The Vine: February 4, 2015
So, after being lucky enough to have a lovely wedding last month and a looong honeymoon, I am still dumb enough to have just one little bee in my bonnet that Will. Not. Die.
A dear friend was thrilled about the wedding until I told her the date, which was two days after her birthday. Apparently, several of her friends have gotten married on or around her birthday in the past. She complained about it quite a bit when I first told her, and I was like, “I feel you, but we’ve already spent lotsa money — we can’t change it, and it’s hard to find a date that isn’t going to be ‘bad’ for somebody. My aunt and uncle are coming, and that day IS their 50th wedding anniversary! We’re making a cake for them! We can make one for you! And we can celebrate the shit out of your next birthday!”
She eventually came around and started talking about how excited she was about the wedding, and I planned to involve her in the ceremony. Then, we got her RSVP. She checked “no,” and wrote on the card that she was going to be “unavoidably out of town.”
Had we not had the birthday discussion, I probably wouldn’t have given it much thought, but we’re pretty close friends — it was strange she didn’t tell me herself that she couldn’t come, or why, and given her phrasing, I felt like she didn’t want me to ask. Spouse rightly pointed out that she either had a good reason or a “selfish craptastic” reason she couldn’t tell me, and if it was the latter, I probably wouldn’t want to know. So, I put it out of my mind.
But I’m home now, and she’s home now, and she wants to get together, and I realized I feel kinda sad that she didn’t come. She is one of my only friends who really knows my spouse, who’s hung out with us many times.
(I think she also might have bagged because it was tough to see another friend get married. We’re in our 30s, and we live in NYC, so being single is hardly unusual, but I’m about seven years older than she and I know how hard it can be when it starts to look like everyone around you is paired up. But I ALSO know that the mature thing to do when your wingwoman tells you she’s getting hitched is to slap on a dress and a smile and go.)
So I’m wondering, how do I get past this? Do I ask her where she was? If she tells me she went on a last-minute vacation, I’m going to feel worse. Should I tell her how I feel, or keep it to myself? Why is this bugging me so much?
Personally, I’m with Patton Oswalt on the Birthday Thing
Dear Thing,
Me too. What is Friend, five? I know you don’t have it to do over again, but if you did, I hope you’d resist jollying her out of it by offering her a cake and a spirited defense she wasn’t owed even a little bit. The wedding wasn’t even on the day, is A. B, even if it were, she’s not a child. C, everyone in the world knows the agita and domino-arranging that goes into selecting a wedding date, and that it’s almost never anything to do with personal preference and a matter of getting a half-decent venue you can afford before 2019, and D, seriously, fuck off. You know what I did on my last birthday? I went to a funeral. That’s how shit goes sometimes for voting adults who don’t think everything is about them. And the “it’s hard to see everyone couple up” excuse is, except for the recently widowed, no excuse at all. And fuck off, and furthermore, fuck off.
This is not what you asked me about, but I don’t think I see why you should “get past” it, really. It’s annoying! She showed you her ass; you didn’t want to see it! She put your wedding side-by-side with her birthday and chose her birthday, and that hurts your feelings — and it’s fine for her to choose herself and fine for you to feel stung by it, but what you and Friend have in common is 1) hanging out with your husband and 2) that you both think she’s important enough to merit a birthday cake at someone else’s wedding because she pouted and complained?
I mean, sure, if you want to know where you stand, tell her you missed her at the wedding and you wish she could have come — but I think you’re right that this isn’t really a conversation she wants to have, so it could get awkward, and what do you want to happen, anyway? Do you want her to apologize for behaving like a toddler about the date? Do you want her to act MORE like a toddler in response so you’ll feel more justified in your frustration? The first thing’s unlikely; the second thing’s unnecessary. So then what?
You’ll get past it eventually on your own. Time passes; you stop giving a shit about the wedding WTFery after a while, or it becomes a joke with your spouse and that’s it. But weddings have a way of unveiling true colors. When people tell you who they are in this way, you have to believe them, and what Friend kinda told you is, if I’m not going to be more important than your wedding date, you’re not going to be important at all. This information isn’t really about you, but it’s worth paying attention to.
Tags: friendships
FWIW, my 7 year old niece’s birthday was on my wedding day last year and the only thing she said, both prior and during, was “This is the MOST AWESOME THING EVER!!” and ran around on a sugar high. Not even the mindfulness of a 7-year-old, I raise an eyebrow judiciously.
Every wedding date is inconvenient for someone. She needed to get the fuck over herself and come. Now, if she had some awesome birthday trip pre-planned that she already purchased tickets for, or concert tickets or something, it would be one thing. But she didn’t say, “Oh, man. I want to come, but my mom is taking me on a cruise,” or “I’m going to see Lady GaGa that night and the tickets cost $500.” She just acted like a baby. I would be pissed too. (Also, not that it should ever be about this, but I didn’t see a mention of a gift in your email. It may be bad etiquette for you to care if she gave a gift, but if not, I’m offended on your behalf that she couldn’t even order some towels from the registry).
I’m with Sars. Fuck off, “Friend”. Seriously. God.
Your friend is awful, no disagreements there, but if you decide to broach this subject with her, do not bring up your parenthetical suggestion that she bailed because she’s single couldn’t take seeing another friend getting married. Even if it’s couched in understanding, there is no way that doesn’t come out as “You’re just jealous!” Don’t give her any excuse to make her look like the offended party.
A friend’s wedding ‘clashed’ with my birthday one year. I had to spend the day drinking champagne in a plush venue. WOE IS ME!
She’s being absurd.
I had good friends get married on my birthday, which I teased them about beforehand, totally not pissed about it. They totally nicely had a separate cake for me and gave me a present, which was above and beyond necessary, and exceptionally considerate. Friend should pull the squirrel out of her ass and stop being a slag about it.
As I recall, we had two birthdays of family members within a day of our wedding, and we had no complaints from either of them. There was another friend getting married on the same day, in a different city – we texted between the two weddings.
It won’t be worth the conversation with Friend, agreed. Chalk it up and move on.
“Unavoidably out of town” is kind of awesome. Held captive by pirates? Stranded in Sausalito? So many possibilities!
Like Sars says, you have the information you need.
If I were LW, my instinct would be to let that excuse inspire me. If I was feeling mischievous the next time she contacted me to hang out, I’d murmur obliquely about my unavoidable travels when I told her no. If I was in a good mood when the invite happened, I’d schedule and then pointedly/teasingly ask her if she was sure she could make it, what with out-of-townness being so unavoidable and all.
But most of all, I would give no further fucks about her. Life’s too short and I’m a grownup.
I’m gonna co-sign what everyone has said about Friend being childish about the wedding date/birthday issue, and I don’t think the LW needs to get over feeling annoyed at the tantrums and drama and pressure to actually CHANGE THE DAY OF HER WEDDING. Yeah, ridiculous.
But I do think she needs to get over being annoyed at Friend for sending her regrets and not attending. A wedding invitation isn’t a court summons. A person should be able to politely decline without having it held against her, and she shouldn’t owe anyone an explanation or an apology for opting out.
I recall in my late 20s getting what I can only describe as overwhelming wedding fatigue. I was attending the weddings of friends and friends of friends and acquaintances all the damned time. The weddings were expensive, dull, and they monopolized my free time. I was dating someone, but not seriously enough for him to be included as a plus-one, so I generally attended alone and felt neither coupled nor uncoupled, just lonely and devoid of any exciting life events of my own. It got harder and harder to put on a happy face and show up weekend after weekend.
So I stopped going. I sent my regrets and, if I was close to the person, a gift and/or a card. I exercised my right to decline politely. And I think that’s a perfectly OK thing for someone to do if she does not wish to attend.
I think that’s a perfectly OK thing for someone to do if she does not wish to attend.
I agree, and in this case I’d have zero quibble with Friend having done so, even sans explanation — IF she hadn’t already had a litter of kittens about the scheduling before RSVPing, and let the LW console and cajole her about it and so on. Friend can feel however she likes, but she should have kept her trap shut about the timing in the first place if she wanted to RSVP no and not have it be A Whole Thing. But it is A Whole Thing, because she made it one. “Never complain, never explain” implies, in addition to the obvious, that if you do the first thing you’re going to get stuck doing the second thing a lot, and who needs it.
But “declining politely” is not exactly what happened here. She whined and acted selfishly. THEN she declined, mysteriously. I’m not sure it’s possible to separate these two events.
I wonder if the friend makes a big deal of birthdays in general. Like she celebrates hers every year with a big party and expects gifts. Otherwise I have to assume there’s some sort of other issue going on. Like she’s mad at the LW or feeling neglected and didn’t deal with it in a mature way.
I agree that Friend making a fuss about a wedding/birthday conflict is absurd. In my experience, birthdays past the age of 21 get….maybe less significant? I’ve spent most of my 30s barely remembering my age. My birthday is fun, but it isn’t important anymore because I’m not 10 years old.
I don’t think you’re not going to find out any information you really want to know if you press her about it.
Echoing Claire’s comment above that bringing up being single will backfire on you. I’ve always been the single party among all my friends, but I didn’t avoid their weddings because it was hard. My being single has nothing to do with their marriages and more to do with factors in me I can’t really change, and I was still able to be happy for them at their weddings.
I’m 90-10 on the side of the childishness being the friend’s, but this one phrase did give me a little pause:
“She eventually came around.”
The friend shouldn’t have been pouty and stuff about her birthday to begin with, but I do wonder how much nagging and cajoling was involved in that “eventually.” After the offer of making her a birthday cake, etc., that maybe should have been (more than) enough. Now I may be reading into it that the OP continued to try to persuade her, and if so, I’m back to being 100% on her side. But in such cases, it’s probably wiser not to beg…the other person might pretend they’d capitulated just to get the other to shut up!
I don’t have a comment on this specific letter, but as a longtime Vine reader and occasional wedding attendee, I have to say that what I’ve learned is that, for most people, their wedding is going to create at least one blood feud and/or be the worst day of their lives. Why do we (humans) do it? Not the marriage part, but the wedding angst? If I ever get married, I’m marrying an orphan and we’re going to get married in a barn. And even then, one of the cows is TOTALLY going to be pissed about something.
I’m not feeling the LW on this one; I’m with Jobiska on the naggy vibe. When I read the letter, I was imagining the conversation where the “dear friend” was trying to vocalize the bad timing while trying to soften the blow, and the LW being oblivious and pushing the matter.
DF: Well, you know, it’s just that this seems to happen every year…
LW: But we’ll have a cake for you!
..And finally, DF giving up trying to bow out gracefully and sending that RSVP.
where the “dear friend” was trying to vocalize the bad timing
I’m sure the LW was oblivious; she probably didn’t comprehend how someone who’s old enough to have attended weddings plural in the past — i.e., not a baby — still hadn’t come to terms with what I’m assuming is a May or June birthday falling during wedding/grad season. Maybe Friend is tired of having to go to other people’s celebrations instead of having them prioritize hers, because it’s “just” a birthday and not a wedding; that can start to get alienating, after a while, if you let it, but that’s the point. Take it from a childless woman who has attended hundreds of kids’ parties: you can’t let your life be about what you aren’t. Move your birthday party to July and get over it.
…I’ve been dealing with some “let’s examine each situation for its negative effect on ME, then sulk forever” personalities lately, so I may have a temporary compassion deficiency when it comes to Friend’s situation? There’s two sides to every etc.
My sister in law tried very hard to make my wedding about her baby, and the struggle to breastfeed same. She refused to use a bathroom, refused to whip out my niece’s dinner in public (my suggestion) and refused to use her car.
She was very angry that my 18th century carriage house didn’t have a breastfeeding room? And this became s thing 15 minutes before the ceremony started.
I just told her to figure it out and grabbed the hubby.
Something to keep in mind about adults who make a big deal about their birthdays: Those days can be rough for single people. Of COURSE no adult deserves a princess crown and expensive gifts and a VIP bash every year. But if you’re one of the people that’s all, “She’s so childish, *I* simply relax at home on my birthday”—is that with your significant other?
‘Doing nothing’ for your birthday when you’re single in your 30s can make you feel shitty and alone. And if her birthday is, like, June 15? So she’s spent the last few birthdays at singles tables and in bridesmaids dresses, being happy for couples but also feeling alone? Maybe what she needed to do was decline and do her own thing, either at home or out of town.
If she actually expected you to change your date, obviously that’s bonkers. But if it was an emotional, frustrated outburst of “Oh Jesus, NOT AGAIN”…I have compassion for her. Since she reached out to you to make plans, I’d go. You can sincerely say you were sad she couldn’t be there, but you don’t deserve an explanation. And if this is a pattern of expecting unreasonable attention, you back away from the friendship.
Oh and so. My birthday I’d July 7. On 7/7/07 (which was a Saturday) everyone got married. Literally. Everyone.
Which was awesome. So many people share my birthday now!
I got married on the same day as a close childhood friend’s birthday. That turned into the only way I could remember my own anniversary. :)
“But I do think she needs to get over being annoyed at Friend for sending her regrets and not attending. A wedding invitation isn’t a court summons. A person should be able to politely decline without having it held against her, and she shouldn’t owe anyone an explanation or an apology for opting out”
For Cousin Betsy’s wedding when you’ve met three times in your life, yes. For that buddy from college you haven’t kept in touch with that much since? Sure. But a close friend? No. Your friends’ wedding day is, or should be, one of the most important days of their lives, and if you give a shit about your friends you want to be a part of it. It’s fine to have mixed feelings about it in private, but you suck it up and put a smile on your face and go on the day unless there’s truly exceptional circumstances. Because they’re your friends. And you love them. And you want their special day to be WONDERFUL. And you don’t keep making “jokes” all day about how you went to City Hall and got the whole thing done for $30, BEST MAN AT THE LAST WEDDING I WAS IN.
I do agree that LW should not bother with airing her feelings or asking for an explanation or an apology, simply because she’s not going to get one. If there was a GOOD reason, she would have heard it already. Friend isn’t going to cop to acting like a spoiled child. LW needs to decide if it’s worth ending the friendship, or just act like she’s let it go until she really has let it go, which will happen with time. But either course is perfectly justified.
“Your friends’ wedding day is, or should be, one of the most important days of their lives, and if you give a shit about your friends you want to be a part of it.”
Yeah, I’m more with clover’s view than with this. It’s one of many important days in my friend’s life, and I’ve been with her on a ton of them. If the wedding day is the sole referendum on whether a friend is worth keeping regardless of that, then it’s probably good for both sides to understand that and make their choice accordingly. Relationships aren’t single-point failure mechanisms; they’re an overall collection of things we’ve don for, with, and sometimes to each other.
I mean, the birthday thing is moronic, and Friend should have kept her mouth shut about that ridiculousness. But attending a wedding is a big thing for the attendee these days as well, and I see young colleagues trying to negotiate attending 5-6 weddings in a year that they don’t have time off for and don’t make enough money to travel to, and I think it would suck for their friends to cut them off for that.
I guess my definition of “dear friend” doesn’t include someone who would act like this. Not going to the wedding is one thing, there are plenty of legit reasons that people can’t attend weddings, but… making it all about her birthday, which wasn’t even on the day, and then not showing up? That’s probably not someone I’d want to spend time with. And for the record, my 18th birthday was the day of my grandmother’s funeral. Yeah, I was bummed that it was on my birthday, but I was a lot more upset that my grandma was dead. If a teenager (not even a voting adult!) can manage to suck it up in a situation like that (and I don’t think I was at all special in that regard; I think most people would have just dealt with it like I did), then an adult in her 30s should have been able to not make someone else’s wedding all about her birthday two days before. If a truly dear friend got married near or even on my birthday, I’d probably just take the opportunity to acknowledge the anniversary in subsequent years—it would be easy to remember, after all, and I’m always touched with other people remember my wedding anniversary, which is really sort of a private holiday and not a date I’d ever expect anyone to remember.
Sure, it’s true that sometimes you can’t go to a wedding. One of my bridesmaids had to cancel, but her excuse was that she was graduating from medical school the following week and they wouldn’t let her not work her intern shift the weekend of the wedding. So that’s a pretty good excuse. :) But acting like a big baby because it’s NEAR your birthday, not even ON your birthday? That makes you a jerk.
“Unavoidably [fill in the blank]” would become a go-to phrase in my house for anything I didn’t want to do. It’s a great passive-aggressive excuse for just about anything, because who can argue with it? It was unavoidable!
Well, at least she didn’t say she was coming, and then not show up on the day with a text that ‘something suddenly came up’!
I kid, but as friends go, there’s not much worse than a passive-aggressive Dear Friend (am there, doing that). And knowing that friendships can run their course, even close friendships, somehow makes things even harder.
Of course, we all think Birthday Girl needs to get over herself, but if you accept her invite to get together, there’s another potential can-o-worms. Will she bring up the wedding at all, or totally blow it off? Do you bring photos to show her, or never mention it again? It’s a fine line, and there’s really no gray area here. I guess you might want to think about how much you value her friendship, and if it’s worth the angst.
I don’t want to derail the discussion entirely, but I just wanted to say that what A mentioned is a really good point: “‘Doing nothing’ for your birthday when you’re single in your 30s can make you feel shitty and alone.” I’m in my early 40s, single, haven’t been in a relationship in years, and this year for my birthday I…took myself out for a lunch at a place I’d heard makes a really great burger. By myself. It was nice (and it was an effing great burger), but that’s been the extent of it for like for the past 15 years.
This is NOT to say that the LW’s friend didn’t behave like a complete baby, because she did. The wedding was not even on her actual birthday, for Chrissakes. But, maybe that’s something for the LW to keep in mind if they do decide to meet up. It’s maybe a more compassionate way of looking about the whole, “she’s just jealous because everyone else is getting married” line of thinking.
Eh, I’ve always enjoyed celebrating my birthday, and for plenty of years I did it alone–took the day off work, went to a movie, out to lunch, etc. Because my friends were at work and I couldn’t expect them to take a whole day off for something that was a random day to them.
But it also got old after a while (like me! *rimshot*) and the Self Pity Party got easy to throw, so I can “get” friend a bit here; the Nobody Cares About Me Blues seems particularly cued up and ready to go on birthdays in your late 20s/early 30s.
So I get Friend, I do. On the other hand, once you’re of age, and paying your bills, and living your grown up life, you’ve got to accept the fact that hiding your feelings is something you’ll be doing. A LOT. You hide the gnawing petty rages and the flashes of self-imposed woe and everything else that your inner five year old can throw at your grown up self because it’s inevitable. You sometimes have to fake more happiness then you can feel in the moment, happiness you’d like to access but your inner five year old is having a Hyperbole and a Half style meltdown in your sternum but that’s not anybody’s problem but yours.
So, Friend? Time to learn to act like a grownup. And Bride, let it go. Having your five year olds fight it out isn’t going to do anybody any good.
There was a family wedding last year that I just sent my regrets to, not even a gift. What a bitch, right? Well, actually, the groom raped me when we were both kids and after twenty years of sucking it up and acting pleasant at family occasions, I’d had enough. And – because I have no interest in telling my relatives my real reason for not attending – I fabricated a conflicting obligation. Just made something up. I’m sure it sounded pretty weak, too.
So, sure, maybe this wedding guest is a whiny baby throwing a tantrum. Maybe she’s got a damn good reason (another guest, perhaps?) for not wanting to be there, and she doesn’t want to deal with the fallout of disclosing her real reasons to the bride.
I honestly wonder if something else happened to make the “friend” RSVP no. It seems the two of them hashed it out, and friend was going to suck it up (ie behave like an adult) and come, and then suddenly she’s not anymore? I know wedding planning can take up your life, but it strikes me as a little odd that the bride didn’t speak to her close friend between the RSVP and wedding date about her sudden change of heart. I hate even the whiff of confrontation and would have been dialing her digits the second that envelope hit my mailbox because it’s pretty weird given that she’d been showing some enthusiasm. So I would get together and just gently ask her what’s up. Don’t launch into the wedding/honeymoon stories until you guys have an understanding about what happened and why she bailed with a vague explanation. If she has a habit of this kind of behavior, then maybe it’s not a friendship worth keeping, but I’d at least hear her out if she wants to talk about it.
Nobody in this letter favorably impresses me. Neither adults who make a big deal out of their birthdays, nor brides who can’t handle declined invitations, are easy people to be around.
If this is a blip in normal behavior, then keep in touch and see how things go. If an otherwise great person acts harmlessly ridiculous once, it’s usually worth waiting it out.
I had a very small wedding with only about 45 people, including the bride and groom. I was 40 and not a princess, and I just couldn’t with the big honkin’ to-do. I cut the family invitations off at the aunts and uncles line, mostly because I knew my parents would enjoy having them there more than my own caring. My mother’s sister declined the invite on the (evidently unavoidable?) grounds that “that was the day she had to clean out her camper.” Yeah, I didn’t get it either, but whatever. I couldn’t let it stick in my bonnet when it gave me such a quoteable excuse for every invite I’ve declined since. We laughed about it then and we still do.
Thing: Congratulations and best wishes on your happy marriage. This happened, you’ll get over it in time.
I agree with all of the respondents, especially Angie. And I would like to ask Angie if I may use “pull the squirrel out of her ass” comment in my future dealings with any whiners who cross my path.
Coffee actually came out of my nose after reading this incredible phrase. Thank you, I really needed that.
My thinking on this is that after the wedding, it’s going to be an awkward to ugly conversation if you ever talk about this again. You’re not gonna be happy with the results of it and it could make things worse. Yeah, she made a bit of an ass of herself, but if MY BIRTHDAY cannot be shared and that was her priority, that was her priority and there ain’t nothing you can do about it. You have learned a new fact about her that you didn’t like. Fun times.
I would not ask her. You won’t be happier if you ask.
I think what this really boils down to is, can you tactfully ignore that this happened and carry on with the friendship as if nothing had happened? Or do you even want to bother any more? Which is up to you.
I agree with M: no one looks good here. Just let it go. And, in future, if someone’s unhappy with the date selected for a major life event, tell them sympathetically that you’re sorry it doesn’t work well for them and move on. No cajoling, no bargaining, no “but we’ll make you feel special TOOOO!!!!” It feels forced, and a little patronizing, and a little coercive, even though I have absolutely no doubt it was meant with the best of intentions (with which the road to hell is paved).
No, Friend shouldn’t have complained at length about the wedding date: that was tacky and uncalled-for. I can understand the internal “Oh, Jesus, not again” dialogue, but she should have kept it to herself. However, given that she committed this unforced error, at least she didn’t compound it by RSVP’ing “yes” and either failing to show up or showing up and acting miserable the whole time.
LW, if you still like Friend, and it sounds like you do, go hang out with her, talk about anything else, and see how it goes. If she brings up the wedding and asks about it, then maybe just say you missed her and were sad she couldn’t be there, and leave it at that. Interrogating her about why she bailed would sound accusatory, like you believe her unavoidable out-of-town business was a fabrication. It may not be. And, if it is a fabrication, there’s probably a reason with a lot of personal sadness behind it as to why she didn’t feel like she could cope with your wedding day, and she may not be ready to spill all that out.
Just feel your way forward and see how it goes. If she’s a good friend, you two will be able to pick things back up, and eventually you may find the right opportunity to gently ask her what happened. If you find she’s being weird and not treating you right and refusing to discuss what’s really wrong, then you know this friendship isn’t as strong as you hoped it was, and it’s time to let things slide into acquaintance territory.
I don’t mean to be super snarky but – the wedding was two days AFTER her birthday, and … that was still an issue for her? Does she actually celebrate that long? Does she traditionally do a sort of birthday weekend, or is it a season or something???
When a dear friend is getting married, unless you have longstanding plans, a family emergency, or an illness, you put the date on the calendar and plan on being there. That’s that. You don’t whine about how completely inconsiderate they are to pick a date without personally consulting you, because GAWD. Really? Come on.
I’m single, and I feel like every wedding story I’ve ever heard includes one of THESE PEOPLE who somehow act like the wedding is about them in some way. I don’t get why it’s so hard to just BE there for someone else during their special day.
That being said, it’s over and done with. Is the friendship worth keeping? I feel like that’s the real question. Is this an issue that’s come up in the past (meaning, is everything all about her) and that has bothered you before? Do you feel you have to talk to her about it and see how it goes?
It’s up to you. Regardless of what you decide, it sounds like you had a lovely wedding and you’re happy, and in the end, that’s what really counts.
The thing that strikes me is that the friend wants to get together. So, whatever happened, Friend wants to reconnect. Whether that’s to offer an explanation or not, who knows. If I were Bride, I wouldn’t ask unless Friend opens the discussion. It’s possible that Friend was having a tough time for whatever reason, and just wants to move on now.
I agree with others that Friend was inappropriate in complaining about the date, and should have kept those birthday frustrations to herself. But it’s also true that Bride needs to move on. It’s just not worth more aggro to dig your heels in on this.
I’d get together with Friend without any intention of getting an answer. Of course, if Friend asks about the wedding, then you can say, “it was a wonderful day. I wish you had been able to share it with us, but I totally understand that things come up.” And then if she wants to offer an explanation she will. If not, then, “So I think the guacamole at the last place we tried is a bit better than here, don’t you?” Or whatever.
Weddings and funerals bring out the worst in some folks. Best to just be happy with the people who attend and not worry about the rest.
I feel like every wedding story I’ve ever heard includes one of THESE PEOPLE who somehow act like the wedding is about them in some way
You’re lucky if you get away with just the one, in my experience. MizShrew is right: these occasions are lightning rods and not everyone’s properly, uh, grounded.
On the other hand, every couple has a shorthand for these eye-rollers that happened, and they’re hilare. A very short list from my wedding and two of my friends’:
The Cupcake Incident
The Bride’s Sister Got Real
Placecardgate
[BIL] Strikes Again
Tardy Gras
The Bananas and Aquanet Traveling All-Stars
“Tardy Gras”? Made me squirt Mt. Dew out of my nose.
I must hear every single one of these stories, Sars. I sense a new TN subsection coming up!
God, the overwhelmingly delicate strategies required for formal events, but especially weddings! I wouldn’t bring it up with your friend unless she does, to be truthful, because a few things occurred to me:
You mention that you considered her a really close friend, someone who knows your new spouse well, and that you planned to involve her in the ceremony somehow. Did she know that? If you had a big wedding, perhaps she heard about others involved either as attendants or otherwise and got hurt that she hadn’t been included? It’s amazing how easily people can get slighted, without the slight-er having any idea about it.
If she has any sense, she’ll ask you about the wedding when you meet, and I think it would be fair to say you would have loved for her to be there, and let the conversation flow naturally or not. Some people suck at big public events, but can be good friends otherwise. I wouldn’t lose a true friendship over what, at the end of the day, was just one day.
I bailed on a friend’s wedding for a chickenshit reason. Took heat for it, deservedly so, for quite a while. They divorced pretty quickly, though, so now I don’t feel bad at all. :) Time heals, and all that. We’re still friends lo these many decades later.
Sars, please – you MUST share. IF possible. With pseudonyms.
Lots of people on both sides but I’m going to chime in anyway.
I don’t want to say I’m on friend’s side, because I’m not exactly. If she really did carry on for more than a a few minutes and have to be convinced it would be cool she was acting like a baby.
But I went through that for a few years and I get why it bugs. Of course you don’t expect people to plan around your birthday, most adults don’t. But there is that “not AGAIN!” that others have mentioned; and, at least how it went for me, I was a late-twenties, ULTRA single girl who wanted to be able to have a bit of fun on my birthday. Instead for four years in a row I was at a wedding, at the singles’ table (once at the kids’ table, which was fun but… Ouch.). It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be there, I totally did! But every time this happened my birthday was completely ignored by my entire friend group. The weekend before no one was available because wedding stuff, the weekend after no one wanted to because either out of town or “we just had a party last weekend.” I rarely even got cards or emails from folks. After a while it really did make me feel kind of neglected and ignored. Oh and the “we’ll just celebrate at the wedding!” made me feel like a bit of a charity case and also it never actually happened.
Would I bitch about this to the brides? No, of course not (though I did kinda break down the last time to one of the first to get married. She was my very best friend and sometimes you just need to be able to say things, but again it wasn’t about HER wedding, which is important). Did I smile and go? Of course I did, and I had fun. But I still get where she’s coming from. Though, again, if she really pouted and moped for more than five minutes she really handled it badly. She should have kept it to herself, bitched to a different friend, then sent the RSVP.
As far as declining, even if she is one of your closest peeps if she honestly realized she really just could not do it again and that she would just be a big ol’ wet blanket at the wedding, then it was probably the more mature response to just decline and go do her own thing without rubbing it in as to why. It’s too bad she couldn’t make it for whatever reason, but sometimes that’s what you need to do.
So, when you see her if you really want to just say you were sorry she couldn’t be there and then leave it to her to fill you in if she wants to. If she doesn’t, just let it go because it really has very little to do with you. I doubt she’d be asking to hang out it if it were. If it really was she just couldn’t do it, she might be a little embarrassed about that, none of us like admitting weakness. As others said DO NOT bring up the single thing unless she does.
Lastly, I have one question for the LW: Did you by chance send her a birthday card? Or even a happy birthday email? Something more than an auto-fill on Facebook? Because if not, and if that’s how all the other wedding birthdays went, well, that might be part of it too. It was for me.
“Relationships aren’t single-point failure mechanisms”
Thanks, OneoftheJanes. That’s a nice way of summing up a friendship of mine that may or may not be disintegrating.
So, maybe LW’s friend has a thing for celebrating on the day itself, and wedding travel plans would interfere with that? I sympathize, but not to the extent of complaining extensively about it to the LW.
You want to feel shitty and alone on your birthday? Mine falls on the day before Valentine’s Day (only to be beat by those born on actual Valentine’s Day). (I don’t actually feel shitty and alone, and now I’m in my 40s).
The entire holiday is geared towards coupling, which makes plan-making very difficult. This year you can throw in Presidents’ Day weekend and nyc mid-winter break in schools, which takes most married-with-kids friends out of town to see the grandparents, and I’ve just given up as hopeless any actual plan. I went out last week with my best friend instead, and I’ll see my folks on the 11th or 12th. (One year, my parents tried to take me out on the 14th, because they were out of town on actual birthday, and when we showed at the restaurant where we had made reservations for three people, we were confronted with a “couples only” prix-fixe menu for two and no other options. Why would they even take our reservation?!)
I will just comfort myself with the fact that I get a 3-day weekend this year. I actually gave up celebrating years ago for a completely different reason. I’m a securities lawyer, and companies annual reports are due to be filed with the SEC at the end of February. Making this a super busy time of year. When I was at a law firm, I spent multiple birthdays actually sitting in client conference rooms in random cities around the country (Spokane is lovely in mid February). Why the SEC couldn’t be more sensitive to the fact that it was my birthday, I’ll never know.
Am I a bad person for wanting LW to walk into her meeting with friend and saying, “So tell me all about your trip!”
Also, as someone whose birthday falls roughly when my whole crowd tends to be doing other stuff: I do not get the exact! date! emphasis. Have a party the week after! Have a party five months from then and say you’re twenty-four and a half! Celebrate Your Birthday On Mars. Your friends aren’t going to be snitty or weird about it; your friends are going to think hey, cool, a party.
What, will the stars not align properly? Will you age ten years if you celebrate a month later? Are you under some kind of fucking mystical curse, or do you just need therapy for anal-retentiveness?
I do not get the Exact Date People, at all (and this includes the ex-boyfriend who got really passive-aggressively snitty when I suggested that, hey, scheduling works better for me to do other stuff on 2/14, so let’s just celebrate on the fifteenth, we can get a reservation easier anyhow), and I kind of want to hand them free copies of A Brief History of Time with the bits about relativity highlighted.
Not that I understand that book myself, mostly, but still.
I’ve got to back up what was said eloquently by A and by Jane. Being single at a wedding is hard. Being single on your birthday is hard.
And for everyone going on about how birthdays are just not important: OK, to you they are not. It was a huge surprise to me when, as an adult, I discovered other people did not care about adult birthdays. In my family, we still celebrate 27 and 39 and 54 and 82, and have big blowouts on the decade birthdays. I threw myself a party on my 30th because (on theme) I was single, and I wanted acknowledgement, and no one else was going to do it. Again: hard to do.
(Having said that, I will totally celebrate my birthday the day or week before or after, because The Day is not magic. And I probably would have gone to the wedding.)
To riff a little on what Erin W said above, I was kind of astounded to learn as an adult that weddings WERE a big thing! I come from a long line of elopers, which probably goes a long way to explaining my “meh” attitude toward other people’s weddings. I also grew up in the country where many weddings were quaint little outdoor affairs with DIY music and potluck suppers.
In my family of origin, birthdays most definitely > weddings.