This is a long story, but I hope you can bear with me, because I could
really use some advice.
I grew up in several houses, shipped around between my grandparents and
my divorced mother. Mother was emotionally unstable, and hated my guts. I
was her first child, and she liked telling me the story of how I was
born: she was really hoping for a boy, chose a name for him right away,
and was deeply disappointed when I turned up. She therefore twisted the
name to fit a girl and moved on. She got her blue-eyed boy on the second
try.
As far as I remember, I adored my dad, but he left when I was about
five. I was so upset I lost all my hair. By then, I was mostly living
with my grandparents (mother couldn't deal with two children at the same
time). Both were still in full-time employment, so I'd spend my days
alone in the house or the garden, or walking along the train tracks to
the nearby lake. Mother only took me back when some of her friends
started talking about her strange arrangement, and it transpired I
wasn't in school as other kids my age. Needless to say, I was
practically feral. I was so scared when Miss asked me to join other kids
in the playground, I was physically sick. They let me sit on my own in
the classroom. For the next few years, that's how it was. I went to
school, I kept to myself, I went straight home after classes, and holed
up on the top shelf of the hall wardrobe until mother came home from work. My
brother, though a year younger, very quickly outgrew me and liked to
punch and kick, or throttle me just to see how I changed colour. Once,
he broke a window just because he didn't have a knife handy, picked up a
shard and smashed it into my face. I still have a scar, but mother said
it was normal for siblings to bicker.
I wasn't born sickly, but I was a zombie by the time I turned ten, and a
doctor advised mother to send me to the countryside, so on my 11th
birthday I got shipped back to my grandparents, five hundred miles away. They were still working,
but now I had to go to school, so I didn't spend so much time on my own.
I made a friend, too: a girl who lived nearby and had to walk the same
long route with me every morning and afternoon. Her mum took me to have
my first haircut, and for the first time in my life I looked
presentable. By the end of the year, I was much better, and my
grandparents decided it was time to hand me over.
In my new class, all other kids had known one another for at least four
years. They didn't like me, and they made no secret of it. For the first
half a year, nobody would talk to me. Then, the school organised a
hiking trip, and on the first night I was jeered out of the hostel common room.
I ended up sitting in the cold fog on a fence outside, and trying to be
blase about it. After a while, The Girl came out of the hostel as well,
and sat on the fence with me. She was the coolest kid in class. She
told me she decided it all was very stupid and it was time it ended. She
said we were going to be friends. For the next four years, we were
inseparable. But then it was time for us to go to high school. Mother
chose the one she wanted me to go to, and moved house so we'd be within a
walking distance of it. It meant, however, that now my friend lived on
the other side of the city, and we soon lost touch completely. For a while I accepted mother knew best and did as I was told.
To make long story a tiny bit shorter, the last straw was finding out she killed my cat (because I was getting too attached to it). I ran away from home at 23, but with the mentality of a 12-year-old. I wanted to make something of myself
anyway, but without a penny to my name the choices were limited. I
figured I could study nursing in India if I worked every summer in the
UK. I got my first summer job, and, as luck would have it, met my (now) fiance. He asked me to stay
and I agreed. But I was a mess. I was still suicidal, erratic, cagey,
and with a tendency to disappear without warning. He held fast, and
eventually I decided myself it was time to get help. I was in therapy
for two years, four times a week. I was working full-time and doing
distance studies, too. I was run off my feet, but managed to hold my
head above the water somehow. He proposed in the last year of my
undergrad degree. I got accepted into full-time Masters, and decided to
take out a loan to finally have a real student experience. I finished
therapy, cut all ties I still had with my family, and changed my name.
Somewhere around that time, I found out that The Girl has also settled
in the UK, and was living just around the corner from me. We met for the
first time in fifteen years, and nearly fell apart. It was wonderful to
see her again, but it also brought back all the awful memories. We
talked, and talked, and talked. She asked me to be her bridesmaid, I
asked her to be mine. She mentioned the fact that when we first met, I
had no friends, and said she knew why and maybe it was time I did as well. She said my mother terrorised
anyone who came anywhere near me, and tried bullying her into leaving me
alone as well. She said mother went up to kids and told them to get
lost or else. She could be pretty convincing, so nobody dared to come to
ask me to go out with them to play. It was a terrible shock, and
another straw, but it also made me feel a little better about my ability
to make new friends, now that I was free.
I finished my Masters with a few new people I liked a lot and a bunch of
potentials. When it came time to write wedding invitations, as my family were not invited and I had oodles of room available, I decided
to invite the potentials as well as an act of goodwill and hope that
this could develop into something. And here's where the uninviting
dilemma kicks in.
I first sent out a facebook query (I was trying to keep it noncommittal
and open to easy refusal, as our acquaintance was still pretty fresh).
Everybody except one person got back to me saying they'd love to attend.
The girl who didn't respond joined a group conversation on facebook
that a few of us were having about organising a picnic together. She
said she might not be able to come, and proceeded to comment on my
invitation. She said she was very surprised, but was considering
attending with her boyfriend, as she was feeling sorry for me. She wrote
that she thought the reason why I invited her was that I didn't have
many friends. Moments later, she send me an apologetic message on my
mobile, saying the fb message was meant just for one person, not the
whole group.
Now, keeping in mind my history, I thought her comment on my invitation
hilarious. Because it's so blooming true! But the few 
other friends I
have thought it outrageous and said I should uninvite the offender. The
invitation was only tentative in the first place, but I'd feel bad
revoking it, now that I've accepted the apology. Neither of those people
really know anything about my background, they don't even know that
until two years ago I was called something completely else and was
having my head severely shrunk, so I didn't think it was so very bad of
them to assume I was friendless by normal standards. Is it? Isn't it? Is
it a reason for uninviting them if they want to come anyway?
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Thank you so much everyone for your kind and thoughtful comments! I've decided to just let it slide, and to wait a little. She hasn't properly replied yet, and it's been a couple of weeks, so we'll see how it goes. Thank you!!
