<p>I’m fine with doing things with just women or just men or couples. It seems fine to me whatever way people request and prefer. Sorry Pizzagirl, to read of your dear friend who is dying. Tough times. :(</p>
<p>Yeah, my understanding is that skin testing for allergies doesn’t work as well for food problems. </p>
<p>My H would be another guy who would sign on enthusiastically to my going out with women friends and leave him happily at home.</p>
<p>I did fail to explain something. The original invite included couples who all knew each other. The daughters later amended the invite (at the behest of their mother) to exclude husbands because the B’day girl no longer had one. A girls only dinner is fine. But to stipulate after the general invite that “no husbands allowed because I don’t have one”, is beyond tacky. And that is why ALL the women rightly took their stance.</p>
<p>^^I’m still confused. I think I’d have compassion for the widow, if it seemed that seeing happy couples together while she was still grieving, bothered her. Apparently they made the invitations out without consulting her, and she wanted a women’s only party. I can’t see that it would be more important to make my stand, by golly, than to show understanding for the widows feelings, even if I disagreed.</p>
<p>I wonder if the problem was that people did not care for the widow.</p>
<p>When i had my skin test done for tomatoes the allergist came to the conclusion of me being allergic to it combined with my symtoms (feeling like i was on fire on my entire head, neck and sholders)…</p>
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<p>Was “Get over it already!” written on the cake?</p>
<p>Our food allergy skin test showed us allergic (by welts) to MANY foods that we all eat with NO symptoms whatsoever. The docs have OK’d to continue to enjoy them & made me wonder why they even test for food allergies in that way, since it is so unreliable, with false negatives & false positives.</p>
<p>^ I agree on that point. Why test for food allergies at all since so unreliable.</p>
<p>I also do not understand the problem with an all female dinner. For years, especially when our kids were young, my female friends have had girl’s nights out, dinner and/or a movie. Are these older women perhaps who have not grown up with the concept of a girl’s night out?</p>
<p>I’m another who doesn’t understand the no-man, no-me stance. If the HOST requested no men, what could possibly be wrong with that? My mom goes to women-only dinners all the time. No one has ever made a fuss about any of it.</p>
<p>I just read your latest update. If the BIRTHDAY GIRL is the one grieving, it’s VERY low IMO for everyone else to say “too bad, so sad, we’re going to ignore you.” That’s really freaking low to disrespect the birthday girl’s wishes like that.</p>
<p>Fwiw, and it’s not quite the same thing, at my prom, my best friend’s boyfriend had been deployed to Iraq a few weeks before. We all changed our plans (we thought he wasn’t set to ship out for another month) to make a lot of the things female-only. No one cared. We cared far more about her happiness than anything else.</p>
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<p>Frankly, I’ve gotten the impression over the last several decades that a lot of allergists are quacks.</p>
<p>Yea, my internist agrees & I have fired a LOT of them over the years. Even the one I currently go to from time to time & like a lot has not been all that helpful to me or my family, other than as a very supportive and kind friend. She’s really not been all that helpful with our allergies, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Wow! I’ve had friends that we’ve done things as couples for over a dozen years. If invitations went out for a birthday party to one who was recently widowed, tbh I think the gals would all call and see if this might be better as a girls only event. It wouldn’t take a request from the widow. Certainly, I’m just projecting how we would react, we’re all very close as girlfriends and would want to support her. A night out without our DHs is nbd. I’m sorry, I think that was incredibly heartless.</p>
<p>I also agree that I would have happily complied with the female only request. Even if it had been requested after the original invite. And my husband would have happily stayed home.</p>
<p>As a widow I can totally understand why she would want a girls only birthday celebration. The fact that these women couldn’t imagine going to a birthday party without their husbands only emphasized how hard it is when the widow’s husband is no longer there. The daughters were just trying to make it easier on their mother. </p>
<p>It was beyond rude for the guests to insist husbands be there. It was insensitive and cruel.</p>
<p>Sorry, toblin, I don’t think anyone is impressed by these women’s reaction. Is there more to the story?</p>
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<p>Agreed! As others have said, it’s perfectly fine to have an all girls night. I don’t need my husband to join me for dinner to justify an evening out. I’m perfectly fine going alone, and he is perfectly fine staying home. My heart goes out to this widow who has such cruel and insensitive friends. And I’m using the term friends loosely. I hope she has many others in her life who are supporting her through this difficult time. Because it’s bad enough losing your husband, but subsequently losing “friends” that you thought were close to you has to be pretty devastating, too.</p>
<p>I guess it’s one thing to only invite the women, but it’s something else to invite the men and then disinvite them–and it may have something to do with whose idea this was (i.e., the mom, not the grieving widow).</p>
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I just can’t understand this post. Really, it doesn’t compute. I can’t believe that Miss Manners would have the slightest problem with party invitations being changed in deference to a widow who happened to be the birthday girl. I can’t believe there are 5 men anywhere who’d be offended. Even if amending an invitation Isn’t Done - aren’t birthday parties given so that the celebrant can enjoy him/herself?</p>
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Did I misread? I thought the mom of the daughters was also the widow?</p>
<p>^ I agree.</p>
<p>“A girls only dinner is fine. But to stipulate after the general invite that “no husbands allowed because I don’t have one”, is beyond tacky.”</p>
<p>Very childish attitude, imo, on the part of those invited. “… because I don’t have one…” Really? I see why they brought their husbands. Incredibly immature women. “Tacky”? Wow!</p>
<p>**So ironic this was posted to show how rude the widowed birthday girl was when in fact the invited guests were the rude ones!</p>