Man Says He's Cutting Friends Out Of His Life After He Wasn't Invited To Their Baby Shower
Over time, friendships change and you may drift apart. However, that doesn't mean you should stop making the effort when you can.
YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV / Africa Studio / Shutterstock A man has been left heartbroken and feeling abandoned by the people he considered to be some of his closest friends. After moving to a new city hours away from his hometown, the man and his wife welcomed their first child.
For weeks, he encouraged his friends to come and visit him to meet his new baby. They repeatedly blew off his efforts and months later, the man was shocked to discover that they had all gotten together without him.
One of the man’s friends had thrown a baby shower and failed to invite him.
The man took to the subreddit, r/AmITheA–hole, to vent about his “friends’” actions. The 26-year-old reveals that he moved to a new city three hours from his hometown about a year ago for a new job opportunity. He left behind a close friend group he had known for over three years. However, his friend Rob, who was also part of the group, moved to the same area the man currently lives in.
Besides the move, the man has undergone a lot of changes in his life recently.
“Recently I just had a child that I care about very much,” he wrote. “After my family met my baby, I of course really wanted my friends to meet the baby.”
However, to this day, the man claims that his friends still have yet to meet his baby despite his numerous invites.
“I of course have tried to understand because they live three hours away,” he added.
Photo: paulaphoto / Shutterstock
A few weeks before the man’s baby arrived, he and his wife threw a baby shower and invited all of their friends and family. While the man’s wife’s friends and family came to celebrate with them, his friends could not attend.
“In fact, they had said something came up, and couldn’t come,” the man wrote. Even his friend Rob, who lived nearby, failed to show up.
“Before this baby shower. I found out Rob and his girlfriend were also expecting in December,” he shared. While the man says that he was “very excited” for Rob and his girlfriend, he was stunned to learn that they were throwing a baby shower and he was not invited.
“Not only was I not invited, but my friends are driving to his baby shower and weren’t planning on coming to meet my baby,” he wrote.
Perhaps the icing on the cake was when the man asked one of his friends if he could return a hoodie he borrowed from him while he was in town, and his friend told him that he would “give it to Rob at the baby shower” so that Rob could deliver it to him another time.
The man ultimately decided to cut off his friend group.
After the failure to receive an invite to Rob’s baby shower and his friends not even bothering to arrange a time to meet his baby while they were in town, the man’s painful decision was made.
“This is how I found out they weren’t going to make an effort to come see me or meet my baby,” the man wrote.
Still, he is second-guessing his decision to remove his friends from his life and asked other Redditors if he made the right call.
Other people validated the man’s feelings and decisions, noting that his friends clearly did not care about him like he cared about them.
“Sounds like you need to accept that you might have viewed them as friends but to them you were just an acquaintance or casual friend,” one user commented.
“I think your friends ended this relationship a while ago and were really hoping that with your move, it would just fade away and they never really tell you they were done,” another user suggested.
As adults, it is normal to outgrow friendships you once believed would be forever.
We develop new interests, take different career paths and our priorities may shift. That doesn’t mean that you cannot keep in contact with friends just to check in every once in a while.
However, when you get the sense that a friend no longer wants to make the effort, it might be time to cut ties.
“There can be many reasons that a friendship becomes unhealthy. But any friendship that consistently contributes to our feeling disregarded, devalued, or disrespected should be re-evaluated,” Gina Handley Schmitt, a psychotherapist and author of “Friending: Creating Meaningful, Lasting Adult Friendships,” told WebMD.
Still, this doesn’t make the decision to cut off friendships any easier, and it is normal to ponder about what you both could have done differently.
However it is important to note that not all friendships will last a lifetime, and that’s okay. With every friend you lose, you will likely gain a new one along the way, hopefully, one that makes the time and effort to foster a healthy friendship.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.