Women Get Tired Of Their Friend Talking Through Every Movie, So They Create A Group Chat To Plan Movie Nights Without Her
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It’s natural, when you have quite a lot of friends, to feel closer to some than others. Because of course, there are some folk who you naturally click with, and others with whom you feel a little more distant. That doesn’t mean that you don’t deeply care for them, just that perhaps you have a different sense of humour, or different hobbies or interests. Or maybe, at heart, you’re just different people who can be friends but you will never feel totally and completely connected to.
For the woman in this story, one of those people is her friend Mia. She likes Mia well enough, and is happy to call her a friend, but they are by no means close, and there are some things about Mia that just drive her crazy. And one of the worst of these things is the way that she behaves when they are watching movies – and, it seems, the rest of the friend group are starting to agree.
Read on to find out what is going on here.
AITA for telling a friend why we don’t invite her out anymore?
A few months ago a new girl called Mia (32, female) started tagging along with my friend group. She’s a nice enough person so we all didn’t have a problem with it at first.
Then we decided to watch a movie together. And Mia talked through the entire thing.
She kept a running commentary going through the whole movie. She would mention plot holes, trivia about the actors, just general nonsense.
We were watching the movie on streaming at someone’s house so it was annoying, but we all got over it.
But then, Mia’s bad movie-watching etiquette continued.
Then we went to see the Odysee in IMAX. And she kept whispering to me the entire movie.
Like a full on running commentary about every little difference there was between the poem and the movie, fun facts about Matt Damon, basically didn’t shut up the entire movie.
I had been sitting next to her and I asked her to be quiet a few times, but she didn’t seem to get the message.
A few weeks later a friend said he got tickets to see “Something Rotten” which is a musical. Someone else said “don’t invite Mia”. So we created a second group chat without Mia to coordinate that show. We went without Mia and had a good time.
And then, leaving Mia out continued.
The next time we were going to do a movie night at someone’s home, we again didn’t invite Mia.
We invited her to a boating day we did so it wasn’t like we were excluding her from everything.
Last week the non-Mia group chat decided to go see Rock of Ages at the theater where I work, and asked if I could get them a deal on tickets.
Mia apparently found out about this get together and called me to ask why we hadn’t invited her.
Let’s see how she responded to Mia’s question.
I decided to be blunt and told her “because you won’t shut up when we’re watching stuff”.
Mia seemed to get offended and apparently went to the rest of my friend group to get the truth. Some told her straight up why, and others either left her on read or lied about the plans.
Now my friend group is divided. Some think it was right to tell Mia the truth, while others think that we should have lied to spare her feelings. But nobody wants to invite her to the show (which they are coming to tonight without Mia).
AITA?
Honestly, this is a really tricky one. Because when watching a movie at home (though obviously not in a cinema, when talking can disturb strangers too) some folk like to chat about the film – that’s the way they best digest what’s happening and bond with the folk they’re watching with.
Others prefer to be fully absorbed in the film and watch it in silence, only to talk about it later – and both should be respected.
But it seems like, when it comes to watching films, these friends simply are not compatible.
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Let’s see how folks on Reddit reacted to this.
This person thought that, regardless of delivery, Mia needed to know.
While others thought that these women behaved in a childish way.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman whose family wants her to spend way too much time redoing paintings to make them match.
Meanwhile, this Redditor thought that the women should have communicated with Mia up-front.
There is something truly childish about the women making a group chat that didn’t involve Mia, so that they could arrange to see movies without her. Sure, you create a chat like that when you’re discussing someone’s surprise birthday plans, but other than that chats that exclude one member of a friend group come across as nothing but juvenile and, in some cases, malicious. Sure, Mia was annoying to watch movies with, and this woman admittedly did ask her to be quiet several times when they were watching the film. But until the women actually communicate properly with her, by explaining politely that her incessant facts and comments were affecting their enjoyment of the movie, she doesn’t really know that her behaviour is a problem, much less to change it.
So it’s completely understandable that Mia is hurting, especially now she knows that these women she thought were her friends are arranging to see movies without her, without even explaining why. And sure they’re making the odd plan here or there to include her so that it doesn’t look like they’ve abandoned her completely but honestly, this woman will know the difference. It’s even down to the fact that she’s described as ‘tagging along’ with the original friend group – even though that is essentially how new friendships evolve. The truth is, they’re cutting her out – but they’re not brave enough to communicate with her about it.
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