WWTPD-talking abt event you're excluded from in front of you

There’s a difference between describing something you did socially with another person and organizing a big formal event or group in front of someone you’re not including.

SweetieBsMom Your in-laws are awful. I still communicate with my former DIL after she and my son divorced. You deserve so much better.

I was also raised to show some discretion when discussing events not everyone was invited to. I have a group of 6 friends from high school that do lunch together occasionally. One of them is a closer friend to me. We never discuss going to her cabin or other things in front of the others.

I think we've all had our feelings hurt by feeling left out. I sure have!

As I noted later in the thread, these ARE real life friendships. They go to school together, used to eat lunch together last year (they don’t all have the same lunch anymore), she rides the same bus with a couple of them, they were in after school groups and classes together, and sometimes hang out together outside of school in addition to the group chats, private chats and online games. She has always been the “cool girl bro.” 

Believe me when I tell you, these boys don’t! Oftentimes she will be on a call with them on her iPad in the same room I’m in, and they talk about ALL kinds of stuff with her that at her age I would have probably died of embarrassment to be having that conversation with someone of the opposite sex. Kids these days are way more open with each other and way different than when I was a kid. The one club in particular that all of this group of kids were in, she was the only girl all year which was how she got to know all of them so well. One of them has had a crush on her since 6th grade but he never talks about it, the others all talk to her about who they have a crush on this week (who has the most rizz, lol) or which busty female anime character they want on their body pillow, LOL. She just rolls her eyes, laughs and goes with it.

Her other friend group is a pretty even mix of boys and girls who all intermingle at school, online and socially. None of them want to date any of the others, they’re all just platonic friends. Several in that group are openly LGBTQ. The group with the girls is way more frustrating and cliquey which is why she prefers to hang out with the kids in the other group.

Ditto to all of this (including the part about SweetieBsMom's in laws!)

Discretion is the right word. I have a close friend and we are friends in two friend groups that don't overlap. We've never discussed it but we just don't talk about what we did with friend group 1 in front of friend group 2. It just seems tacky. 

I agree with you, that’s rude. I think when there are more people who want to play than you need for a game, you make a schedule and put people into a rotation, or see if someone wants to only play occasionally as a sub or alternate. My DH bowls on a team with four other guys. They only can have four guys bowling per night so they schedule it out with four weeks on and one week off, rotating week to week who has the night off. If someone has a conflict they call the guy who’s off and see if he can fill in or they shuffle things around to make it work. It’s actually pretty nice because if someone ends up on vacation or something, they can work around it.

Not on my radar to be left out.

Unfortunately, they often cause the same feeling of hurt feelings. Me? I wouldn’t be hurt; I would be irritated. And yeah, I would say something. “Don’t mind us.” or “”Should we leave while you organize your new group?”
But I probably would say “ That sounds like fun; I’m in” to see what they would do. I don’t mind making people feel awkward if I think that they deserve it.

I never, ever discuss doing something in front of someone who is not included. New rules or not, it makes a lot of folks feel bad.

Truthfully, if I was engaged in the planning that was going on in front of everyone I wouldn't mind one bit if someone said this to me and I'd be like, come on and join us! I am the more, the merrier kind of person. Unless it was like something that I had bought a specified amount of tickets for, I have never in my life turned down someone interested in joining any activity I do.

I think this is why I'm having trouble processing how the pickle ball thing went down. I do think some people are oblivious to the needs of others to be specifically invited to participate, but in a quick "who's in? does Thurs work?" kind of organizing conversation, I default to assuming everyone there is invited and needs to speak up to be in. If I thought it was rude in the moment, I might respond with a "don't mind us" kind of statement.

FWIW, I learned long ago in asking for volunteers that very few step forward in a group ask, but most will say yes if given a one-on-one invite. 

I have always considered it to be rude to talk about events that others weren't invited to as well. I think there can be exceptions, and how hurtful it is depends on some factors such as the relationships of those involved, how much of the conversation is being taken up by the conversation regarding the event, etc. I know that I find myself being hurt by this at times although I am trying to not let it bother me. Several years ago I had a close friend. We talked on the phone pretty much every day, saw each other regularly, etc. I have four boys and she has two boys and a girl. Her boys are the same ages as my older boys so we saw each other a lot when they were young (although we were friends before kids). However, when her daughter started dance at a pretty young age our friendship changed a lot. It seemed like overnight she was more interested in talking to and spending time with other dance moms. Part of this I think was because they were together at practice all the time, but I still wonder if there was something about me that she decided wasn't good enough? That she didn't like? I am not sure. Anyway, we used to scrapbook together all of the time and that started to be less frequent as well after the LSS closed. One time we went scrapbooking at another place and one of the dance mom friends came as well. They talked about dance and inside conversations the whole night. I felt like I was in junior high with how strong my feelings were hurt, but it was what it was. We are still friends but don't see each other often. I would like to be closer but have just accepted that our friendship isn't what it was. When we go scrapbooking now and she talks about things she does with other friends I still have that pang of jealousy and hurt but push it aside and just see our relationship for what it is. I don't really have coworkers that have these dynamics but other moms on my sons' teams/friend groups do. Again, I try to just see our relationship for what it is and that is fine. But it can still be hurtful to see photos on social media or hear about events that many of them went to together.

In the case of the OP and the siblings/friend group I think that is what would bother me the most. It sounds like you are all pretty close and on what you see as "even footing" in the group. That is when it is harder to push those feelings down.

Sometimes it IS that anyone interested is supposed to speak up, and that’s fine. I was talking about deliberate exclusion, which is altogether different. I don’s see it often, but I have seen it. I do think-just based on my observations-that most of the time, you just need to speak up.