Why am I rejected by people I thought were my friends?
April 26, 2018 1:17 AM Subscribe
I am struggling today because I found out that a colleague (my supervisor actually) is getting married, invites have gone out and I am not invited. I always seem to be cut out when it comes to weddings, even when I thought the person was my friend. Help?
So with my supervisor she is gay and got engaged ages ago but only just managed to start planning a wedding when gay marriage was legalised in Australia recently. I thought we got along well and have always tried to be nice to her but she did not invite me, but did invite another colleague (who is also engaged but is setting a date for 2019)
With my group of friends they mostly live in a different city to me, my hometown, which I travel back to regularly. There have been a series of about 6 weddings in recent years in that group and I only got invited to one. I thought they were my friends but being rejected so much makes me a lot less sure. It is made worse by the fact that my sister got invited to all the weddings as she knows these girls too.
Then there was my cousin, who got married about a month ago without inviting any of his cousins, only Aunts and Uncles, Grandma etc. I was upset because my sister had him and his then girlfriend at her wedding and he did not reciprocate even with her. Admittedly I do not know him or his wife that well but we are friends on Facebook, I have always tried to support him (likes, wish him a happy birthday etc) and I thought inviting family was compulsory!
So I have a pretty bad track record when it comes to being invited to weddings (at age 35 I have had five invites and two I could not attend due to being overseas long-term at the time)
I have no idea what to tell you about clues as to why this might keep happening to me. I am pretty quiet, introverted person but I have known the so-called friends for nearly a decade now.
I try to get along with people and I am not badly behaved eg alcoholic, rude, stingy with gifts, inappropriately dressed and I don’t hold any unusual beliefs like racism or homophobia.
The question: can anyone help me figure out why I keep getting excluded? I don’t want this to make me bitter and jaded, how can I avoid that?
I’m not in a relationship if that matters so I can’t ask my SO (boys do not take an interest in me either but that is for another ask) and if I asked my sister I would not get a straight answer even though I’m pretty sure she would know. Help!
So with my supervisor she is gay and got engaged ages ago but only just managed to start planning a wedding when gay marriage was legalised in Australia recently. I thought we got along well and have always tried to be nice to her but she did not invite me, but did invite another colleague (who is also engaged but is setting a date for 2019)
With my group of friends they mostly live in a different city to me, my hometown, which I travel back to regularly. There have been a series of about 6 weddings in recent years in that group and I only got invited to one. I thought they were my friends but being rejected so much makes me a lot less sure. It is made worse by the fact that my sister got invited to all the weddings as she knows these girls too.
Then there was my cousin, who got married about a month ago without inviting any of his cousins, only Aunts and Uncles, Grandma etc. I was upset because my sister had him and his then girlfriend at her wedding and he did not reciprocate even with her. Admittedly I do not know him or his wife that well but we are friends on Facebook, I have always tried to support him (likes, wish him a happy birthday etc) and I thought inviting family was compulsory!
So I have a pretty bad track record when it comes to being invited to weddings (at age 35 I have had five invites and two I could not attend due to being overseas long-term at the time)
I have no idea what to tell you about clues as to why this might keep happening to me. I am pretty quiet, introverted person but I have known the so-called friends for nearly a decade now.
I try to get along with people and I am not badly behaved eg alcoholic, rude, stingy with gifts, inappropriately dressed and I don’t hold any unusual beliefs like racism or homophobia.
The question: can anyone help me figure out why I keep getting excluded? I don’t want this to make me bitter and jaded, how can I avoid that?
I’m not in a relationship if that matters so I can’t ask my SO (boys do not take an interest in me either but that is for another ask) and if I asked my sister I would not get a straight answer even though I’m pretty sure she would know. Help!
So, behind each of these three stories I see three totally different causes. Your supervisor doesn't think it's appropriate to invite her direct report to her wedding. It's important to her to avoid having a relationship with you that is too friendly because of your work relationship (Alison Green of Ask A Manager has written about this). Your friends who are having the weddings all live in a different town from you and they've stayed closer to the people they they see all the time in person. Your cousin wanted to have a small wedding--he didn't signal out you not to invite! I have a cousin who did the same thing, even though he did get invited to my other cousins' weddings, and I respect the hell out of him for taking a stand and choosing not to have a huge, expensive blowout destination wedding when my family has a lot of compulsory "you must invite all the cousins and all the second cousins and it has to be in City X where they all live because We're a Family and Family Sticks Together" stuff going on.
So, why do you see all of these things adding up to "I am being excluded, I am being rejected"? I think the deeper thing here is that you are feeling lonely. And there is a way forward from there. I think it involves therapy if you're not already in it, not because I think you have a mental illness or that something is wrong with you, but because you are hurting and there are professionals who can help, and you deserve that. And I think it's also about understanding emotional labor and the role of emotional labor in friendships. Doing emotional labor doesn't always come naturally to introverted people and it can sometimes be hard to see where the emotional labor of others is invisible to us, so it just looks like "everyone hates me and there must be something off-putting about me" from the outside rather than "everyone else is doing mutual emotional labor all the time in tiny ways I can't see". Both "therapy!" and "emotional labor!" are AskMe cliches but they are cliches for a reason.
posted by capricorn at 1:44 AM on April 26, 2018 [39 favorites]
So, why do you see all of these things adding up to "I am being excluded, I am being rejected"? I think the deeper thing here is that you are feeling lonely. And there is a way forward from there. I think it involves therapy if you're not already in it, not because I think you have a mental illness or that something is wrong with you, but because you are hurting and there are professionals who can help, and you deserve that. And I think it's also about understanding emotional labor and the role of emotional labor in friendships. Doing emotional labor doesn't always come naturally to introverted people and it can sometimes be hard to see where the emotional labor of others is invisible to us, so it just looks like "everyone hates me and there must be something off-putting about me" from the outside rather than "everyone else is doing mutual emotional labor all the time in tiny ways I can't see". Both "therapy!" and "emotional labor!" are AskMe cliches but they are cliches for a reason.
posted by capricorn at 1:44 AM on April 26, 2018 [39 favorites]
I can speculate here for you, but I can't give you any straight answers. You could ask the people involved, in a roundabout way perhaps. But otherwise, speculation.
For the current situation, let me see. Perhaps that person isn't inviting anybody from work. For previous ones, maybe the invite well and truly did get lost. It does happen, it's not just a convenient excuse. Maybe people sent it to the wrong address. Maybe they thought you were still abroad and thought they'd best skip you. Nothing personal, just practical.
Actually, I rather envy your position. I've found weddings to be the dullest fucking way to waste colossal amounts of time ever devised by human beings. So you could always put a positive spin on this "problem".
Anyway, I don't see any reason to be worried.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 1:49 AM on April 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
For the current situation, let me see. Perhaps that person isn't inviting anybody from work. For previous ones, maybe the invite well and truly did get lost. It does happen, it's not just a convenient excuse. Maybe people sent it to the wrong address. Maybe they thought you were still abroad and thought they'd best skip you. Nothing personal, just practical.
Actually, I rather envy your position. I've found weddings to be the dullest fucking way to waste colossal amounts of time ever devised by human beings. So you could always put a positive spin on this "problem".
Anyway, I don't see any reason to be worried.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 1:49 AM on April 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
I also can't tell from your post if you are really being rejected or if you are simply not invited to some weddings. I recommend spending more time reflecting on the actual quality of your relationships with the people you mentioned (and others) rather than to focus on the specific question 'why wasn't I on the wedding list.'
I don't want to rule out that you aren't as close to people as you would like to be, just to state that you can't really tell from weddings --> even if it feels like a pattern.
Spend some time (maybe with some outside help) thinking about your closeness with others and what you have and what you want.
posted by jazh at 2:11 AM on April 26, 2018
I don't want to rule out that you aren't as close to people as you would like to be, just to state that you can't really tell from weddings --> even if it feels like a pattern.
Spend some time (maybe with some outside help) thinking about your closeness with others and what you have and what you want.
posted by jazh at 2:11 AM on April 26, 2018
For a lot of people weddings are about inviting people to whom they are close. Close, not like just Facebook friends or blood-related or get along well in the office or were fairly good friends 10 years ago but haven't really kept in touch but people who are, at the time of their wedding, actually close to them. In addition to that weddings can be so expensive and if each person represents a significant amount of cost then they might not want to invite everyone they get along with or are related to. This doesn't sound like rejection to me--it sounds like you might not be as close to these people as other people are.
You sound kind of like you feel like you were entitled to be invited to these people's weddings but that isn't how it works. Some people--particularly unmarried people-view weddings like they're huge parties that everyone should be invited to. I ran into this when I got married and didn't invite my co-workers, who I loved but who weren't actually part of my non-work life. They were so angry at me but the reality was that even though I would have loved to invite them to a big party, my parents were throwing an expensive family wedding. It wasn't a rejection of my co-workers, but they thought it was and it really soured our relationship. So I wouldn't see any of this as rejection really, but you just might not be close enough to these people to merit a wedding invite.
posted by Polychrome at 2:13 AM on April 26, 2018 [5 favorites]
You sound kind of like you feel like you were entitled to be invited to these people's weddings but that isn't how it works. Some people--particularly unmarried people-view weddings like they're huge parties that everyone should be invited to. I ran into this when I got married and didn't invite my co-workers, who I loved but who weren't actually part of my non-work life. They were so angry at me but the reality was that even though I would have loved to invite them to a big party, my parents were throwing an expensive family wedding. It wasn't a rejection of my co-workers, but they thought it was and it really soured our relationship. So I wouldn't see any of this as rejection really, but you just might not be close enough to these people to merit a wedding invite.
posted by Polychrome at 2:13 AM on April 26, 2018 [5 favorites]
Hi! I’m planning my wedding in five months! I am justifying my invite list to a lot of people right now, so I can try and give you some insight from the other side.
People who know you don’t live in town might not want to put you out, obligate you to extra expenses, and give away a potential spot to someone lov al. Your supervisor might not think it’s appropriate since there could be the perception of something odd there. Your cousin ruled out a whole slew of one category, maybe just to cut costs.
posted by RainyJay at 2:54 AM on April 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
People who know you don’t live in town might not want to put you out, obligate you to extra expenses, and give away a potential spot to someone lov al. Your supervisor might not think it’s appropriate since there could be the perception of something odd there. Your cousin ruled out a whole slew of one category, maybe just to cut costs.
posted by RainyJay at 2:54 AM on April 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
There is no need to feel rejected. What you should be feeling is elation, at the news that you have been spared from a tedious social commitment which almost nobody enjoys yet is near impossible to turn down. A significant portion of people around you, myself included, would give almost anything to have your streak of wedding-free good luck. Indeed, I would pay money for it if I could.
posted by BeaverTerror at 2:54 AM on April 26, 2018 [23 favorites]
posted by BeaverTerror at 2:54 AM on April 26, 2018 [23 favorites]
Best answer: I‘m trying to understand how you use wedding invitations as an important metric of friendship and not receiving one as a clear rejection of friendship.
Neither of those is true.
Friendship is one of many factors of who „has to“ be invited to a wedding. For people struggling with expenses, venue restrictions and/or pushy relatives it is often the least important factor.
All your examples have individual good reasons for not inviting you and as you‘re the one mentioning them, I think you know that. But because it happened several times it feels like it has meaning, it feels like a hurtful pattern.
However. The pattern is s omething your brain is creating out of these random instances to tell a compelling, painful story. That‘s what brains do - create stories from things that happen, that give these things meaning. I suspect that what makes this particular story so compelling is that it reinforces pre-existing beliefs and fears. I think maybe you would benefit from looking into therapy for your feelings of self worth.
I won‘t gaslight you: Yes, people generally are more likely to invite friends they are close with than those they like just fine but aren‘t that close with.
Reading between your lines, you don‘t seem very close to people despite knowing them for years. I‘m not sure you have a feeling for where you actually stand with people, friendshipwise. For a start, friendship is not binary yes/no. It can range from friendly acquaintances you have coffee with once in a while to bestie who you hang out with allllll the time to desgnated hobby-, internet- or work-friend. Just because you‘re not on the wedding list doesn‘t mean you‘re not friends.
But maybe you‘re not close friends. Maybe you thought you were closer. Maybe you valued them more than they do you and you‘re just now finding this out, yeah? That shit hurts.
As to why you‘re not as close as hoped - there are a million reasons. Close friendships are more the exception than the rule, in my experience. Unless you’ve been actively putting in work into driving the friendships closer, there’s no reason to expect them to be. You bring up reasons as to why you‘re a perfectly pleasant person and not a raging asshole as if that were the only reason for preventing close friendships. But really, showing up to other people‘s pre- planned events or suggesting a coffee when you’re in town and being pleasant is just the baseline.
Think about what you bring to the table as a friend. Are you arranging hang outs? Calling folks to chat? Sending birthday wishes? Actively reaching out? Is there a connection you can feel?
It‘s good to have a mix of friends of varying closeness and types.
Leave aside the wedding issue, it‘s a distraction, a red herring for your brain to obsess over fruitlessly. Have a think about your friendship ecology. Are you happy with the closeness you have with your friends? Do you have enough friends? The right friends? Like, all your friends are square but you‘d prefer weirder people who really get your Cronenberg obsession? Do you see each other as often as you‘d like?
Now‘s not the time to passively suffer that you haven‘t been friended at in the way you‘d like. Now‘s the time to actively decide what friendship means to you and then actively be that friend. Find new friends, meet old friends. Redefine your friendships.
Btw I‘m in my 40s and have been to maybe 6 weddings.
posted by Omnomnom at 2:55 AM on April 26, 2018 [9 favorites]
Neither of those is true.
Friendship is one of many factors of who „has to“ be invited to a wedding. For people struggling with expenses, venue restrictions and/or pushy relatives it is often the least important factor.
All your examples have individual good reasons for not inviting you and as you‘re the one mentioning them, I think you know that. But because it happened several times it feels like it has meaning, it feels like a hurtful pattern.
However. The pattern is s omething your brain is creating out of these random instances to tell a compelling, painful story. That‘s what brains do - create stories from things that happen, that give these things meaning. I suspect that what makes this particular story so compelling is that it reinforces pre-existing beliefs and fears. I think maybe you would benefit from looking into therapy for your feelings of self worth.
I won‘t gaslight you: Yes, people generally are more likely to invite friends they are close with than those they like just fine but aren‘t that close with.
Reading between your lines, you don‘t seem very close to people despite knowing them for years. I‘m not sure you have a feeling for where you actually stand with people, friendshipwise. For a start, friendship is not binary yes/no. It can range from friendly acquaintances you have coffee with once in a while to bestie who you hang out with allllll the time to desgnated hobby-, internet- or work-friend. Just because you‘re not on the wedding list doesn‘t mean you‘re not friends.
But maybe you‘re not close friends. Maybe you thought you were closer. Maybe you valued them more than they do you and you‘re just now finding this out, yeah? That shit hurts.
As to why you‘re not as close as hoped - there are a million reasons. Close friendships are more the exception than the rule, in my experience. Unless you’ve been actively putting in work into driving the friendships closer, there’s no reason to expect them to be. You bring up reasons as to why you‘re a perfectly pleasant person and not a raging asshole as if that were the only reason for preventing close friendships. But really, showing up to other people‘s pre- planned events or suggesting a coffee when you’re in town and being pleasant is just the baseline.
Think about what you bring to the table as a friend. Are you arranging hang outs? Calling folks to chat? Sending birthday wishes? Actively reaching out? Is there a connection you can feel?
It‘s good to have a mix of friends of varying closeness and types.
Leave aside the wedding issue, it‘s a distraction, a red herring for your brain to obsess over fruitlessly. Have a think about your friendship ecology. Are you happy with the closeness you have with your friends? Do you have enough friends? The right friends? Like, all your friends are square but you‘d prefer weirder people who really get your Cronenberg obsession? Do you see each other as often as you‘d like?
Now‘s not the time to passively suffer that you haven‘t been friended at in the way you‘d like. Now‘s the time to actively decide what friendship means to you and then actively be that friend. Find new friends, meet old friends. Redefine your friendships.
Btw I‘m in my 40s and have been to maybe 6 weddings.
posted by Omnomnom at 2:55 AM on April 26, 2018 [9 favorites]
You and your supervisor are work friends. Colleagues.
Your cousin didn't invite any cousins, so it isn't about you.
People have budget and size restrictions, you know? If you're not close friends, it seems very normal to me to not get an invite.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:49 AM on April 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
Your cousin didn't invite any cousins, so it isn't about you.
People have budget and size restrictions, you know? If you're not close friends, it seems very normal to me to not get an invite.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:49 AM on April 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
People have already addressed the coworker and cousin one pretty well. The language you use to describe your friends though is fairly lacking. You describe just knowing them, not “when I’m home every 3 weeks I text everyone and make sure we all meet up to have a beach day and if people are busy then I try to meet for coffee one on one.” Even at the end it kind of reads like a “nice guy” of “I’m not horrible, why don’t women want to date me?!?!?” Rather than “this is what I bring to the group and try to build and grow relationships.” It sounds like your sister (who did receive invites) might be closer to these friends. Could you ask her for insight on these instances?
posted by raccoon409 at 3:58 AM on April 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by raccoon409 at 3:58 AM on April 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
Wedding invitations are not an absolute measure of friendship. They can be a measure of very close friendship, or physical proximity, or budget, or venue space, or just the size of parties someone prefers.
It doesn’t sound like you’re particularly close to any of the people having weddings. “I have tried to be nice to her” and “I like his Facebook statuses” are fairly weak connectors; they are good social gestures and you should continue to do them with people you like, but they are not quite friendship-level. Friendship is hard to define, but it often requires more personalized and sustained connection - do you text/email/call each other regularly? Do you make plans to get together? Do you know their likes and dislikes? You don’t have to reach that level of friendship with everyone you’re on friendly terms with, but that’s the sort of connection that comes before wedding invitations.
The next question is: how do you build friendships with that level of closeness? Well, it’s hard in the best of circumstances and some of us have a more difficult time than others. Which is not the same as rejection. I personally am crap at getting beyond that acquaintance level, because it’s the sort of thing you have to work on if you aren’t yet adept, and it requires you to shift your thinking from “friendships grow naturally” to “friendships are a thing I have to grow and maintain,” plus if you have social anxiety or shaky self-esteem, trying to make friends will bring those out like whoa. (It’s easy to live with them if you keep to yourself and don’t put yourself in many social situations, and then when you do get in a social situation all these buried insecurities can show up and sort of shock you). Again, none of this is rejection.
I have a feeling people like you just fine, but you don’t develop close friendships (which is okay! you do not have to have a dozen or more besties!), and the wedding invitation thing is highlighting that. It’s never too late to build friendships, yet it’s never easy, and if you struggle it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:20 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
It doesn’t sound like you’re particularly close to any of the people having weddings. “I have tried to be nice to her” and “I like his Facebook statuses” are fairly weak connectors; they are good social gestures and you should continue to do them with people you like, but they are not quite friendship-level. Friendship is hard to define, but it often requires more personalized and sustained connection - do you text/email/call each other regularly? Do you make plans to get together? Do you know their likes and dislikes? You don’t have to reach that level of friendship with everyone you’re on friendly terms with, but that’s the sort of connection that comes before wedding invitations.
The next question is: how do you build friendships with that level of closeness? Well, it’s hard in the best of circumstances and some of us have a more difficult time than others. Which is not the same as rejection. I personally am crap at getting beyond that acquaintance level, because it’s the sort of thing you have to work on if you aren’t yet adept, and it requires you to shift your thinking from “friendships grow naturally” to “friendships are a thing I have to grow and maintain,” plus if you have social anxiety or shaky self-esteem, trying to make friends will bring those out like whoa. (It’s easy to live with them if you keep to yourself and don’t put yourself in many social situations, and then when you do get in a social situation all these buried insecurities can show up and sort of shock you). Again, none of this is rejection.
I have a feeling people like you just fine, but you don’t develop close friendships (which is okay! you do not have to have a dozen or more besties!), and the wedding invitation thing is highlighting that. It’s never too late to build friendships, yet it’s never easy, and if you struggle it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:20 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Best answer: There are rational explanations for not being invited in each of those situations, but rational explanations don't sooth sore feelings.
Sometimes as introverts, we do get forgotten and set aside more easily than other friends who are more consistently present in our friends lives. We think someone is our good friend because they figure very largely in our social lives, but we might be wrong because we figure significantly less largely in their much busier social lives. They see us as much as we see them, obviously, but they see so many more people than we do that there's an imbalance.
It sucks, but there it is.
You can try to fight this -- work to be more physically present with friends, be a person who invites them to things, who accepts all their invites, etc -- but you might find that people with busy, stuffed social lives don't have a ton of room to add more you to their schedule, which will also suck, but at least then you'll know and understand your friendships and you can find friends who are more open to you specifically.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:37 AM on April 26, 2018 [11 favorites]
Sometimes as introverts, we do get forgotten and set aside more easily than other friends who are more consistently present in our friends lives. We think someone is our good friend because they figure very largely in our social lives, but we might be wrong because we figure significantly less largely in their much busier social lives. They see us as much as we see them, obviously, but they see so many more people than we do that there's an imbalance.
It sucks, but there it is.
You can try to fight this -- work to be more physically present with friends, be a person who invites them to things, who accepts all their invites, etc -- but you might find that people with busy, stuffed social lives don't have a ton of room to add more you to their schedule, which will also suck, but at least then you'll know and understand your friendships and you can find friends who are more open to you specifically.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:37 AM on April 26, 2018 [11 favorites]
I didn’t invite my cousins to my wedding. I didn’t invite my best friend to my wedding. Hell, I didn’t invite my *parents* to my wedding. Wedding invites aren’t a measure of closeness or friendship or anything other than the people getting married saying “these are the people I want at my wedding”. It may be helpful for you to explore *why* these invites (or lack thereof) are holding so much meaning/significance for you.
posted by okayokayigive at 6:03 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by okayokayigive at 6:03 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
I don't think that not being invited to a wedding is itself a rejection of friendship. Neither of the scenarios you describe make me think that the people having the wedding don't want to be friends with you.
But I think that your feelings are coming from a real place of not having the kind of connection and closeness that you want and I think it's worthwhile to listen to that. I've struggled a lot with this stuff lately - feeling lonely and perhaps insecure makes it really easy to notice every potential slight. Might be worthwhile to post a follow-up ask about finding the connection you want, if any of this rings a bell. Good luck.
posted by bunderful at 6:38 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
But I think that your feelings are coming from a real place of not having the kind of connection and closeness that you want and I think it's worthwhile to listen to that. I've struggled a lot with this stuff lately - feeling lonely and perhaps insecure makes it really easy to notice every potential slight. Might be worthwhile to post a follow-up ask about finding the connection you want, if any of this rings a bell. Good luck.
posted by bunderful at 6:38 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
I feel it was perfectly reasonable not to invite you to any of the weddings you mention in your Ask.
Your supervisor didn't want to invite her direct report to a highly personal event. Your cousin didn't feel that you had a close enough relationship to invite, which makes sense, considering that you too admit you don't know him well (apart from Facebook interaction, which is light years away from meaningful relationship building; for the most part, it signifies "I know you exist" but it doesn't take the place of a real relationship built on quality time spent together... But I digress). And your friends didn't invite you to their weddings because they live in a different city! None of these are outright rejections.
I think that one of the most important emotional maturation steps you can take is acknowledging that everyone doesn't have to like you (not 'you' as in the OP but 'general you') and that's okay. People will make decisions that may not include you, because not everything is about you. That doesn't make them a bad person at all. They don't owe you anything. When one accepts this fact, then it makes it much more meaningful when a person you care about does invite you to their wedding or birthday party, or rings you up out of the blue to say hi, or [insert other nice gesture here]. When you realise no one is obligated to be your friend, it means so much when people are your friends - it means they want to be, and that's a good feeling. I try to never take for granted that people, even if I know them well, will automatically want to hang out with me, or whatever - lives get busy and people have different priorities - but this means that if/when they do, it's a really nice feeling.
I agree with previous posters - you do sound lonely, and you can do something about that. I would work on developing meaningful relationships, not with people you only see when you travel to your hometown, or people you only interact with on Facebook, but with the people you know socially now. AskMe is full of great advice about how to find and make new friends. Good luck!
posted by Ziggy500 at 6:47 AM on April 26, 2018
Your supervisor didn't want to invite her direct report to a highly personal event. Your cousin didn't feel that you had a close enough relationship to invite, which makes sense, considering that you too admit you don't know him well (apart from Facebook interaction, which is light years away from meaningful relationship building; for the most part, it signifies "I know you exist" but it doesn't take the place of a real relationship built on quality time spent together... But I digress). And your friends didn't invite you to their weddings because they live in a different city! None of these are outright rejections.
I think that one of the most important emotional maturation steps you can take is acknowledging that everyone doesn't have to like you (not 'you' as in the OP but 'general you') and that's okay. People will make decisions that may not include you, because not everything is about you. That doesn't make them a bad person at all. They don't owe you anything. When one accepts this fact, then it makes it much more meaningful when a person you care about does invite you to their wedding or birthday party, or rings you up out of the blue to say hi, or [insert other nice gesture here]. When you realise no one is obligated to be your friend, it means so much when people are your friends - it means they want to be, and that's a good feeling. I try to never take for granted that people, even if I know them well, will automatically want to hang out with me, or whatever - lives get busy and people have different priorities - but this means that if/when they do, it's a really nice feeling.
I agree with previous posters - you do sound lonely, and you can do something about that. I would work on developing meaningful relationships, not with people you only see when you travel to your hometown, or people you only interact with on Facebook, but with the people you know socially now. AskMe is full of great advice about how to find and make new friends. Good luck!
posted by Ziggy500 at 6:47 AM on April 26, 2018
I feel you expectations are off slightly here.
RE Cousins. I did not invite any of my cousins to a wedding, because there are a lot of them and inviting 1 or 2 felt problematic. Also:
Admittedly I do not know him or his wife that well So doubly so.
RE boss. I am friends with many of my reports but even reports that I'm quite close to I wouldn't invite to an event like a wedding because the power dynamics of that would be problematic. They'd feel compelled to come and therefore spend money and all my other reports would feel excluded. It's simply bad business.
RE friends. you don't live in that city and your sister does that probably explains 99% of that. It's a big ask to invite someone out of town, even if they visit frequently, because you are essentially asking them to, again, spend time and money on you.
Ultimately you seem to be placing disproportionate amounts of weight on being invited to weddings, maybe that's coloring your perception a little regarding the practical reasons people may not be inviting you.
posted by French Fry at 6:49 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
RE Cousins. I did not invite any of my cousins to a wedding, because there are a lot of them and inviting 1 or 2 felt problematic. Also:
Admittedly I do not know him or his wife that well So doubly so.
RE boss. I am friends with many of my reports but even reports that I'm quite close to I wouldn't invite to an event like a wedding because the power dynamics of that would be problematic. They'd feel compelled to come and therefore spend money and all my other reports would feel excluded. It's simply bad business.
RE friends. you don't live in that city and your sister does that probably explains 99% of that. It's a big ask to invite someone out of town, even if they visit frequently, because you are essentially asking them to, again, spend time and money on you.
Ultimately you seem to be placing disproportionate amounts of weight on being invited to weddings, maybe that's coloring your perception a little regarding the practical reasons people may not be inviting you.
posted by French Fry at 6:49 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Best answer: So I can actually perfectly explain the situation: you’re not crazy, but you are suffering from cultural mismatch.
When I was married, I had great difficulty, because my understanding of “who you invite to your wedding” was “everyone you consider a friend or family and who you want to remain friends with after the wedding”. It’s a standard that was absolutely the case thirty or forty years ago, when you would have your own friends, your coworkers, second cousins, even some of your parent’s friends present.
But that standard was formed when parents paid for enormous two-hundred-person weddings - when both wages were proportionally higher, and also when the cultural expectation was of saving for your kid’s future wedding. I, probably like you, remember attending those enormous weddings as a child - it definitely set my own expectations for how weddings work.
But now, the vast majority of people getting married are paying for it themselves in whole or in part, and paying for the food and reception location is often over 100$ a person. To invite 20 coworkers means an extra 2000$ which someone may not have. That 200-person wedding is now a 40K wedding at the very /least/, and that’s not counting all the extras. Accordingly, the social rules around weddings are very different, because people simply can’t afford to throw those old-style weddings. They can’t afford to invite all the cousins, and the families of the cousins. They can’t afford to invite old friends of the family. They simply can’t afford it, and it may even break their heart a little - just like it did mine when I realized I couldn’t invite everyone I wanted to.
So it might be helpful to adjust your wedding expectations to the (admittedly sad) times we live in rather than the heady days of childhood when the economy was in a very different place.
posted by corb at 6:53 AM on April 26, 2018 [10 favorites]
When I was married, I had great difficulty, because my understanding of “who you invite to your wedding” was “everyone you consider a friend or family and who you want to remain friends with after the wedding”. It’s a standard that was absolutely the case thirty or forty years ago, when you would have your own friends, your coworkers, second cousins, even some of your parent’s friends present.
But that standard was formed when parents paid for enormous two-hundred-person weddings - when both wages were proportionally higher, and also when the cultural expectation was of saving for your kid’s future wedding. I, probably like you, remember attending those enormous weddings as a child - it definitely set my own expectations for how weddings work.
But now, the vast majority of people getting married are paying for it themselves in whole or in part, and paying for the food and reception location is often over 100$ a person. To invite 20 coworkers means an extra 2000$ which someone may not have. That 200-person wedding is now a 40K wedding at the very /least/, and that’s not counting all the extras. Accordingly, the social rules around weddings are very different, because people simply can’t afford to throw those old-style weddings. They can’t afford to invite all the cousins, and the families of the cousins. They can’t afford to invite old friends of the family. They simply can’t afford it, and it may even break their heart a little - just like it did mine when I realized I couldn’t invite everyone I wanted to.
So it might be helpful to adjust your wedding expectations to the (admittedly sad) times we live in rather than the heady days of childhood when the economy was in a very different place.
posted by corb at 6:53 AM on April 26, 2018 [10 favorites]
I think there's an issue here with the word "friend," which has really been devalued, at least partially through Facebook. With your supervisor, it's not just that you're her direct report, though that could be part of it. I don't see any indication that she is actually your friend. You say you get along well and you're nice to her. That doesn't make you friends. Friends hang out together after work. They confide in each other. They have a relationship that has nothing to do with the workplace and that will continue when they no longer work together. You are just two people who work together and have a professional relationship. A wedding is a personal, not a professional, event. There is no reason for her to invite you. I would guess she has a more personal relationship with the colleague who is invited.
Similarly, you are friends on Facebook with your cousin. That doesn't make you friends in any real sense of the word. Your cousin made a very typical kind of cutoff - by relationship. That decision has nothing to do with you personally.
I'm not sure what's going on with your group of friends, but there could be lots of reasons they didn't invite you.
posted by FencingGal at 7:11 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Similarly, you are friends on Facebook with your cousin. That doesn't make you friends in any real sense of the word. Your cousin made a very typical kind of cutoff - by relationship. That decision has nothing to do with you personally.
I'm not sure what's going on with your group of friends, but there could be lots of reasons they didn't invite you.
posted by FencingGal at 7:11 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
I cannot imagine inviting a direct report to a wedding, and putting them in the awkward position of buying me a gift. It's just bad management juju. Rather than feeling hurt by not being invited, be grateful you have a boss who realizes the social minefield and avoided it. As to the colleague who was invited, you don't know how their existing social circles coincide, perhaps the colleague's partner is a brother to one of the pair, or they've been friends since college, or whatever, it has no reflection on you. Offer your boss your congratulations, and be grateful you don't have to wear uncomfortable shoes on some random Sunday.
As to the others, I think Corb makes a valid point. I remember weddings in the 70s where it seemed half the county had been invited, kids running everywhere, second cousins twice removed on your grandmother's side, sort of gatherings. It would be insane to try and pull off a wedding that size now that weddings have become a business model. The cost would be enough to buy a house in some places.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:12 AM on April 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
As to the others, I think Corb makes a valid point. I remember weddings in the 70s where it seemed half the county had been invited, kids running everywhere, second cousins twice removed on your grandmother's side, sort of gatherings. It would be insane to try and pull off a wedding that size now that weddings have become a business model. The cost would be enough to buy a house in some places.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:12 AM on April 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
Reasons I didn't invite someone to my wedding, in no particular order:
1. It was getting too expensive to invite people beyond family & close friends
2. I was sensitive to their financial/childcare situation and didn't want to put them on the spot
3. I didn't think they'd really want to come and I didn't want to feel rejected
4. My fiance didn't know them & wanted to invite more people both of us knew
I can think of one person, a cousin, who I actively rejected and that was because his wife had slandered and swore at my fiance in public. Anyway, I know what it feels like to be hurt and I encourage you to find more people to do things with. This doesn't mean anything's wrong with you - it may mean that they're just not a good fit as friends - but more likely it's one of the reasons I mentioned above.
posted by AFABulous at 8:19 AM on April 26, 2018
1. It was getting too expensive to invite people beyond family & close friends
2. I was sensitive to their financial/childcare situation and didn't want to put them on the spot
3. I didn't think they'd really want to come and I didn't want to feel rejected
4. My fiance didn't know them & wanted to invite more people both of us knew
I can think of one person, a cousin, who I actively rejected and that was because his wife had slandered and swore at my fiance in public. Anyway, I know what it feels like to be hurt and I encourage you to find more people to do things with. This doesn't mean anything's wrong with you - it may mean that they're just not a good fit as friends - but more likely it's one of the reasons I mentioned above.
posted by AFABulous at 8:19 AM on April 26, 2018
Not being invited to social functions is not very good for one’s self esteem. I hear you. As a very outgoing and social person, I sympathize. Put both feet firmly on the ground, look your sister in the eyes and ask her what’s up.
Anything else, especially from Internet strangers, is bound to be a variation of “it’s not you, it’s them” which, while coming from a good place, may not be that useful to you in the end.
You need feedback from someone who knows you. Anything else is speculation.
posted by Kwadeng at 8:23 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Anything else, especially from Internet strangers, is bound to be a variation of “it’s not you, it’s them” which, while coming from a good place, may not be that useful to you in the end.
You need feedback from someone who knows you. Anything else is speculation.
posted by Kwadeng at 8:23 AM on April 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
As someone who's often viewed wedding invitations as a burden, I couldn't understand people who were hurt by people declining to come to their weddings. Wouldn't everyone be glad to have a smaller wedding? Why were people taking it so Personally? And then I threw my own wedding and found myself surprisingly hurt by a few of the "declines". And I realized that a) feelings are valid, it's ok to feel hurt, and b) different people have different reactions to invitations, and sometimes even the same people have different reactions at different times.
So validate your own feelings (maybe with some of the therapy above), and then Also realize that in most, if not all of these cases, those missing invitations weren't about you, they were about hard choices the couple was making. Lastly, as mentioned above, reaching out a little more often may help you feel closer to some of the friends you'd Like to be closer to.
posted by ldthomps at 11:15 AM on April 26, 2018
So validate your own feelings (maybe with some of the therapy above), and then Also realize that in most, if not all of these cases, those missing invitations weren't about you, they were about hard choices the couple was making. Lastly, as mentioned above, reaching out a little more often may help you feel closer to some of the friends you'd Like to be closer to.
posted by ldthomps at 11:15 AM on April 26, 2018
Weddings are terribly expensive. In any culture where the standard gift is not cash (in a significant amount, proportional to the number of people in the invited party) then every invited guest is a significant cost; and every invited person represents some sort of tradeoff; and the larger the party the more complex the whole operation becomes.
None of the three situations you describe are ones where a reasonable person would have expected to be invited, honestly. It would have been VERY weird for your supervisor to invite you, for workplace reasons. You hardly know your cousin. And your friends aren't local.
I know it would have been nice for your friends to invite you anyway, but try to see things from their point of view. I'd bet anything no offense was intended: they just have a long list of limits you know nothing about. It genuinely is not about you.
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:23 AM on April 26, 2018
None of the three situations you describe are ones where a reasonable person would have expected to be invited, honestly. It would have been VERY weird for your supervisor to invite you, for workplace reasons. You hardly know your cousin. And your friends aren't local.
I know it would have been nice for your friends to invite you anyway, but try to see things from their point of view. I'd bet anything no offense was intended: they just have a long list of limits you know nothing about. It genuinely is not about you.
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:23 AM on April 26, 2018
I'm not going join in with the idea that dealing with wedding invitations is a burden - to some degree, that's a sentiment borne of an embarrassment of riches.
Everyone else here has covered why expecting invites from your boss and distant cousin are an issue. To address the thing with your friends, though, while you're not owed an invitation for being in their lives, I can understand what it's like to notice that nearly everyone from your wider group except for you was at some event. Even though weddings involve a lot of relationship prioritization, this might be a good time for you to consider if you really understand what it means to be a close friend to someone.
Judging from what you said in this and previous questions, I feel comfortable suspecting that a part of the issue is that you do far less ongoing relationship maintenance than most of your friends do with each other (and as a woman, this is more socially damaging).
But really, showing up to other people‘s pre- planned events or suggesting a coffee when you’re in town and being pleasant is just the baseline
IME, if you've been operating at this baseline for years with these friends, they may not feel very close to you. In fact, if you do this for long enough you'll be completely replaced by new friends who can be more involved and present. They'll invite you to low-key things, but do they do those bigger-ticket emotional labour things like confiding in you or asking you to go on vacations with them?
Similarly, if you don't have things going on in your life that you've included them in, then they may have trouble feeling close to you. I sympathize with this a lot - as a single uncelebratory introvert my life also has few "hooks" for other people - but it's important to accept that being merely inoffensive and sometimes available isn't enough for most adults to consider you a friend.
posted by blerghamot at 1:28 PM on April 26, 2018 [6 favorites]
Everyone else here has covered why expecting invites from your boss and distant cousin are an issue. To address the thing with your friends, though, while you're not owed an invitation for being in their lives, I can understand what it's like to notice that nearly everyone from your wider group except for you was at some event. Even though weddings involve a lot of relationship prioritization, this might be a good time for you to consider if you really understand what it means to be a close friend to someone.
Judging from what you said in this and previous questions, I feel comfortable suspecting that a part of the issue is that you do far less ongoing relationship maintenance than most of your friends do with each other (and as a woman, this is more socially damaging).
But really, showing up to other people‘s pre- planned events or suggesting a coffee when you’re in town and being pleasant is just the baseline
IME, if you've been operating at this baseline for years with these friends, they may not feel very close to you. In fact, if you do this for long enough you'll be completely replaced by new friends who can be more involved and present. They'll invite you to low-key things, but do they do those bigger-ticket emotional labour things like confiding in you or asking you to go on vacations with them?
Similarly, if you don't have things going on in your life that you've included them in, then they may have trouble feeling close to you. I sympathize with this a lot - as a single uncelebratory introvert my life also has few "hooks" for other people - but it's important to accept that being merely inoffensive and sometimes available isn't enough for most adults to consider you a friend.
posted by blerghamot at 1:28 PM on April 26, 2018 [6 favorites]
As a data point, as a friend I've only been invited to three weddings ever, despite having a large friend network. And I'm somewhat older than 35. As to quality of those friendships, one of the couples stopped speaking to me (along with all our mutual friends who weren't married or in their church) after the wedding -- so, being invited is certainly not a sign that you have a good solid friendship!
I don't feel jaded about not being invited, but I don't really have any tips... it's just not a feeling I have about it. I think if you have feelings about them you should feel them, not try to avoid them.
Feel free to tell yourself that you've been invited to more weddings that yohko if you start to feel down about it though.
posted by yohko at 10:03 AM on April 28, 2018
I don't feel jaded about not being invited, but I don't really have any tips... it's just not a feeling I have about it. I think if you have feelings about them you should feel them, not try to avoid them.
Feel free to tell yourself that you've been invited to more weddings that yohko if you start to feel down about it though.
posted by yohko at 10:03 AM on April 28, 2018
I cast a very wide net and invited everyone I knew or was acquainted with to my wedding and I used expensive custom invitations. I wanted a big party and for everyone to come!
Hardly anyone showed up, even friends I thought I was close to. The ones I bothered to extract reasons out of were typically lame...they were sick, they forgot, they had planned something else that day. There were another six people who didn't show up to the very expensive rehearsal dinner (which was a short list of invitations). People who I had roomed with multiple years in college, close childhood friends, etc. They couldn't even be bothered to get a free dinner. One friend came to the dinner but not the reception (got the free dinner, didn't get me a wedding gift).
A lot of people don't like weddings. They can be boring and long and inconvenient. If you're introverted they probably thought they were doing you a favor not inviting you—if they thought about you at all (introverts often get overlooked in social situations).
A lot of people don't like spending money on a gift (which they will feel obligated to do). My cousin said the rule is "don't invite anyone to a wedding unless you're sure they'll want to spend $25 on a gift for you." Not even as a way of shoring up gifts but just to assess who actually wants to be invited.
Anyway, people are stupid about weddings. Really stupid. There is no good cultural foundation anymore for how weddings should be conducted.
If you really want to get invited to a wedding, just go up to the person you know getting married and say, "Hey, not to be awkward, but I actually bought you a wedding gift already. Totally not offended if you're trying to keep your wedding small or whatever, just wondering if an invitation was in the mail or if I should return it." Someone who would appreciate you at the wedding will fall over themselves to invite you. Any hesitation on their part and just make it easy and say, "Hey, no worries, I just love weddings and got a little eager! I have another friend I can gift this to you! Wish you the best!"
posted by ticktickatick at 1:29 PM on April 28, 2018
Hardly anyone showed up, even friends I thought I was close to. The ones I bothered to extract reasons out of were typically lame...they were sick, they forgot, they had planned something else that day. There were another six people who didn't show up to the very expensive rehearsal dinner (which was a short list of invitations). People who I had roomed with multiple years in college, close childhood friends, etc. They couldn't even be bothered to get a free dinner. One friend came to the dinner but not the reception (got the free dinner, didn't get me a wedding gift).
A lot of people don't like weddings. They can be boring and long and inconvenient. If you're introverted they probably thought they were doing you a favor not inviting you—if they thought about you at all (introverts often get overlooked in social situations).
A lot of people don't like spending money on a gift (which they will feel obligated to do). My cousin said the rule is "don't invite anyone to a wedding unless you're sure they'll want to spend $25 on a gift for you." Not even as a way of shoring up gifts but just to assess who actually wants to be invited.
Anyway, people are stupid about weddings. Really stupid. There is no good cultural foundation anymore for how weddings should be conducted.
If you really want to get invited to a wedding, just go up to the person you know getting married and say, "Hey, not to be awkward, but I actually bought you a wedding gift already. Totally not offended if you're trying to keep your wedding small or whatever, just wondering if an invitation was in the mail or if I should return it." Someone who would appreciate you at the wedding will fall over themselves to invite you. Any hesitation on their part and just make it easy and say, "Hey, no worries, I just love weddings and got a little eager! I have another friend I can gift this to you! Wish you the best!"
posted by ticktickatick at 1:29 PM on April 28, 2018
If you really want to get invited to a wedding, just go up to the person you know getting married and say, "Hey, not to be awkward, but I actually bought you a wedding gift already. Totally not offended if you're trying to keep your wedding small or whatever, just wondering if an invitation was in the mail or if I should return it.
Good grief, don‘t do this. It‘s not only an extremely transparent ploy but also a deeply weird thing to say. Like... why would you already having bought me a wedding gift have any bearing on whether you get invited? And if you think it did, why would you buy one unless you already got an invitation? Unless this is a not-so-subtle guilt trip?
Seriously, don‘t say this unless you really want your friends to see you as the desperate wedding weirdo.
posted by Omnomnom at 3:18 PM on April 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
Good grief, don‘t do this. It‘s not only an extremely transparent ploy but also a deeply weird thing to say. Like... why would you already having bought me a wedding gift have any bearing on whether you get invited? And if you think it did, why would you buy one unless you already got an invitation? Unless this is a not-so-subtle guilt trip?
Seriously, don‘t say this unless you really want your friends to see you as the desperate wedding weirdo.
posted by Omnomnom at 3:18 PM on April 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
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I have thirty-plus cousins, almost all of whom are married, and I've been invited to, I think, three or four of their weddings? (And I attended even fewer than that.) Sometimes they'd invite just a couple cousins to whom they were especially close, sometimes just aunts and uncles, and sometimes no relatives at all, just close local friends. Not being invited to a wedding is absolutely not a reflection on you as a person, or on your relationship with the bride or groom. I think that you're reading way too much in to this.
posted by mishafletch at 1:30 AM on April 26, 2018 [17 favorites]