[DapperChapper]

Not sure whether this is in the right area. Feel free to move if not.

Put simply, bunch of other people I know (and I) were invited to join some friends of ours for a weekend trip to Europe. One of my best friends, who also knows the above people, wasn’t invited. Obviously there’s more to it than that, but that’s the bare bones. For more information, see below:

A few weeks ago, I was added to a group chat with several others, asking if we wanted to join some of our friends on a trip they were planning to Europe. I had no idea this trip was planned, so it was a complete surprise to me 1) that it was happening and 2) that I’d been invited. I considered myself to be on good terms with the people who set this up, but not necessarily close enough to be invited on this trip. For reference, everyone in this group has been involved (to varying degrees with the same sports club at university – it’s how we all met and, to an extent, bonded). Not everyone still trains and some of us have since moved away since then, but, within this group of people, some are still in touch/come back to visit etc. I’ve known all these people between 1 and 6 years and see some of them as close friends, some as friends and some as just “acquaintances”. In total, 13 of us will be going on this trip (a couple of others were invited (i.e. added to the chat), but couldn’t make it for various reasons).

So far, things seem alright. The issue comes from the fact that one of my good friends, who is also involved with the club and knows all of the others, hasn’t been invited. Obviously not everyone could be invited on this trip, but, out of people who were in the club at the same time and who hung out with the group etc., they’re the only person who wasn’t invited. I suppose I’m just not sure 1) how I should feel about this and 2) whether I should have done something.

It wasn’t my decision to not invite them and, as I say, I was surprised to be invited at all myself. I think if we both hadn’t been invited that would have been fine, but I imagine I’d have likely felt quite excluded if I’d found out all of these people had been on holiday together and hadn’t invited me. I’m not sure what I could/should have done though. Initially, I assumed maybe they’d been asked personally/privately whether they wanted to come and said no up-front, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I suppose I could have asked the person who started the conversation whether this person could come as well, but, for some strange reason, I was worried this might get me uninvited (I know this doesn’t make sense, but it’s what I thought at the time). The uninvited person gets on reasonably well with most people, although he did used to go out with one of the people who organised this, so it’s possible they didn’t invite him, because they didn’t feel comfortable having him around. From this point of view, there wasn’t much I could do, but I still feel bad.

This has probably also been exacerbated by the fact that I didn’t tell this friend about the trip. Honestly, there wasn’t really a way to bring this up in regular conversation and I didn’t know how they’d react. I worry now that this was a mistake, but I didn’t know what else to do. It’s too late for him to come now, even if he wanted to and, even though it wasn’t my decision to invite (or not invite) them, I’m worried they’ll hold it against me for not asking on their behalf, or telling them about it. They were going to find out about it sooner or later (after we got back, if nothing else), so it was probably wrong of me to not say anything, but what should I do now?

I feel like I’ve simultaneously over-explained this and not explained it enough, but I’m going to leave it there. Should I feel bad that my friend wasn’t invited to something that I was and should I have done something about it?

[downandlonely]

Hi Dapper,

I've been in similar situations (both being excluded and seeing others being excluded). My advice would be to at least tell your friend about the trip before you go. Otherwise, he will find out about it when he sees all the pictures on social media (that has happened to me before). It will be worse for him to find out that way. If I were you, I would try to explain your thought process as best you can.