle.

Stop shaking your head in disagreement. It’s not your job. Really… it’s not.

Let the baby happen, let your “need to know only” pregnant friend choose when and how to announce, don’t turn your life into a sitcom. Mind your own business. If you don’t you risk turning into that woman who gets wildly overly involved in other peoples personal business, and who people eventually start to ostracize, because doing that annoys people. Immensely. Don’t be that woman.

8

If anything, I’d tell Shiva that being forbidden to let anything slip to Isis is kind of a crummy burden to impose on all her friends, and perhaps she’d consider sucking it up and just shooting Isis an “I’m preggers” E-mail. If she likes, she can feel free to make it a passive-aggressive “yeah, so, I wanted to tell you in person and all but (dot dot dot)” missive.

9

MYOB.

10

Almost agreed with everyone else. If you absolutely must say anything, say, “Actually, if you could come to this party, there’s some news that you’ve been missing out on…” and leave it there. But even that’s probably a bad idea.

11

If she’s this far along, it should be kind of obvious to anyone who sees her, including me & I’ve never met her.

If Isis gets offended, just tell her that she must have missed the gathering where it was either announced/seen & you didn’t realize she didn’t know.

12

If it’s on Facebook, it’s not longer a Secret. Just tell Isis that you saw it on FB.

13

Sounds like there is already a rift between Shiva abd Isis, and you sticking your foot in and potentially piss both off even more can only blow up in your face. If you decide to go that route, post updates.

14

Will Isis not be invited to the baby shower then?

15

This.

16

Butt out. Why do you care?

17

I’m a MYOB kind of person, but by telling everyone to not tell Isis, Shiva’s put ALL of them right in the MIDDLE of her business. I’m with ferret-herder and would talk to Shiva about what a crappy thing this is to do to the friends who HAVE stood by her.

18

This (bold) was my favorite part of your post. More people should state this upfront. I should remember to state this upfront when I talk about my various issues!

Here is what I think you should do:

  1. don’t go out of your way to tell Isis.
  2. don’t make a big production of keeping it a secret, either. If it comes up in a conversation that Isis is a part of, just keeping having the conversation.
  3. if Isis finds out and asks you why you didn’t tell her, say “it’s on Facebook, whatever.” The fact that she doesn’t use Facebook is on her, not you. Don’t let the conversation go there.
  4. if Shiva asks how Isis found out, go right back to “it’s on Facebook, whatever.” Shut that conversation down after that.

Your best bet here is to take the stand that it isn’t a big deal (yes, a baby is a big deal but it’s not your baby and it’s not your job to manage the friendship between two adult women) and no matter how either of them tries to suck you into a conversation about telling/not telling, the response is “it’s on Facebook, whatever.”

19

I’m having my doubts now but I’m fairly sure the OP isn’t a woman. :wink:

20

It’s not your baby and not your business, so keep your trap shut around Isis. A very gentle, loving talk with Shiva about how hard it is on you to keep the secret wouldn’t hurt, though.

Everybody’s different, but when I got pregnant I was kind of a butthead about social stuff and my friends. I had a couple of friends who were also friends with a person who’d done me harm long term, and I shrugged off those people completely. Stuff like that. It’s hormonal. Don’t mess with it.