Of birthday parties.
You know the situation.X has invited you + someone you're uncomfortable with, due to a past feud or enemy or whatever. What should you do?
Should you decline politely, even though you wish you could be there?
Or should you accept, and not turn up on that day?
Or accept and turn up and face the awkwardness, knowing that you two were once in the same clique of friends?
This is assuming you were, once upon a time, close to X of course. Or why else would he/she invite you??
For me, I had that test quite recently.
X's birthday party and knowing A and B will be there. I thought about it long and hard, weighed the pros and cons, even asked some of my friends for advice. I'm not friends with A and B anymore, so you can kinda guess the extent of awkwardness it would become. (eg, not friends on facebook either!)
I decided to go with another friend, C.
Why?
Because when you attend someone's birthday party, it is about that person, about the friend X. You put everything in the past or present aside and attend. That's what friendship is about. So what if it'll be awkward? Find your own space and be comfortable there. Mingle around and make new friends or something.
I went, had to greet the clique of friends (of course) and found another seat with C. We had two drinks, talked about stuff, while X was trying to get us to sit together with the clique. But I told her, "X, I'm here for you. Seriously." Then we continued sitting at our table.
I'm not going to be fake and pretend everything is alright and sit at the table. Nor can I just let bygones be bygones because they will not exactly welcome me with open arms either. It's a two-way thing. I tried to patch things up with one of them before, many times, but I gave up. It just cannot be patched.
A came to talk to C (everyone knows each other) and she said something that 'included' me. "Yall want to come over and do shots with us?"
Yall.
So I instantly relaxed, and went over to chat with the other clique members, and wished A a happy belated birthday. I also asked B at some point what she said to the DJ.
They left a little past midnight, the tension was fully gone. Met a few other random friends, and had an awesome night.
That's all!
