Hi all,

I'm new to TRP and I have a... situation.

My friends all seem to be BP.

Organising a boys night is just a nightmare of "I'll have to check what she's doing". Organising a boys camping weekend is almost exclusively done around the "girls weekend" schedule, lest they need to be invited. (i.e. rather than plan a weekend away, they wait until the females have planned their own and say "We should do something while we can.")
This has been a mere annoyance to me up until now. If a "boys" camping trip slowly turned into a "couples" camping trip, I showed my frustration but was ultimately happy to just be out of the city.

I have decided to ask for help as this last weekend, the biggest car race in Australia was run. It coincides with my birthday every year so for the last 11 years, I've traditionally had a get together with my friends. The plan is simple; the race starts at 10. Arrive shortly before that or any time after. We eat with whoever is there, at 1. Leave whenever you feel like it.
This is the first time I've had my SO in the house so I said that they could bring their partners if they wanted as there would be company other than drunken males. Did that create a shitstorm? You bet. But not for the reason you would normally associate with female invasion of a male tradition.
And I quote, "You want to give me a half planned day, but want me to plan my other half attending? I don't think so!"
"I'm going to need a time."
"She wants to know what time."
At no point did I request the attendance of their partners, I merely suggested they could attend if they wished. I had actually planned it more than I usually would and organised lunch before the day. The time was 9:30am onwards, as it had been for the last 10 years. It just seemed like once their SO's were involved, they had to take a gilded invitation to her with the day planned to the second.
To use the camping example above, back when we had boys only trips, they would be organised on Thursdays for the Friday night following. Now, it requires planning weeks in advance. I understand that people have more and more commitments as they get older but I feel like the "commitments" are "my SO wants to do this so we're doing it. I can do what I want on X date in 3 months, as long as nothing gets planned before that."

Am I being overly sensitive to the whole RP/BP dichotomy or is there something there? If you have any advice on how to deal with these situations, I'm all ears. My normal course of action is ridicule, or simply restating my position ("This is Bathurst" is what I used on the weekend as that is how it has been for 10 years). Is it time to open their eyes to this sub?

Cheers