I am good friends with the girls in my circle from high school (graduated 5 years ago), some much closer than others as with all friendship circles. Two of the women in the group, lets call them A and B, I have somewhat distanced myself from. For context, previously we were never close (not for any particular reason) but I’ve made efforts over the years to establish more of a friendship with them; reaching out to them regularly, inviting them out, inviting them to group events etc. There is no animosity between any of us, we just traditionally had not been close. I’ve since stopped bothering because I got 0 in return from them. No invitations to meet up, no ‘how are you’ messages, not even a generic ‘happy birthday’ message on facebook (even though literally other people in our group chat wished me a happy birthday in the chat, which they saw).
I have wanted to address it with them but given that I have stopped reaching out to them myself, I feel like they’d approach it from the perspective of ‘well you haven’t been very engaging lately yourself’. If I were to host a group event and not invite them, they’d probably be offended, just the same as if I did not invite them to my wedding.
There is an unspoken expectation that as part of ‘the group’ I’d be inviting them to anything the others are invited to. I do have them on the list to invite but I honestly don’t know if I want to spend big bucks inviting A and B to my wedding. It will be a big wedding and I am inviting old friends (who I have not seen in many, many years) as a courtesy but I just don’t know if I invite A and B. I’m tired of putting effort into virtually non-existent friendships where I am the one person driving it.
Would love to hear what others in a similar position have done?
