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Tue 24 Oct, 2017 03:39 pm
Hey, so my birthday is coming up soon, and I'm planning to invite some friends out for lunch, trouble is, my mum wants me to invite a girl who was for a time (over a year ago) my best friend. Since then we've grown apart. It's not that she's a bad person, but she takes jokes far too far thinking that she's funny, when everyone else has stopped laughing long ago. She also can make highly inappropriate jokes, for example, she talks about how she wants to 'rape' my other friend, (something which I really don't think is a joking matter) she acts very creepily around her and grabs her shoulder whispering things in her ear, one time she went as far as to say 'I just want it touch _______'s genitals!??! Is that too much to ask?' She thinks she's being funny when everyone around her is feeling uncomfortable, today she said something to me that I felt wasn't appropriate and I didn't think was funny. I calmly asked her not too and she told me that she knew I was joking and to stop it. After one of my friends had to inform her that I wasn't joking, she apologised. But I want to invite her 'rape victim' more than I want to invite her. She always acts perfectly fine around my mother, who I haven't told about how she behaves when she isn't around because obviously it's not the kind of thing you really want to talk to your mother about when someone is saying things like that. My mum likes her and wants me to invite her. But I know that if she comes I won't be able to actually enjoy it. However I don't have a choice. No matter how many times people ask her to stop, or how many times she sees people looking uncomfortable, she still continues with it . I genuinely don't want her to come, but my Mum is making me invite her. I don't feel like I can tell my mum because it would be really uncomfortable. I also know that I can't just not invite her, or say tell that my mum that she's sick and can't come or anything like that because although she acts like this, I don't want to completely ruin our friendship, and I don't want to be a nasty person either. But if she does come, I know I won't enjoy my birthday. I am so stuck as to what to do, I don't think there is anything I actually can do other than just invite her and just accept that this is how she'll be. And I know that she will because I'm inviting 'rape victim' and I'm sure she'll do what she does before school, at break, at lunch, and after school. And I know that I won't enjoy my own birthday if she's there, but it doesn't really seem like I have any other choice. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.
@Anon114,
It's your birthday. You get to invite who you want. Full stop.
Your mother can invite this gal any other time. Your birthday, your choice - and it's not like you're asking for something impossible, dangerous, or expensive.
"Mom, I want to invite Wendy, Carol, and Lisa, but not Susan. I think we'll all have a great time at my birthday. I'm looking forward to it!"
There ya go. There's your script (change the names, of course).
If you mother persists then just say, "I just feel we'll have a better time without her. I'll see her on another day and it'll just be the two of us." (and then follow through, of course, if you want to maintain a friendship with this gal even though she's got inappropriate behaviors going on)
That looks very much like sexual harrassement to me. It is more than inappropriate: it may be breaking the law.
Just tell your mother the truth, i.e. that the 'would-be rapist' constantly cracks obscene jokes.
You're going to need to take your pick of with whome you're going to be uncomfortable. Because either way, it's how you're going to feel.
You invite her, everyone at the party is going to feel uncomfortable.
You talk with your mom, it may be uncomfortable to say "She acts inappropriately with everyone, and no one is comfortable around her. I don't want to spoil everyone's, including mine, good time". However, she is after all, your mother.
Just because you've known someone forever doesn't mean your relationship doesn't change.