Hey, people get touchy about this kind of stuff…

And it becomes a tit-for-tat game when one person feels burned and then they decide to retaliate.

Check out what happened in this Reddit story after a woman’s cousin decided not to ask her to be a bridesmaid.

Don’t Make me a Bridesmaid? Okay…

“Backstory: All about my cousin, let’s call Cindy.

Cindy’s Mom (let’s call her Aunt Sunshine for irony purposes) is a competitive old bat.

She had two kids, and her oldest was always pitted against one of my other, older Best Cousin (from what I hear, I wasn’t born yet).

Then my dad got married, had me, and apparently I was the darling baby of the cousins.

I was the first kid in like 15 years in the family so I was the baby.

Aunt Sunshine couldn’t stand for that so while her kids were teenagers, she had baby #3 one year after I was born.

Hmmm…

Was it deliberate? An accident?

Who can say.

All I know is, Cindy and I were the only two cousins close in age, so I wanted to be her BFF.

But we can’t have nice things.

It took me years to realize, because as a kid you don’t see these things, but everything was a subtle competition.

One example of many: We both were flower girls at a wedding.

When I arrived, I was dressed in a cute little outfit, age appropriate.

Cindy arrived dressed as a mini-bride, veil and all, and full makeup.

She was 5. Her mom wanted to make sure she outshined me.

Everything has to be a competition with some people…

When I got my MBA, instead of congratulations from her, when she saw me at my Grandma’s memorial, she sneered and said loudly maybe she’ll get her doctorate, for all there to hear.

No “congrats”, no “hey, you must have worked hard for that.” No, just one-upmanship.

She still hasn’t gotten around to that yet.

At her wedding, I said congrats!

She bitterly responded, “Why didn’t you invite me to swim in your pool?”

Umm…what? Yes, my parents had a pool.

But every time my mom called her mom to invite them, Aunt Sunshine would always say she was busy with her (at the time) boyfriend. 🙄

My dad said my Cindy and Aunt were always jealous of me because I was tall (for reference, I am 5’10”) and they are short.

Again, I never saw it as a kid. Well, she married a tall man (good for her) and was bragging to me how her daughter was tall for her age. Um… good for you?

None of this ever bothered me. They are just doing their thing, fine. Whatever.

Main story: BUT weddings… in my culture, usually it is expected to make unmarried cousins your bridesmaids.

I always wanted to be one.

I was the only close in age to her, and unmarried.

She didn’t choose me.

She chose only her friends.

This was directly flouting cultural custom.

She wanted revenge…petty revenge…

Fine. Cool. Your wedding, that’s fine.

But I knew what my petty revenge would be.

People inform me how they want to be treated by how they treat me.

I was getting married in 2018. She had a 2 year old.

This is how sneaky they were.

Both her and her texted my Best Cousin (one mentioned above) that they’d be “honored” to have Cindy’s daughter as a flower girl.

Huh.

Thinking it coming from my Best Cousin would somehow influence me.

I texted back politely as I could, “Unfortunately that role has been filled by someone else.”

I honestly am not giving revenge on the daughter.

She was two at the time, she probably could care less, much less remember.

But my cousin, Cindy? I could tell it burned her.

Why?

When another younger cousin was set to get married in 2020, Cindy didn’t mess around.

She got cozy with her and later informed me that her daughter would be a flower girl at that wedding.

My response. “That’s great, she is older now, good for her.”

That caught her and her husband (no doubt poisoned opinion of me from her) by surprise at my graciousness. 🙄

Oops!

Guess what happened at 2020?

Pandemic, baby!

She posted sad videos of her daughter “practicing” being a flower girl at their backyard.

It was pathetic.

Well, the wedding finally happened and Cindy got her magical dream of having her daughter as a flower girl.

But I still relish telling her no.

And had she made me a bridesmaid, I would have HAPPILY made her daughter a flower girl.”

Reddit users shared their thoughts.

This person weighed in.

Another Reddit user spoke up.

This individual shared their thoughts.

Another reader didn’t hold back.

She proved that two people can tango when it comes to pettiness.

But it has to be exhausting living this way.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.