I suspect that if you had accepted an invitation from her to attend one of her friend’s wedding functions, and that you then begged off at the last minute for another function, then blew that function off in favour of a bar scene with friends, followed by a another event, that she’d be a bit more than annoyed.
In some of these evil female minds, “nice” equals “doormat,” and reciprocity and respect equal weakness.
I wouldn’t be annoyed, I’d be pissed as hell.
Hope you’re not too invested in this relationship, because it’s not gonna work out in the long run.
I’d say you have the right to be annoyed but not overly annoyed.
She agreed to go with you to the reception. That’s something she should have honored regardless of what came up later. She shouldn’t have even asked you if it wsa okay to cancel and go see the new baby (unless it was the only time she’d get to see the baby for some strange reason that doesn’t apply here).
However, you told her that it was okay for her to miss the reception. If it was an issue with you, you shouldn’t have said that. That she didn’t go to see the baby is irrelevant to me. The way I read it (and I could have read it wrong) is that she intended to see the baby but got her friends’ plans confused. So I don’t think she lied to you about it (if I read it right).
I guess you could argue that she should have then gone to the reception, but I think that’s a bit unrealistic. She likely wasn’t dressed for a reception and didn’t think she’d have time to get prepared and get there. I know, you probably think she looked just fine and throwing on another outfit wouldn’t take that long. My boyfriend doesn’t understand why I can’t just throw on a dress and be out the door in 10 minutes for something like that. It’s hard to get him to see that going out as his SO and meeting his friends means I like to look my best and that takes time.
I do think it seems a bit inconsiderate of her to keep getting your and her friends’ plans confused. If this is a pattern, you need to tell her that it annoys you.
So she shouldn’t have even asked you about skipping out on the reception, but you did agree to it. It’s cause for annoyance but not getting majorly pissed off.
You do need to have a conversation about what you both expect. For example, my boyfriend and I had totally different views on work-related get togethers. His office doesn’t care if he attends work-related after hours events; my office expects that I attend and I will get flak if I don’t. She he’d get annoyed when I’d have to cancel plans with him for a work-related function. To me, it was part of my job to attend and I had to cancel (not that I wanted to–I hate after hours work things).
What twickster said and I’d just like to add… don’t be so accomodating. Being a nice or understanding person does not equate to being a doormat. If somebody cancels on you last minute for reasons that are less than immediate and pressing (i.e. something better came up) then I’d accept that fact and move on… far away from that individual. Especially if that person is your S.O. or has the potential to be.
I’d say on the basis of this little story you are being a bit hopeful referring to her as “my girlfriend”.
Well, the silver lining is that she’s acting this way now - not pretending to be Ms. Attentive until she’s firmly got her hooks in you and then reverting to type.
So there you have it - your girl friend has to be called flakey and irresponsible. She’s treated you in a flakey way and she treated the person whose baby she told she’d see the same way as well. It’s all her. She doesn’t (IMHO) get off the hook because you and the other person told her “no biggie.”
This is the type of person she is. You can either not care (in which case you could have a long, happy future) or care (in which case you will probably have a short, not so happy future or a long miserable future). It’s your choice.
I’d have a talk with her and tell her that:
Her blowing you off did, in fact, bother you. Unless the infant had a terminal disease or the parents were only visiting for the day from Sri Lanka she could have seen it another time and honored her committment to you.
There’s no way for her to have known this because you told her differently, and you understand that she can’t read your mind.
BUT - in the future you’d appreciate it if she kept her committments to do things with you unless something truely huge comes up. Drinking with work friends does not really count as something huge.
Then see if this rights the ship and you live happily ever after. Good luck
It seems to me that a lot of people are answering the question, “If you were me, would you me annoyed at my girlfriend?” That’s a slightly different question from the one you asked, but the difference is crucial.
The question isn’t whether she violated rules that other people have for social engagements; the question is whether, given the expectations you have set up with her, she violated them.
If it were me, I’d be very annoyed. But that’s because I’m not particularly flexible when it comes to changing dates. If you tell me that you’re going to get together with me on Friday evening, then:
Otherwise, I’ll be pissed. If your relative from out-of-town is visiting for one night only, and you call me and apologize and ask me if we can reschedule and set up a time to reschedule, then I’ll only be a little miffed. If you remember that you double-booked that evening, then I’ll be more miffed. If you say one thing and then do another, I’ll be very miffed. I’d be miffed whether it was a friend or a lover who did this.
But it sounds like you’ve not set up those expectations; it sounds like you’ve established a rule of, lemme find a quote,
Given that, I’m sure she expected that the same rules held.
So I don’t think you should be annoyed. I think you should be clear with her. Tell her that you felt blown off by her, and that in the future, while you didn’t expect her to do everything you wanted to do, you DO want her to hold to her commitment with you, and that means holding to her commitments with you.
Talk with her about it in a non-commanding way, just letting her know where you stand on this and recognizing that she couldn’t have known beforehand. Then, if she pulls the same shit on you again, that’s the time to be pissed.
Daniel
I think this is a more accurate description than the people saying I should run away from her.
You’re exactly right about everything you said. I just have a different expectation from my girlfriend than I do from my friends. One of those expectations is to show up with me at functions that significant others show up at, no matter how much she (or I) isn’t looking forward to it, and no matter what else comes up.
I probably did the wrong thing by saying it was okay to skip when I already knew I’d be a little annoyed when she did, and I’ll definitely mention that in our talk.
Sounds to me like you’ve got the right approach here. If you got all blamey on her, it’d come across pretty passive-aggressive (“Yes, I know I told you it was okay to skip, but you should have KNOWN I didn’t mean it!”) Telling her that you made a mistake, and that you’d like her to take agreements more seriously in the future, sounds very reasonable.
Hopefully she’ll think so too!
Daniel
Re the OP:
As a side issue, there are few things more rude than ditching a wedding reception you said you’d attend. Whoever paid for the reception expected her to be there and included her in the head count. I hope it was a buffet and not a sit down meal. If it was a sit down meal, you should offer to reimburse your hosts. Just my .02.
Annoyed because she said that she would visit the baby, call you, maybe drop by if she had time but eventually didn’t do any of the above? Yes, somewhat.
Annoyed because she was unwilling to go with you at a boring reception? No way, she hasn’t any duty to do so.
In any case, that’s not a big issue in the grand scheme of things.
Indeed. Does she have the same ideas, and if not, why should your ideas preavail? I’m very wary about “duties” in a relationhip. You go somwhere/ do something with you SO because you want to be with him/her. If you begin to do so because you feel you must (generally speaking, there are exceptions, of course) while actually you’d rather be elsewhere, there’s a problem. It doesn’t bode well for the future of the relationship.
Would it be possible that she felt compelled to find a pretext because she thought that if she had just told you : “No, I don’t want to go at this reception, it’s going to be boring”, you would have have made a big issue of this (on the basis of your conception of priorities in a relationship) , and she pefered not to confront you? If it’s the case, there’s also a communication problem.
Finally, she complained about her ex being too controlling, and you state that you aren’t. But do you both have the same concept of what “controlling” means? Maybe your conceptions of a relationship and what it entails differ widely. You’re not going to have everyone here agreeing about this, since there isn’t a “right” way to live a relationship. It widely depnds on the persons involved. Some people are going to say they would be annoyed, or even that it would be a deal-breaker, others that they wouldn’t
What’s important, IMO, since you’re annoyed, is that you discuss the issue a frankly a possible and both understand (if not share) the other point of view. But you’ll go nowhere stating “you were wrong because a relationship should work this way” .
And there’s nothing blatantly wrong with being annoyed in this situation, either.
I didn’t have noticed this one. I say : “no way!!”. If I were female and your girlfriend, we would have a problem, here. I really don’t like the concept of “SO are expected to…”, either. I don’t like having to follow a set of arbitray rules made up by my SO.
If she feels like me, you really need to discuss this. But don’t come with a tablet engraved with the “ten commandments of the SO”. Both views are equally valid.
From my point of view what should b said is something along the line “Look, this reception is going to be really boring. However, I’d really pleased if you were coming. It would be much more fun to be with you”. Not “You’re my SO, hence according to rule n° 23 you MUST go to receptions with me”.
I’ll respond to the poll part. Yes, I would be unbelievably pissed. I would feel that way if it was a girlfriend, regular friend, or family member. I don’t do that to other people and I don’t let them do it to me.
Just to be clear, Wasson didn’t make up the rule about SOs attending receptions–it’s pretty much a given in most US social circles that a person’s significant other is invited to most social events, and especially to weddings. Attending a reception without your girlfriend would be, literally, remarkable: people would ask where she was, and if you answered, “Oh, she decided to go out to a bar instead,” the hosts would probably feel insulted. The cultural expectation is pretty strong that you go to such events as a couple, if you’re a member of a couple.
Daniel
The correct answer is “yes”, you should be furious. Maybe not furious, but I would certainly write off this person as someone I would want to associate with. As a SO, you have an obligation to go to the other persons crappy social events like wedings and office parties. That’s just how it is. If you are not doing that, your relationship is not all that significant.
Aside from that, what kind of flaky bitch cancels a few hours before an event to go drinking and hang out in a maize maze? What the fuck is that shit?
Quit being a doormat. (Yes I know it’s already been said but still…)
JUst look at yourself in the mirror, place one hand on your nut-sack then say to yourself:
" WHO’S DA MAN, BABY? WHO’S DA MAN?!" 
I need clarification. How was the reception initially presented to her?
If it was “I (that would be you, wasson) am going to this shindig to hang out with my friends who just got married, wanna come with?” and she agreed and remembered previous plans that she made and told you at the last minute that she wasn’t going to the reception, then I think she’s flakey and it would annoy me profoundly, but I’m not dating her so you’ll have to figure that one out for yourself.
If it was more like “John and Mary have invited us to their wedding reception, can I tell them if you will be attending?” and she said yes, etc etc … her flakiness is really crossing the line into rude. That’s when she tells her friends that she’s dreadfully sorry she confused all the plans, and that she will plan on attending the next football game instead.
In the first case, it makes it sound a bit like a thing you’re doing, and she’s welcome to come along if she wants. I can see how some people would interpret this as a more casual plan, as opposed to the slightly more formal invitation in the second scenario. I can also see how a wedding reception that isn’t actually attached to the wedding ceremony could send some mixed signals about the expectations. A bunch of people in a bar? Great if you can make it, if not, catch you next time. A more formal reception, where you RSVP for two people, and your hosts pay for two dinners, and one of you shows up … that’s bad.
I would say that the question of which plans trump what is more about the plans than the people involved. If her coworker was having a wedding reception, and you were having a football game, then the wedding reception still “wins.” Is it possible (still flakey, however) that she was confused about the nature of the wedding get-together, and thought that it was a group of people getting together for drinks as opposed to a more formal party?
This describes it a lot more accurately. The reception wasn’t even RSVP… just show up whenever you want. Food was mostly appetizers with some sandwiches, served buffet style. Her not showing up didn’t cost anyone anything.
However, she ditched these plans not because of a prior obligation, but because of a new one.
However again, I did give her permission to skip, and I did tell her a few times that I wouldn’t stay long, I wouldn’t know anyone, and I probably wouldn’t have a great time while I was there. I absolutely understand why she didn’t want to go, but I still feel like she should have felt some obligation to show up anyway.
Then you’ve got to tell her that. I consider most events with my SO’s old friends to be entirely optional, and I certainly don’t expect him to go out of his way to hang out with my old buddies, especially for short unpleasant encounters. In fact, if my boyfriend was supposed to go with me to something like this and he found something better to do, I’d be all for him having a more fun day. She probably had no idea it “meant” something to you and can’t be expected to meet an “obligation” that she didn’t know she had.