Re the kid she decided not to be friends with because she was too bossy and manipulative - does the kid understand this or does she think your dd is being mean and excluding her? And with the younger neighbour kid who you say your dd has a friendship of convenience so she can control the games - is that kid going to turn round in 6 months and stop playing with you dd is being bossy and manipulative.
Also the birthday parties. My son has 24 kids in the class - no way can i do a party for 24, 12 of them are boys - can't do that either. He has about 6 people he has known for years to invite so he can invite 2 or 3 kids from his class that is all. However unlike a lot of other parents i don't let him take invitations to school and i encourage him not to talk about who is coming. One person i know let he son hand out invitations at school to every boy in the class bar one (what was she thinking?). I've heard parents say they think their kid is being mean but it is up to the kid (um no).
I don't know if the kid understands this, the kid's mom does though. Quite honestly I don't blame my dd if she chooses to not be this girl's friend anymore if she is telling my dd that she has to go down a 150 foot water slide with her or she won't be her friend anymore. Then keep bothering my dd about it for more than an hour. (FWIW my dd has sensory issues and couldn't actually even step foot in water parks/splash parks until she was 6, so there is no way she's going down a water slide.) I'm not sure what you mean by excluding this girl, b/c my dd doesn't play with anybody else so she isn't excluding her from anything. She just prefers to not play with her for things that I don't consider unreasonable.
To be clear I didn't say my dd likes to manipulate her younger neighbor friend. I said "it's a friendship of convenience" for her b/c the little girl just follows her lead and tolerates my dd's 'playing style'. My dd can be a bit overwhelming in the sense that she is a big planner. For instance, they decide to play store, it's not just "hey let's play store", instead it's: let's draw a layout of the store, let's make a list of what we'll sell, let's make receipts and fake money, let's plan/write down what we're going to say, etc, etc. She plays like this nearly every time (at home anyway, not sure about at school) and not many of the kids around, older sister included, have the patience for this. It seems as though dd enjoys the planning and thinking about how the play is gonna happen more than actually playing. If this little girl decides to stop playing with my dd b/c of this I'm not going to force her to play with my dd.
As for the birthday parties, the majority of the parties I found out through the grapevine through other parents. It just happens to come out, i.e. "Oh, are you guys going to A's birthday this weekend, can you drive my kiddo?" I don't expect kids to invite my dd to their party out of pity or be forced to. I was just expressing sadness about more reminders of how my dd's lack of friends is apparent.
I came to this board with this problem looking for fellow parents of gifted children who may have similar concerns with their kids. I was hoping for advice or tips from others who have BTDT. Your post didn't come across as very supportive but, you know, it's the internet and things can be misconstrued so I'm maybe it's just me.