Dear Eric: I have a good friend with whom I get together maybe twice a month or so. We disagree politically, sometimes passionately, but always end our conversation by telling each other that we are still friends and still love and respect each other.

A few months ago, her daughter got engaged, and when my friend shared this news, she said that, of course, I would be invited. Whenever we met up, I would always ask about the wedding plans, and we would talk at great length about this.

Recently we met for lunch with a third friend, and the subject of the wedding shower came up. Friend One handed Friend Three the shower invitation right in front of me, with no explanation to me. This seemed deliberately designed to be hurtful, and indeed I am hurt and confused. I can now assume I’m not invited to the wedding either.

Do I say anything to Friend One? Should I assume that she’s angry about my political views? Should I just ignore the whole situation and pretend I don’t care? Or should I cut my losses and just withdraw from the friendship?

— Uninvited

Dear Uninvited: Unless something else happened between you and your friend, either around politics or the wedding, I’m inclined to take the Occam’s Razor approach here. Is it possible that your invite got lost in the mail and she assumed that you already had it when she gave the shower invite to your other friend?

Perhaps you’ve already thought of this, but it just seems overly involved and cruel for her to talk to you about the wedding for months, then go out to lunch with you and use that moment to humiliate you by inviting the friend. Especially since she hasn’t given you any indication, from what I can see, that you’ve been taken off the invite list.

Is it possible that the fractious nature of your political disagreements weighs heavily on you, even though you do make up with each other when you get into it? To assume that she’s being vindictive about your opinions suggests that perhaps you don’t actually think everything goes back to love and respect at the end of each debate.

So, ask her. “Are we OK? I haven’t gotten an invite to the shower, and it would hurt to not be there and celebrate your daughter. But I want to check in with you to make sure I haven’t misread anything or missed a cue.”

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