Why is it always me making the invites?

A familiar theme. I had a very good friend, we practically lived in each others pockets. I stopped ringing and never heard from her again.
Another one after 30 years ghosted me.

I have developed a very different attitude to friendships now.

It was like that with myself and a close circle of friends, I was the one always organising get togethers, finding a restaurant that suited us all then booking a table etc., I was also the one collecting money pooled for a bouquet of flowers when one of us was going through a hard time.
Fast forward to my DH having a stroke and bleeds on the brain so am out of the loop. No bouquet of flowers, not even a card, very little in the way of calls or texts.
Yet others, whom I didn’t think I was as close to, have come forward and been really helpful.
Fact is if you are the one doing all the running it just shows that they don’t value your friendship enough to return the favour.

People just fall into these roles sometimes.

I met up with two old friends today and one of them always does the organising, but I'm happy for her to do that.

I'm just happy to let people do it I suppose...

I am guilty of always being on the point of ringing someone, but always putting it off. then they ring/email me.

Then doing COVID, I was very slow about ringing a friend I had been due to lunch with the day the lock down started. I kept putting it off and she did not ring me. This went on for a year, to be fair, DD was critcally ill then DH hada heart attack,

Then I got a phone call that she had died suddenly, although she had been unwell for some time. I was devastated. Now, I do not worry whether people contact me or not. I make contact with them, Yes, of course i am not perfect and some do delay, but I get round to it far faster than I did.

It’s horrible to be ghosted StripeyGran isn’t it? It happened to me once, 15 years ago. It hurt like hell and I ruminated on it for weeks until another friend hit the nail on the head for me … “you have to face up to the fact that the friendship meant more to you than it did to her”.

Lanced the boil and I never gave it a thought afterwards.

I have one friend like that. She makes little digs that I haven't visited for ages, but I can't remember when she ever darkened my door! I love her, but wish she would make more of an effort.

I hate having people come to my house. It's embarrassing because my newish neighbour has had me in 3 times and I enjoy going and have twice been to her friends house.
I did make the effort in the Spring and had them both here but it stressed me so much getting ready as I am untidy and disorganised and they both have homes with no papers, plants or personal stuff.
I'm going to have to do it again soon. They both enjoyed it last time and I thought they'd never go.

As for arranging outings I either think people will be busy and not want to go or on the other hand I might not feel well on the day and will have to cancel.
Again I will enjoy it once I do go.

I have a (now ex) friend who rarely made contact but was furious that she hadn't been made aware of an upcoming get-together of university friends.
When I got in touch to say I was sorry she'd been upset and suggested meeting for lunch, I heard nothing back. Nada. I'm obviously not her favourite person. But aren't people odd sometimes?
As a general rule, I do try to keep in touch with people and like to think I have friends and contacts from all my life stages.

I’ve stood back a little just lately as i always seem to be the one arranging meet ups and ask do they want to see me but actually realised that some people are organisers and others wait to be asked. I guess I am an organiser 😂

I m the arranger in a lot of cases. I have a very dear friend who I like a lot but she never suggests anything or even a phone call I do carry on because we get on so well when we do meet but she rarely ( if ever) rings or messaged me to say when shall we have a coffee/ chat /walk She’s also very bad at answering texts and I once left it to see and I caved in after a month and rang her and said are you ok as you haven’t answered any texts and she was ‘oh gosh havent I ?’
Its so annoying but we get on so well and she always seems happy when I do suggest things

And I thought it was only me who felt like this. We recently met up with friends who we haven’t seen for over a year. When we met the last time they said we shouldn’t leave it so long before meeting again. This time they said the same but I can just see that if I don’t arrange anything it won’t happen.

WhatsApp works for my groups of friends who don't meet up frequently. Someone posts, time to meet up. Everyone gets the same message, snd info. We don't innundate.

Yes it is infuriating. This has happened to us many times over the years. We always seem to be the hosts with people saying come to us next time and next time never happens, we can hardly invite ourselves to their homes. We backed off on the invitations and never heard from some of these people again. Clearly our friendship did not mean that much to them. We got fed up with being givers to those who were only takers and moved on. No idea why people behave like this.

You lot DO visit friends because you want to see them, not just to nose around their houses and criticise, don't you?

OK, maybe you don't.... :-)

My friends say one of the things they value about me is that I make an effort to keep in touch with DH puts it another way’why do those people keep coming to our house to eat?’

Yes same here, I’ve decided I’m not going to bother anymore
🙄

kircubbin2000

I hate having people come to my house. It's embarrassing because my newish neighbour has had me in 3 times and I enjoy going and have twice been to her friends house.
I did make the effort in the Spring and had them both here but it stressed me so much getting ready as I am untidy and disorganised and they both have homes with no papers, plants or personal stuff.
I'm going to have to do it again soon. They both enjoyed it last time and I thought they'd never go.

As for arranging outings I either think people will be busy and not want to go or on the other hand I might not feel well on the day and will have to cancel.
Again I will enjoy it once I do go.

I am exactly the same kircubbin. I get terribly stressed at the thought of having people here. I have a very cluttered house, am a hopeless cook, and am always worried that they will stay too long

I have found that when I strike up a new friendship that it really works well to schedule the next meet up at that one. Mind you, this is for people that I know for sure I want to keep in my life. However, I have also been the one to not make the effort to contact in the past because I wasn't sure how much longer or deeper into the friendship I wanted to go. Currently I have a couple of very good friends that I see regularly now and we have known each other for 40 years. I am really seeing the difference in ages (they are 10 years older than I and I am 70) and am not sure how frequently I want to see them so I am backing off from organizing and will see what they do. The eldest one is still such good company but the younger one seems to be "calcifying" and all of her good characteristics are disappearing in the process, it's tough to see but I know I would never abandon the friendship.

I had a friend in another country she was going through a hard time with her husband after discovering he had been unfaithful to her many years ago. I was really supportive to her replying to her almost daily emails. These messages became more and more rambling and it seemed to me she was drinking an awful lot. She then had an affair herself, was always making plans to somehow get hold of her dh's money and leave and often travelling to other countries to yoga retreats etc. Then after telling her my late DH passed away she sent me some sort of drunken message a few days later saying she hoped I was enjoying myself etc etc. This obviously ended the friendship although after a while she apologised profusely. Now some 3/4 yrs later I have another email from her asking to resume contact. Do not know what to do, I don't bear any ill will towards her but it was a draining relationship and might be again.

I was introduced to a woman I had a great deal in common with including a mutual love of board games. She came round to mine to play three times and we hit it off marvelously. I supplied food and drinks and our daughters, who are the same age, joined in as well. It was great. Once or twice she said 'you must come to ours next time'.

Some months later I met her in the street and she goes 'when are you going to invite us round to yours again? - we had such a nice time'.

I was a bit lost for words to be honest. Maybe she's embarrassed about her home or something, but I thought she'd got to know me well enough to know that wouldn't matter to me - and my house is no picture postcard.

Not quite sure what to do - invite her round again and make it clear it's her turn next?

Keepingquiet

But would you step up if she couldn't?
Have you?
.

I am another who finds having friends visit my house really stressful. I turn myself inside out cleaning absolutely everything (even though the house is reasonably clean normally) and am then exhausted. I worry about the food, the drink, whether I should arrange entertainment, how long they will stay. If they are visiting overnight its even worse. Will I wake them tramping to the loo in the night? Will they wake me? And these are people I really like, who have been friends for years. I would so much like to chill out and enjoy their visits, but inevitably I dont issue many invites and then wish we saw more of each other.

Glad it’s not just me!
I’m no longer that keen on having people over to our house, they always seem to outstay their welcome and I get very fed up with small talk after a while. We have friends who came for dinner and I spent hours making sure everything was as perfect as possible, I was cooking for hours. The meal went well and they said they’d invite us back to their place “soon” for a meal - must be 10 years ago now 😑 This has happened with other friends too.
Makes me reluctant to make any plans to entertain, it’s a lot of work, expensive and doesn’t ever seem to be reciprocated.

I decided some time ago, that if I was always the first to make contact, I could no longer be bothered to see the person in question. Curiously, the “friendship” fizzled out.