If you're out with us don't ignore us

[JadeAngel]

BG: I've probably mentioned my friend A before, well actually after yesterday I might refer to her as more of a 'frenemy'. Recently A had some quite major surgery and she's had a pretty rough trot - she was incapacitated and in significant pain so she hasn't been able to get out and then a few weeks after the surgery she got DVT and had to go home to her parents to be looked after full time. So she's had a rough time, and I think a lot of people (including myself) have not made the time available to go and see her while she is laid up. /End BG

Sunday was supposed to be a nice day so BF and I decided that since we needed to head out that way anyway, that we would ring A and see if she was feeling up to a short excursion out to have a coffee or a drink and sit in the sun for a while. A accepted enthusiastically and we made a time to collect her since she can't drive her car right now.

We got to A's house and she wasn't quite ready to go - A is a chatty soul by nature (one of the reasons why being so isolated was hard for her) and between her going off on tangents and having trouble getting dressed due to her stitches, it was nearly an hour before we made it out of her house (not a big deal, BF and I weren't on a schedule)

We got to the wine bar and found a table tucked away in the corner of the courtyard... a nice sunny spot. A was moving quite slowly, she was still in pain and not able to walk long distances, so we went to the bar and got her a drink and all settled in for a chat. Sometime later two guys walked into the courtyard looking for a seat and A quite literally broke off in midsentence to call out 'Hi! Hi! You can sit over here!' The two men (complete strangers) demurred because the table next to us was for five or six and they were only two, and there was a small table available on the other side of the courtyard, without missing a beat A said 'Oh, then you can join us!' BF and I weren't that keen to share our table with strangers, but since the invitation had been issued, we could hardly speak up and tell them to go away.

Once the men had sat down A was getting them to tell us their life story. They were both in the Army but looking to get into property development, they lived in the outer suburbs, they were flatmates and so on. They were dissecting the US property market in detail and A hadn't said a word to us in fifteen minutes when BF escaped to get another drink. When he didn't come back for some time I managed to find a break in the conversation and extract myself and as I had already guessed, BF was inside and he was livid, which was understandable, since we had taken the time out of our day to take her out, it was fairly galling to be casually disregarded when something better came along. Not to mention that one of the men kept making fairly blatant remarks about being attracted to BF, which was making him extremely uncomfortable.

I sent BF to get us a table at the restaurant we had agreed to go to for dinner and I went back to get A, telling her only that we were hungry and wanted to go to dinner and she agreed to leave (and thankfully didn't invite her new friends) Outside I had a private word with her about how upset we were that she would exclude us from the conversation, and that while we didn't feel that we were owed thanks or praise for taking her out because that's what friends do, treating us like we were merely a convenience was hurtful to us.

A's response was to storm off saying that she 'didn't have to put up with this' and wouldn't have dinner with us 'if this was how it was going to be'. I was concerned because she had said previously that she was feeling unwell and faint and now she wanted to take a taxi home, but she wouldn't accept a lift so I had to let her go. BF arrived in the middle of all this and A immediately accused him of 'sending me to do his dirty work' and that she had been making eye contact with BF the whole time even if she hadn't been talking to him. I maybe shouldn't have put myself in the middle, but I was hurt by her behavior too. A accepted no responsibility for the arrival of the two men saying that she never wanted to talk to them in the first place and they asked to sit with us (both untrue) and that she was waiting for one of us to pipe up and say we should go to the next bar so she could get rid of them.

A then hobbled away, leaving me feeling fairly rotten for saying anything, although as BF pointed out if she had wanted to get rid of them so badly she had shown no sign of it, talking to them enthusiastically from the time they sat down until we got up to leave. I sent her a text asking her to let me know when she got home safe and didn't receive an answer back until 10.30pm saying only that she was home and she hoped we 'enjoyed dinner' since she hadn't had any yet...

I'm a peacemaker by nature, I don't like conflict, I go out of my way to make people feel happy. But in this case I really felt that my good nature had been abused. Was I wrong to speak up? Should I have simply accepted that A's friendly and outgoing nature was part and parcel of being friends with her and made allowances for the fact that she had been sitting at home for weeks going stir-crazy, or should A have taken some responsibility for her own actions?

[LeveeWoman]

Short answer: Give her a break.

[Lindee]

A long break ?

[GSNW]

Jade Angel, I would have been annoyed and upset had I been in your position, too.  I frankly can't see any reason her current situation would excuse/explain her actions, and I think that she was incredibly rude.  Should something like this happen in the future (which I hope it does not!) the only retrospect-type advice I would offer is to wait to deal with the issue.  Since you were already leaving to go to dinner, you could have had a nice dinner out and then called her a day or two later to discuss. 

"Hey, you know those guys you invited to sit with us at Wine Bar X?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, BF and I felt a little left out of the conversation after they sat down, we really wanted some time to catch up with you.  Next time, do you think we could avoid that sort of thing?"

You *could* wait a few days and call her to have this sort of conversation.  It might mean she is able to look at it with a clearer perspective.  Or not, and it's the sad truth, some people do these sorts of things because it suits them at the time and then get angry when others have the nerve to speak up.

[peaches]

Outside I had a private word with her about how upset we were that she would exclude us from the conversation, and that while we didn't feel that we were owed thanks or praise for taking her out because that's what friends do, treating us like we were merely a convenience was hurtful to us.

I'm not sure what you hoped to achieve by this. It was pretty much guaranteed to ruin the rest of the evening for everyone. Which is what happened.

Sometimes it's better to ignore mildly annoying behavior, or to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

[Adelaide]

This is extremely rude and bizarre. Of course, if this isn't a habit, she may have been acting this way because of the drugs from surgery.  I only say that because when I had foot surgery, I was on a cocktail of drugs that made me act strangely, though I barely remember any of it. My parents said that I appeared to be completely lucid and could hold long conversations, but I was immensely paranoid and literally tried to escape every time someone told me to do something. When I was waiting for the nurse so she could help me put my clothes back on, I yanked them on myself and started hopping out of the recovery room on one foot. When I was in the car with my mother so we could fill my prescription, I insisted that I should go with her but she told me to stay put. When she left I crawled into the front seat of the car and unlocked the door, but she caught me as she was walking out of the drug store. At home, when I was told to stay on the couch and to get help if I needed to use the bathroom, my parents would catch me jumping down the hallway on one leg, crashing into the walls. When they asked me to explain myself I (apparently) always gave them perfectly matter-of-fact explanations for my bizarre behavior as though it was the most rational thing in the world.

I don't think you were wrong in calling her out on it. This isn't the sort of "normal" behavior you should put up with as a reasonable person, and isn't the sort of normal behavior she should be engaging in as a reasonable person.

[Deetee]

I think Adelaide has an excellent point. Drugs make people act very strange and could easily explain both her behaviour in the restaurant and afterwards.

Only you know if this is completely out of character for her because you know her.

[Ceallach]

If she were a good friend then I'd say cut her some slack and assume it was somehow related to her condition.

However, given you describe her as a 'frenemy' and don't seem to have the highest opinion of her, I'd chalk this up as another tick in the Thumbs Down column, and another reason to not pursue a relationship with her any further.   Given she was more interested in making new friends than spending time with you, then I suspect the feeling may be mutual and she won't be too concerned at losing your acquaintance. 

[BC12]

Honestly, I think everyone overreacted. You and your boyfriend overreacted to her inviting people to sit with you, and she overreacted when you tried to correct her behavior.

She maybe shouldn't have invited people to sit at your table, but I'm not sure I would consider it all that rude. Thoughtless, maybe. But you guys were at a bar and lots of people go to bars to socialize and mingle. In my experience, it's not that uncommon to join up with or chat with other groups. I don't think you should have taken it personally. Slight annoyance might have been a more reasonable reaction. If she had done this at dinner, though, I'd agree that it was rude.

If you and your boyfriend were feeling uncomfortable, all you had to say was, "Let's go have dinner now." Then forget about the incident for the time being and try to have a nice night.

I think you may owe her an apology. Your chatty friend who has been cooped up in her house was excited to be out and was perhaps not as considerate as she could have been. That was no reason for your boyfriend to abandon the table, and no reason for you to have a talk with her about it in the middle of your night out.

And hopefully she'll apologize as well for reacting to it so immaturely.

[lkdrymom]

A owes you an appology not the other way around. I've been in this situation, you go someplace with a friend then they see someone else they know and forgot that they even came with you. It hurts.  And you even got dropped for a stranger.

I won 4 tickets to an amusement park and my friend 'helped herself' to two of the tickets (which meant I had to pay for my kids to go now). This was back before I had a spine. We all went to the park and about half an hour in she ran into another family she knew and just dropped us. And she thought nothing of it.

[LifeOnPluto]

I think perhaps you both had differing expectations of the outing.

It seems you and your BF saw this as a quiet catch-up. Your friend saw it more as a "hey, I'm feeling better now! Let's go have fun and maybe there'll be some guys at the bar for me to hook up with!" type situation.

On balance however, it's not good form to totally ignore your friends for 15 minutes. So I think she was more in the wrong than you.

[Lady Snowdon]

I'm concerned about the fact that she tried to gaslight you when you called her on her actions (trying to tell you she didn't invite the guys to sit with you, or that she wasn't interested in talking to them).  To me, that she would do that says uncomplimentary things about her.  She wanted to rewrite the whole experience to put you and your BF in the wrong from the get-go. 

However, your BF's reaction to having people sit with you was very immature.  Just walking away for so long that you got worried and went looking for him?  How much effort does it take to say, "I'm going to look for a bathroom" or "I think I have a phone call coming in, I'll be back in a bit"?  I understand where he's coming from, because it does hurt to be dropped by a friend when you're out with them.  It doesn't excuse the way he acted though. 

[Honeypickle]

Maybe A was hoping to meet some new people or even liked the look of one of the men as a potential new boyfriend? If she'd been stuck at home for weeks, I expect she was dying to socialise and meet people, and although she was thrilled to spend time with you and your BF, you are a couple and she is a single. Since the evening was a one off for her, she was probably looking to maximise her socialising.

If you can go out whenever you want, sitting in the corner having a quiet chat with a couple is probably a lovely way to spend the evening. She was hoping for a bit more from her evening out.

I think you should make some allowances for her and what sounds quite a lonely period in her life.

[Miss March]

Not to mention that one of the men kept making fairly blatant remarks about being attracted to BF, which was making him extremely uncomfortable.

Awkward! So one of the men was openly hitting on your boyfriend, right in front of you? And A didn't grasp that it made your boyfriend uncomfortable? "BF" means boyfriend here, right? Or does it mean "best friend?"

[Fleur]

I am very surprised that anyone is making excuses for A. IMO, she was very rude indeed and I would be reconsidering the status of the friendship.  I find her behaviour very very odd and don't think that you overreacted at all.