From My Mouth to Your Ear

Not so long ago my family planned to gather for my stepdaughter’s then and stepson’s birthday to parties.  The only shortcoming was that I was not invited.   They didn’t even bother to tell me.  I had to find out by hearing bits and pieces of conversations they had about all the fun they had.

 Ah, just like me to take that omission too personally, as a girlfriend of mine pointed out. Actually, I felt singled out, however—singled out, left out, and knifed in the back.

 My sons and daughter found this a remarkably passionate reaction to a missed party, each of them their mother and friends had been invited to my house on every occasion to party. 

 For a while I dripped my furiously hurt feelings onto my blog where I thought of as anonymous.    Seeing me in pain, they unanimously distanced themselves. They were powerless, they explained. Not in charge of the guest list. Commenter’s felt badly, but these things happen they advised. We can't all be invited everywhere, now can we? Take it like a grown-up.

 But being left out is not an inherently grown-up phenomenon. It is a grade-school agony that recurs throughout life. Being left out is an emotional drama that unfolds in three acts: discovery, distress, and, if you can get there, detachment. These psychological rhythms prevail whether you are reeling from the whispers of a group of girls at recess or excluded from a bridge game in your assisted-living home. Being left out is the dark side of friendship, and most of us have been both victims and perpetrators.

 In my most recent experience as a victim, I moved beyond my ineffective initial outcry to the common fallback—retreat. I withdrew to brood and waited to see which of my friends would care