An aquaintance of both my sister and I posted an attack on my sister for not inviting her to her wedding of last month. It upset us all, and we both replied to her posts with my reply at 1:30 this morning. An hour later I was censored by her removal of my post. Oh my, but she has awoken the beast.
What follows is my original reply that was written between midnight and 1:30 this morning, the 12th of July. It has not been edited since then. I am not posting this to try to appeal to Katie (PK), it is an effort on my part to clear my sister and her husband’s name of any supposed wrongdoing.
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To clarify, this is Carrie, sister of Cathy.
To start, I understand the First Amendment; you have a right to say what you want to say to whomever you want to say it. I am not mad at you because you ranted. What I am, however, is absolutely disgusted, saddened, and infuriated at your reasoning behind these posts. So I shall use my First Amendment right to counterpoint you.
First, to clarify parts where I am mentioned. You state in your reply to Cathy’s post that you “didn’t expect to be invited to Carrie’s [wedding].” And yet, in the second sentence of your first post, you complain that being left out of a wedding invite is the “second time this happened in the same freaking family,” referring to my wedding of six months past. If you didn’t expect to be invited to mine, why are you upset that this is the “second time” this has happened? How contradictory.
Any information you received about our wedding was most likely given in response to your questions. I cannot vouch for Sharon, Willis, and the others, but I know all the information you received from Steven was in response to your repeated questions. He disliked giving you the details, but he felt it rude to say, “We’re not telling you that.” Neither of us ever came up to you to tell you all about the wedding plans.
That takes care of the direct references to me. Now on to your attack on my sister.
Indeed, it was an attack. You meant for it to be heard. If you did not, you would not have a link to your weblog from your buddy profile. Cathy is not nor has ever been a spiteful, mean person, yet you talk as if she did not send you an invitation as a personal affront to you. How dare you suggest such a thing of my sister. You speak as if you were the best of friends and she stabbed you in the back. Oh, I know you state later that you were never “super close friends with” Cathy and Jason, but you sure give a different impression in your first post. You list these ridiculous vague ties with Cathy and Jason, such as “former roommate’s [Jason’s] girlfriend (now ex),” you “were there the night they got engaged,” and the groom wanted to sign your cast, among others. Whether you thought you were “super close friends” or not, it reads as if you felt like you were a shoe-in for an invitation.
Now, to counterpoint your vague references mentioned above. “[F]ormer roommate’s girlfriend (now ex)” — Yes, Jason and Paul were once roommates. Yes, you and Paul used to date. Later, you two broke up. If I remember correctly, this was about three years ago. You moved on. Later you make a reference to Sharon’s ex-boyfriend being invited, so therefore you should have been, too. Cathy is friends with that boy; it had nothing to do with him once dating Sharon.
You were “there the night they got engaged.” Um, that reads to me like you were actually there the moment when Jason proposed. That is certainly not true: they were by themselves on campus. Immediately afterwards they came to me and Steven to tell us the news, where they also called their respective parents. Then they went to tell their best friend, Sharon. You just happened to be visiting Sharon when Cathy and Jason showed up. They had no intention of hunting you out to give you the news.
Now about the Jason wanted to sign your cast comment — he wanted to sign it because he had never signed a cast before. That had nothing to do with you specifically, it is just one of those simple pleasures in life that Jason has not yet gotten to experience. It’s a petty little thing, but you made it even pettier by presenting it as an argument for a wedding invitation. It is a similar situation with the argument of Jason sending you links to their registry and wedding website. He was so excited about the entire thing, he wanted to share his joy with everybody. It did not insinuate that he wanted you to buy them something or wanted you to come. I believe you read too much into these little actions.
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You state in your second post that you found Cathy’s apology “more upsetting” than if she had just lied to you and said, ” ‘[O]ops, we forgot.’ ” Terribly sorry, but it is not Cathy, Jason’s, or anyone else’s job to placate you so you can feel better about yourself. That is your own job. I am flabberghasted that you would suggest it is others’ responsibility to make you feel good. That whole idea goes too deep for this conversation. It is a problem.
You also state in your second post that what you find “paticularly stinging is the fact that some of the people that were invited they [Cathy and Jason] rarely talk to and yet the groom talked to [you] a good number of times and they are deemed ‘important enough’ and [you were] not.” Who exactly are you referring to? I have already gone over Sharon’s ex-boyfriend’s friendship with Cathy and Jason; the only other person I can think of is Paul. If you think that Jason and Paul have not talked in three years, you are mistaken. They talk reguarly; they have stayed friends. Cathy has also known Paul since high school. If you are referring to any other people than these two, please put them forth.
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You used your weblog to vent your grievances; that is what they can be used for, among other things. I do not have a problem with this fact. You spoke your mind so that others, including Cathy and Jason, could know. This weekend, they read your post, and they knew. They were understandably upset, but they did not reply right away. In fact, they waited a few hours to cool down before they replied. They chose to give an apology. It may not have explained themselves fully or gone over your issues point by point, but they apologized, out in the open for everyone to see.
What did you do with it? You threw it back in their face as soon as you read it. You did this out in the open as well, for everyone to see. You gave yourself no chance to collect your thoughts; it was posted in the height of very misplaced hurt and anger. What do you want from them? What can they say to make you happy? I do know one thing: they will not say they made a mistake in not inviting you. This whole debacle of the weblog justifies their decision, in my opinion.
You state that Cathy and Jason’s apology can be summed up as “you’re not important” to them. I’m afraid you’ve hit the nail on the head: you’re not important. That is the facts and you need to accept it. You cannot be best friends with everybody. You can, however, be annoying to everybody. Amazing how that works.
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As I said before, you have your First Amendment rights. But you must use those rights with a degree of respect. By these posts that you have sent online, you have disrespected my sister, her husband, their friends, and their family, including Steven and me. Cathy and Jason were under ABSOLUTELY NO OBLIGATION to invite you to anything. Even if they had so much as told you to your face that you were going to be sent an invitation, they would not have been obligated to send you one. No matter what signals from Cathy and Jason that you express you received, you were not guaranteed anything.
The fact that you expected anything from Cathy and Jason is revolting. Yes, the First Baptist Church of Auburn is “big enough” and one more person would not have “cramped [their] style.” However, your specific presence would have ‘cramped their style,’ as you put it. To put it extremely bluntly, you were not wanted, just as you were not wanted at my wedding. For you to expect to be wanted is sadly optimistic.
You should not lash out at others because you think they cause you unhappiness. Truly happy people do not let the actions of others cause such grief and distress as you express has happened to you due to the lack of a wedding invitation. All you end up doing is hurting yourself and others. I am one of those ‘others,’ notice it is one o’clock in the morning while I am sending this message to you.
If you have anything more to say, you do it through private e-mail or by phone. My e-mail address is hissineedyouATgmailDOTcom and my phone number is 256-XXX-XXXX.
Do not mess with the Paulk girls.