But rub it in: “What?? You didn’t KNOW?? Where have you BEEN?? <pregnant pause> Oh, that’s right… you didn’t make it to [here list the events she has pooped/flaked out on]. The rest of us have known for months.” <Sad shake of the head>
Wasn’t this a two-parter on Friends one season?
I’m like you. I get ridiculously over-invested in other people’s sagas that are none of my business. However, my charming personality compensates for this pathetic character flaw, as I’m sure yours does, too.
I think it’s better in the long run for Isis to not find out. Let her miss out on a big event/announcement, and if she bitches, you can pull her aside and explain the situation. “Yeah, it was shitty of Shiva to swear us to secrecy - I will not argue that. But with that said, you’ve been an increasingly distant friend, evidenced by the fact that you haven’t participated in our lives for over six months. It’s been frustrating for all of us, and this simply highlights the extent to which you’ve removed yourself.”
So many of these suggestions seem like they’re invested in increasing the drama. Go for that, if you dig the drama. I’d rather keep the drama out of my life, though, and if you would too, think about how you can do that.
Another vote to avoid the drama and stay out of it. If Isis asks you anything just say she should probably talk to Shiva directly, you’re really not sure what is going on. But it doesn’t sound like you have one-on-one conversations with Isis that often so it will probably not come up. If Shiva brings up Isis then make bland comments like and “i’m sorry you’re upset about this” and refrain from commenting on Isis. And then change the subject.
Also I gotta say …
That’s your idea of being a flakey friend? Did she pass it off has home-made and enter it for the $500 prize? Otherwise I think that is a rather petty thing to complain about. That’s something you might say about a new member of your cooking meetup, not an old friend from school. Presumedly you and the friend from high school have other reasons to get together besides tasting each other’s chili.
Ok, I guess most people are saying I should stay out of it so I will. It’ll bug me, but this way, I’d raise the least amount of ire for my own behavior. If anything happens, I could point to the rest of our extended group of friends as additional people Isis can get mad at. Its just that between all of us, Isis and I probably are the closest or 2nd closest. The only other person I may be closer to is our pregnant friend Shiva
I forgot about the baby shower. I’m sure that at some point between tomorrow and the due date in May, there will be a shower. Though Shiva’s the type of person who may just invite Isis to an unnamed “thing” and surprise her that its a baby shower. Then again, if she doesn’t know its a baby shower, Isis may not even come.
About the potato salad, no we’re not mad she brought a salad, there are people who don’t cook and bring plates or soda. Its just that she consistently seems to do the least amount of either helping or participating in whatever we set up. We’ve had more than one potluck where most people either bring a lot, something home made, or some utilitarian thing like utensils. Nobody consistently makes it a point to put in the least possible effort into it, and it shows. None of us are especially mad at her for it, but we just consider her kind of flaky and wish she would hang out with us more.
And Shiva’s no angel herself. She does a lot of passive aggressive bullshit. In the past, for many years, she’d refuse to hang up first when we were on the phone. 99% of the time, it doesn’t bother me, but one time I asked her why she did that and she gave some stupid answer. I was young and kind of a rabblerouser at the time, so I didn’t hang up. I put the phone down and left. Many minutes later, she eventually hung up but she wouldn’t speak to me for a week afterwards. Also, she’s in the beginning stages of being a hoarder and refuses to even let her husband watch the Hoarders show on TV because she thinks we’re doing this on purpose to annoy her. And we (the rest of us) all sees how she kind of pussy whips (without the sex) another friend of ours into some meek, girl-fearing slave of hers. Its like she doesn’t want him to grow up, so now we’re all very concerned about his life’s trajectory. We even had an intervention once to try and talk some sense into her, but she cried and got upset so we didn’t push it
I’m kind of enjoying reading about this group. I think it would make a good story, or even the latest ensemble-friends dramedy-- this generation’s *Thirty Something. * I can identify with being the one who’s closest to the one who hangs out on the fringes. One is put in the position of mediator and defender of the group to the fringe-y one and vice versa. This is compounded when the current center-of-attention person is passive aggressive.
I hope you will tell us how this comes out. I’m serious (not snarky) when I say I find the situation fascinating.
You guys are all friends from high school, and you’re in your mid-late 20s now, right? It sounds like you all aren’t as important to Isis as you used to be. She’ll still spend some time with you when her schedule works out, but she’s got her own life and circle of friends that she’s more invested in now. It’s just something that happens as people grow up. It sucks to be the people that she’s leaving behind, but there’s nothing you can do about it - it’s her choice.
If that’s the case, then Isis is likely to be a more irritated than furious about not knowing that Shiva’s pregnant, and this whole game that Shiva is playing is more likely to drive her further away from the group than to bring her closer to you. But again, I don’t think there’s anything you can do about that.
For me, major personal life events are generally shared with close friends, and I won’t go out of my way to inform someone outside of that immediate circle.
If Isis can’t find the time to see Shiva even once in 9 months in spite of multiple opportunities, IMO by definition she is not a close friend. She may be a friend, and there’s nothing wrong with having those friends who only exchange news once a year, but I don’t see how Isis is close enough to Shiva for Shiva to go out of her way to tell her baby news when Isis apparently isn’t really a part of her life. (If Isis WANTS to be a part of her life, Isis is going to need to step up and make the time for it, otherwise she should accept that their relationship is what Isis made it.)
The news is out there, Isis will find out through the grapevine eventually, the way it always works with more distant friends and acquaintances. It’s just not that big a deal.
Dude is responsible for his own life. No one can make him do anything without his consent. If you’re that concerned for him, you could try talking to him. Shiva doesn’t control anyone but herself; and it may be a good time for your other friend to learn how to cope with people like that.
I know we only get one tiny sliver of the whole story here, but these kinds of threads always make me wonder why the OP is friends with people he apparently doesn’t like very much.
Drifting apart as lives change is normal and not worth a big ol’ confrontation, which would likely just put her on the defensive and backfire on you anyway. Isis doesn’t have to justify to anyone what’s important in her life now. If what’s important isn’t you, confronting her isn’t going to make her change her mind. It might convince her that her current priorities are the correct ones, though. If she were trying to meddle in your / someone’s life without actually participating, that would be one thing, and something to call her out on, but that doesn’t sound like the case here.
If you want Isis back in the inner circle, you can say “Hey, we miss you.” But whether or not she makes the effort will be entirely up to her.
What are you insane, man? Get a hold of yourself! Or you’re going to find yourself in a world of hurt, my friend.
You want to get all up in a brewing, mega miff between a hormonal pregnant woman, being all pissy and passive aggressive with her close high school friend. Who, herself is flaky, often unreliable to attend events. Have you not witnessed the complexity of female/best friend dynamics?
You should be stepping back. Like way back. Way, way back. Step out or you risk getting caught in the crossfire when the fur flies.You are either the bravest man alive, or you’re about to do something entirely foolhardy. Tread carefully.
What’s going to happen, is going to happen. There will be drama, relationships could be forever altered. And you can’t change it. In truth it’s foolish to try. Let them live their lives, live with the consequences. Give them at least a chance to be other than you are assuming they will be.
It sounds like you’re at a time in your life when people’s relationships change. They marry, make families, get jobs out of town, etc. I’m just saying that could be part of it. No one stays as connected to friends as they were in high school, especially a whole extended group of friends. Just how life is.
Don’t want to completely derail the thread but…isn’t that kind of expected in an intervention? :dubious: Why back off when she got upset? Of course she was going to get upset. Doesn’t make much sense to me.
As far as the OP. Keep your mouth shut. It’s not like you’re being sworn to secrecy in a situation where it’s near impossible to bring the secret up (like your friend being dead). You can easily never mention her pregnancy since I highly doubt the topic would even come up in conversation.
Most of us are early 30’s now, a couple of us late 20’s.
I should mention that although in this situation, you all only get to hear one part of her, a small, annoying part, taken as a whole, Isis is a quite a pleasant and great person. Its just some people have that attitude that their time always has to be spent doing “something” important, or can’t be wasted, and she seems to feel, at least to me, that gatherings of this sort is milquetoast and pointless. Sometimes fun, but can be avoided if something, anything, more interesting comes up.
But despite that, we still do consider her a close friend and part of the inner circle of friends. She’s one of…6 of us who can be said to be not a friend of The Six, but an integral part of The Six, or one who hasn’t burned their bridges a bit with any of The Six. There are close friends within our group that may be closer to one of The Six than any of the other Six, but are not as close to each of the Six. If you think of The Six as the spokes of a wheel, if, for example, one of us dies, then there are peripheral friends, however close, that would almost never come in contact with the rest of us again or have reason to. Isis being one of The Six is important, and maybe it bothers me so much because I see her as slipping away from The Six (she and I are still quite close though, so I have no fears that we’ll stop seeing each other)
You’ll just have to trust me that she has great qualities outside of the small parts that I’ve told you. She’s very nice, some quirks, but I am generally the weirdest person in the group so most other people’s quirks are dwarfed by mine.
In this situation, with the guy I’ll call Dr. Wily, he’s been a close friend of Shiva for a long time. In fact, for most of the time, he’s more her friend than “our” friend, though that’s changed recently. That’s why we had the intervention, we felt Shiva was seriously smothering him in a way that did not allow him to explore his growth. He knows it too, we’ve talked to him about it but while he has made efforts to try, he’s even more of a man-child than I am and his efforts haven’t amounted to much.
Well, it wasn’t like on TV, real life interventions don’t go as smoothly I guess. We were at Vegas and hanging out in a hotel room at the moment, and before we went out for the night, we decided to have the intervention there. We thought it was going to be quick and she was going to be responsive. Instead, she was annoyed and defensive.
Later on, while we were out, her bf at the time/husband now, told us that Shiva cried and was very upset and almost didn’t want to go out with us that evening, but ended up coming and pretending everything was alright. We didn’t push it any further after that
Besides, this wasn’t a serious drug intervention. We just wanted to tell her to stop making this guy her slave all the time