AITAH Birthday Drama
This situation is about myself (25F) and my best friend (29F). I have tried to condense everything down.
Recently, it was one of my best friend's birthdays. She is indecisive and hadn't set any plans in stone for what she wanted to do. She explained to me that there were going to be 6 people in total going out to celebrate. Perfect! I bought a dress to go out and bought her a birthday present. Cut to the week of her birthday, I sent her some club/dinner ideas because she wanted a place for "vibes." Totally fine! The club I initially sent her was completely booked for her birthday weekend (party of 6), so I found a different restaurant and she liked that idea.
We get to Thursday, the plan was to go out on Saturday. I asked her if she had decided anything, and she told me no. Then didn't answer her phone for the rest of the day.
Moving on to Friday, I am like, "uh do you have a specific place set" because I like to know a plan, as do most people! I messaged her about solid plans at around 10AM. She "wakes up" at 3PM saying, "Sorry I have been sleeping." I was like, "it's fine but what are we doing?!" She proceeded to not answer me until 6:30PM with a video saying, "so my other friends liked the idea of the restaurant, but AS A SURPRISE, they booked the club for only 4 people, they didn't know you and my other friend were coming." Excluding me and another girl. I did not know how to respond. I was the one who told her about the club. She said, "we can all go to dinner and then you guys can wait while I go to the club with my other friends, I MAY want to go out after!" Meanwhile, the place for dinner is an hour and a half away, and I am not sitting around for 2 hours while she is inside having a nice time at the club.
I responded to her asking, "Would you be opposed to me and other friend taking you out a separate time?" Because I feel blown off and like she doesn't want us there! That again was around 6:30PM. She does not open/read the message AT ALL until Saturday at 3:00PM (THE DAY OF HER PARTY). She said, "I am not opposed to that, but we are way overdue for a hangout." Like UH HELLO I AM TRYING. At this point I feel defeated. I have tried communicating and the response time and respect isn't there.
I see on social media stories that she has pillows and blankets, like she is going to stay the night elsewhere. She went to the restaurant I told her about. She went to the club I told her about. Meanwhile I'm sitting at home looking at the dress I bought and present I have for her like... if the communication was better, the hurt feelings could have been avoided. If she wanted to hang out with her other people, I would've liked to know that from the start.
Sunday morning, her actual birthday, I am sad and upset. I sent her a message at 10:50AM:
"To start, I love you and I hope you had a wonderful birthday. The rest of what I'm going to say is just me expressing how I feel. My feelings are very hurt and I wish there would've been better communication. If you didn't want \*other friend\* and I to come to your birthday, we would've respected your wishes 100 percent. Instead, you did not tell us anything and gave no communication for almost 2 days straight. I bought a dress to go out and a birthday gift for you. I wanted to make sure you felt loved and special because I know how much your birthday means to you. I'm not sure if I upset you or annoyed you, but I'm definitely sure that I didn't deserve no communication and being blown off. If you had set plans with your other friends, that's perfect, but needed to be explained from the very beginning. I don't want this to cause a rift in our friendship but I genuinely feel really sad and would like to know your side of things so there is no room for speculation as to what happend."
She didn't respond to me until 5:40PM saying:
"Hey thank you. So yesterday when you asked if I just wanted us to all celebrate a different time I genuinely thought you asked that because you didn’t want to come anymore so I didn’t press it. I felt like you weren’t interested in coming honestly that’s the vibes I was getting. I wasn’t trying to push you and other friend off to the side at all! I was so looking forward to spending time with you two just as much as the other girls!!! I apologize for anything I did or said to make it seem like I didn’t want to have you join me. That was not the case at all"
I have not responded because it feels like she is pushing me off. I'm sad, and don't want this to hurt our friendship, but I feel very disrespected. AITAH???