It can be disappointing when you spend months looking forward to something, only to find out someone else had the exact same idea.

This student found herself in that position after planning a special day out in the city for her 21st birthday and talking about it with her friends for nearly a year.

Since nobody had heard much about another friend’s birthday plans, she assumed the celebrations would be completely separate.

However, she recently learned that her friend was planning an almost identical trip to the exact same place with the exact same group of people just days before her own birthday.

Now she’s wondering whether she should say something or simply let it go.

Read on to see exactly what’s going on.

WIBTAH for asking my friend to change her birthday plans for me?

I (20F) am in a friend group of 9 girls whom I met when I first joined university a couple of years ago. We’re all born in the same year and have been doing a few birthday traditions for our 21st birthdays.

A couple of my friends have already had their birthdays but couldn’t do a lot to celebrate them because, unfortunately, we had finals at the time, and they both chose not to do a delayed birthday celebration. It’s probably significant that most of us are single, and most of us don’t have family nearby to celebrate with.

My birthday is on the 30th of June, and I have been planning to go on a big day out into the city (and informing my friends of my plans once I had made them) for literally around a year. It’s a big birthday, and I’ve not been this excited for a birthday since I was a teenager.

Suddenly, her friend is planning the same birthday celebration.

The city is not the biggest, but for various reasons that I won’t go into, we’re quite restricted with places that we can go to for a day out.

My friend’s birthday (let’s call her Caitlin) is on the 21st of June, and no one in my friend group had heard any plans from her for her birthday except that she was spending the day celebrating with her family. Because of this, I assumed that she wouldn’t be celebrating with us.

I found out yesterday by text (from another friend, not from her) that she is planning to go out with us for the day on the 21st of June to the exact same place that I have been planning.

Now, as I mentioned, the city is fairly small, so we would literally be going to the same stores and doing the same thing.

She feels like her friends would get bored doing the same thing within weeks of each other.

I really like the people in my friend group, but most of them are brutally honest at times when I would choose to suck up how I feel for the sake of kindness.

If we went on the same day out just over a week apart, I feel like my other friends might mention being bored, which would put a serious dampening on my day and mean that they’re not enjoying the day either.

Because of where we live, there is only one other, smaller city that is near us, which is nice enough, but the city Caitlin and I had been planning to go to is definitely the favorite.

Now, obviously, there are a lot of other activities that someone can do to celebrate their birthday, but I plan in advance for a reason, and I had planned a lot around going to this particular city.

Now, she feels sidelined and isn’t sure what to do.

For example, several people had asked me for ideas for vouchers as birthday gifts, and I recommended stores that are only available near us in that city, none of which are available in the smaller city.

My problem is that I feel really sidelined and kind of not worthy of my friend’s thought if I have to change all of the plans that I have been openly making for so long for someone who still hasn’t bothered to tell me what they wanted to do.

There are a lot of other options for my friend, including many that don’t involve shopping.

She’s treading lightly to not hurt anyone’s feelings.

I’m just not sure if I’m validated in raising this with her or if I will be being selfish. I know that, when it comes down to it, it’s just a birthday, and I feel kind of childish for caring so much about it. It’s just that, within my friend group, we’d collectively gotten super excited, and I had been really happy to be able to make fun plans for it.

I do really want Caitlin to be happy on her birthday, but I just feel like she has had a long time to make plans and let us all know about them. I just feel kind of upset and disregarded that she either forgot about my plans or just didn’t care about them.

I haven’t reached out to her yet, as I wanted to check if I would be being a complete ******* for it, and I really don’t want to hurt her feelings.

WIBTA?

Yikes! That’s so unfortunate she chose the same place.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about someone who asked their neighbor to move their fence off their property, then learned the neighbor was trying to claim their land as theirs instead.

Let’s check out what the readers over at Reddit think about this whole situation.

This person would be prepared for pushback.

It is kinda weird.

For this reader, there are plenty of things to do twice.

According to this comment, she’s selfish and should be quiet.

There’s nothing wrong with speaking up and having an honest conversation about how she feels.

After all, she has talked about these plans for a long time, so her disappointment makes perfect sense.

However, she should also prepare herself for the possibility that her friend won’t change the plans, and she shouldn’t let that ruin her excitement.

She still has plenty of time before her birthday, and with a little creativity, she might discover an even better way to celebrate.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who doesn’t want to go to the amusement park with her friend anymore, because the friend can no longer ride most of the attractions.