'AITA for not attending a surprise party being thrown for my twin (but not me)?' UPDATED

"Would I be the a$$hole for not attending a surprise birthday dinner for my twin brother?"

So I’m a twin, my brother and I hang out all the time and we are super close. In a few days its our (25m) birthday. We share the same friend group and we’re all really close and have been since school. He has a close group of girl friends (about 5 of them) who I have also known for many years, I would class them as being closer with him in recent years but we are all still good friends and socialise often together.

Now, I have been added to a group chat labeled “my brothers name surprise dinner!” It is a surprise birthday dinner for my twin brother organised by one of the girls in that group and they have invited me as a guest. One of them also said in the group that it would “be nice to see me as well” so I just feel like an afterthought.

I wouldn’t really have minded if the girls wanted to organise a surprise birthday evening exclusively for my brother and themselves but they have also invited my partner and some of my brother and I’s closest friends.

This feels inconsiderate and quite upsetting as I can’t understand why I would be invited to my literal twin brothers surprise birthday dinner with me only invited as a guest as it is also my birthday involving all of our friends.

My girlfriend also found this action to be extremely rude and wondered why this girl didn’t just reach out to her and then they could have organised a surprise involving both of us instead or have just involved both my brother and I and left the surprise element out of it.

In the chat it is clearly stated that we are all to arrive at one time while my brother is due to arrive 20 minutes later. The thought of attending makes me feel weird because it’s just a celebration for “his” birthday when him and I are literally born on the same day.

This isn’t new information to the organiser. Also, every year my brother and I do something together because we want to and because we have the same friends, last year our friends and my girlfriend set up a massive dinner for our birthday to which everyone was invited, including the girl group.

So now I’m at a crossroads. I don’t know whether or not to attend. On one hand, if I don’t go I will feel left out because our mutual friends are going. But on the other hand if I do go, I will feel like I am letting myself be disrespected and I will likely feel uncomfortable as it feels like only my brother is being celebrated. So, WIBTA if I took a stand and didn’t go?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

KittKatt7179 said:

NTA. I would not go. Do something with your brother earlier that day, then treat yourself to something special with your girl later on. And you might want to look into getting a new group of friends....are you sure they even like you?

Rtarara said:

NTA: Break the surprise and talk to your brother. Something about this is...off. I could postulate, but there is something going on here that isn't just someone wanting to throw a bday dinner. If you usually celebrate with your twin and your close friends, it sounds like this person is trying to be mean to you/disrupt that on purpose.

capmanor1755 said:

NTA. It's weirdly aggressive and rude to invite you, your gf, and a bunch of your friends to a not-your-birthday party on your actual birthday. No big deal if they'd done something with just him but by making it a surprise they're trying to trap you into going along. It's so weirdly aggressive I'd break the surprise and talk to him. In fact show him this thread.

TermsNcond said:

Just say sorry I am celebrating my birthday and can't make it. NTA.

Sweet_pea_girl said:

NTA. I don't see how they could have overlooked it being your birthday too, so it seems like a bit of a deliberate leaving out/insult. It's totally fine to have separate friends and birthday plans, but then they should have kept it separate.

They aren't required to celebrate you and your birthday, but this is effectively saying yours doesn't matter at all and it's really kind of cruel. My advice is to speak to your bro about it.

OP later shared this edit to his original post:

EDIT: my girlfriend has just checked the chat and the organiser has booked the dinner for 10 people and a set menu. There are currently 11 attending excluding my girlfriend and I. If we went, this would make it way over capacity. Now we really aren’t sure if we should go because what if we turn up and there is no room?

This makes it slightly more awkward as we may not be able to just pull up a chair and join? The dinner is tomorrow also. Thanks for all the kind messages as well, I will definitely give an update after everything plays out

And then a few days later, he shared this update:

Hey sorry guys I know you have all been wanting an update but I felt like I really had to sit with my feelings for a few days and really think about the nuisances of the situation, I also want to thank you all for your supportive comments, it made me feel like I wasn’t going crazy haha. There’s been a lot of common questions so I’ll try to answer those first:

⁃ Could this be a secret surprise for me too? - No definitely not, I was added to the group chat with all the other guests and was given instructions on when to be there and when we would all surprise my brother, also this girl is not that thoughtful haha and if it was a secret surprise my partner would have known and wouldn’t have just let me suffer in silence.

⁃ Does this girl have a crush on my brother? - I was actually impressed by people’s intuition, it’s not really a straightforward crush, she’s been hot and cold with him but they aren’t together. I do think that she tries hard to be the most important girl friend in his life though so I think her organising this surprise dinner is her way of further trying to achieve that status, so you guys were spot on haha.

⁃ To the few who said that I need to get out of my feelings and go - I would have had absolutely no problem at all if they wanted to do something with just my brother alone, if they had just left it to their girl group to celebrate him and left me out of it. I respect that they are closer to my brother, and I would have been happy for him!

The problem arises when I’m invited as a bystander and my partner and some of my best friends are invited too while completely disregarding that it’s my birthday also. That’s what made me feel shitty.

⁃ Why haven’t some of my closest friends who were invited said anything? - I got a call from a friend the day of the dinner, and he said he spoke with our other close friend and they agreed that it was extremely rude and a strange thing to do. I asked him why none of them spoke up on my behalf and he just apologised and said he didn’t have any excuses for it. They still ended up going to the dinner.

My other close friend rang up the day and she said that she is not attending because it doesn’t feel right to do. Then this close friend ended up texting one of the girls from that group explaining why she won’t be there, the girl then responded with excuses and said it’s not that big of a deal.

So, I spoke to my other close friends who are also twins (they weren’t invited to the dinner) and just asked them how they would feel if they were in this situation. They pretty said what majority of you all said, they were so angry on my behalf and said that it is extremely messed up, and that they wouldn’t go if this was them.

They then created a new dinner plans with myself, my girlfriend and my brother and our closest friends so that we can do a new celebration after our birthday instead. I didn’t go to the dinner. It was two nights ago, so my girlfriend and I went to see a movie instead. We figured if we took the radio silent route our absence would hopefully speak for itself.

I was really considering saying something in that chat but I was also not wanting them to paint me as aggressive. I was also considering calling my brother the morning of and ruining the surprise because I wanted to let him know what was going on and just talk to him, but at the same time I felt like an a$$hole doing that to him. I wanted him to have his moment too.

So I decided to wait until the day after the dinner so say something. I spoke to my brother yesterday (and showed him the post) and he recognised that it was very rude and stupid of her and said it felt weird for him too. He explained he had nothing to do with it, which of course I already knew that and let him know that I never blamed him for it at all.

He said that at the dinner the organiser said that she invited me and my partner but that we just didn’t come, so he wasn’t actually aware that I was invited only as a guest until afterwards. But he hasn’t said anything to her yet, I’m not sure if he will mention something to her later or not though. The organiser hasn’t said anything to me either but I don’t really care about hearing from her anyway.

Yesterday both me and my brother went to the new celebration dinner together, which was really nice and we both had a really good time. So really this whole thing just highlights who my actual friends are

Relevant Comments:

People say OOP is a better person than them because they would have said something to the organizer:

"Yeah I thought about maybe saying something next time I am around her but then again I can’t see her taking any genuine accountability, as I’ve also heard they have already regarded it as “no big deal” I think it might make me feel worse to be gaslit haha, but I know within myself and that many others think it was wrong of her, so if she doesn’t want to admit that then that’s fine by me"

Someone says they're disappointed the brother is still friends with some of those people:

"Well he’s read the post and the comments on it so hopefully he can come to his own realisations about it as I didn’t want to impose my own opinion on him as I think it is hard to acknowledge that one of his closest friends could do something/be like that, I think it’s also hard when he has them downplaying the situation too"

"Yeah I do understand what you’re saying and I do feel let down in that sense, I mean ideally I want that and for him to see her true colours, I’m just not sure that’s the case, I think it’s complicated for him. Not excusing it but all I can really say right now is I hope he comes to the realisation on his own about the company he keeps"

The future:

"For sure I will definitely let you guys know if anything else happens further along the line"