Headaches over social situations

Later this week there is a social thing that I should probably be going to. But I'm probably not going. I'm probably going to something else. I'm a bit upset that I'm going to do one thing instead of the other, even though I was somewhat uneasy about doing the other, and now I have an excuse not to be there.

My sci-fi group sometimes invites other groups to join us at our Halloween party and our picnics, etc.... And sometimes other groups invite our group to join them at some party or other event. And some of us are in more than one group. And sometimes someone in one group will go hang out with another group for a while and go to one of their parties as an individual even if they did not make a big deal of inviting the whole other group.

A few years ago one of my friends in our group tried to get another group started. Her reasons were a.) she wanted a group to meet closer to where she lives, and b.) she wanted a second group so that she could meet more people. The second group is definitely closer to where she lives. As for meeting new people, she did meet some, but the group never got very big and as far as I can see most of the new people quit, and now the second group is usually just a smaller group of people from the first group.

Then there were some problems and the price of gasoline went up. My friend didn't actually quit the first group, but she did seem to miss a lot. Someone else from the second group said he was considering quitting the first group. I pretty much stopped going to things with the second group. I like seeing my friends, but it is a bit of a drive and it costs gas money and then it costs money to go to dinner. I don't think that I ever just said, I quit, don't expect to see me anymore. But I missed a few things and the world did not come to an end, and then I stopped marking the second group stuff on the calendar, and the world still did not come to an end. After I had missed a few things, one of them called to tell me that there had been a change of plans, and instead of the usual they were trying to get together at someone's house and have a few more people over, because it was someone's birthday. So I went to that, and I don't think that I've done anything with the second group since then, which was a little more than a year ago.

So again someone calls me and says that the second group will not be doing the usual, that they want to meet at someone's house and watch DVDs, but this time it probably won't be a big group and it isn't for anybody's birthday or anything like that. They just want to hang out and this person's house. Could I come over if they did that?

Well, of course I could come over, but have you noticed the date? Aren't you guys going to a certain party that evening?

Now, about a year and a half ago, the first group was invited to a party by a third group. Several people from the first group went, including me and most of the people who are in both the first group and the second group. We all had fun. We met some people from the third group that we didn't know before, and they had also invited people from a fourth and fifth group, so I ended up meeting a few more people and seeing some people that I used to know but hadn't seen in a long time. This was in February. It was meant to be annual event.

In October the first group had the usual Halloween party and invited people from the third group and several other groups. I spent about half the evening with people I already knew, and then later I was hanging out with someone from the third group and some other people that I had just met. Now, I think that I must have met this person from the third group back in February, but I met so many people that evening that I didn't really remember him that well, and he didn't seem to remember me at all. Two weeks later I had a school thing to go to, and while I invited the first group in general, I specifically invited my friend who started the second group, since the event was near where she lives. And while we were talking I found out the guy from the third group also lived in that general area, so I invited him too.

After I told him that I was married, and after he told me that we could just be friends, I thought this was okay. And after talking to him a few times, I found out that regardless of my marital status, I would never want to be anything but friends anyway. I think that I can make friends with a lot of different people, but if I were to start dating again I could only date people who meet certain requirements, and this guy really didn't meet any of them. We can just be friends.

Apparently his idea of just being friends and my idea of just being friends are very different.

So I did not see him again or talk to him again. He has emailed me a couple of times, but these seemed to be group emails and I did not reply to either of them. I felt bad about not talking to him anymore, but he just wasn't going to get the message if I kept talking to him. Later I found out that it didn't have anything to do with anything I had said to the guy, he just behaves this way around everyone. I've been told by two other women that you have to hit him over the head with a brick. And I didn't ask about him or tell the other women that I thought I was having a problem with him. This is just what came up in a conversation that started on a totally different subject.

So February came around again, and I was trying to decide if I wanted to go to the third group's party, and if I did go should I carry a brick with me? While I was thinking about all this I realized that I hadn't actually gotten an invitation to the thing. I asked around, thinking maybe I had already missed it. But they had some problem and decided to postpone the party.

So the party ended up being scheduled for September. And I assumed that the same people from the first group would go if they went last year, including about half of the people from the second group. So I just had to decide if I wanted to go, and what I would wear if I wanted to go, etc.... I wouldn't be able to do anything too elaborate, since I haven't even fixed my Halloween costume yet, but I did find a black and red dress that I thought I could work with.

I had fun last year. But really, my motivation for wanting to go this year was more of a desire not to avoid things that I used to do because I want to avoid certain people. I mean, if you avoid places where you might have to deal with someone unpleasant, eventually you'll never go anywhere. So I had the dress and was starting to think about shoes and such, and did I want to bring anything to the party, and how much could I afford to spend, etc.... Then with all that was going on, it occurred to me that I might not even have the money for the tickets and such.

So that's when my friend from the second group wanted to know if I would come over to the house and watch movies with the second group.

I reminded him of the date, cause I was pretty sure that some of the second group had already bought tickets to the third group's party. Movie night was going to be changed to the Friday night before, but then someone died, and it got moved back to Saturday because there's a wake or something like that on Friday.

So it looks like I'm going to miss the third group's party. And it's not so much that I'm upset that I'll miss the party, and it isn't that I bought a dress for nothing because I'll wear to something else later. But it does bother me that I have now three times planned to do something with the third group, to get it over with, to deal with the idea that I'm not going to avoid the whole group because I don't like this one person, only to end up having those plans change.

So now I either won't see this person until the Halloween party, or maybe not until next September. And I guess it also bothers me that he might get it into his head that I am avoiding his group to avoid seeing him. I really don't like for people to get such notions in their heads, especially when it isn't true.