Hi All,
I (28F) was socially isolated by my narcissistic parents until I was 18 and moved out. I’ve had to learn social skills later in life and perpetually feel behind. I’ve been working hard to try to connect with people and build friendships as an adult. I’ve lived in my current city for 3 years and when I first moved here I reached out to a lot of people and as much as I tried a lot of those connections fizzled out or didn’t go anywhere. I’ve made a handful of close friends but I have a hard time maintaining long term casual friendships or professional connections or keeping up with acquaintances. My friend (25F) has this easy confidence and can befriend anyone and maintains an incredible amount of long term relationships. I had introduced her to a few people I had connected with but had never gotten close to when she moved here last year and she was able to build close/strong relationships with those people. I didn’t realize until today when I saw her interacting with those people how close they had gotten and how resentful and inferior this made me feel for not being able to accomplish what she accomplished so easily. I think I also sort of had flashbacks to my childhood where I was always left out. Of course I don’t blame her for being good at socializing. She’s an amazing friend and I would never bring this up to her. I understand it’s a personal issue I need to work through on my own. I want to know if anyone else has felt this way and how you worked through it.
TL;DR: I’m feeling resentful towards a close friend because she was able to befriend people I haven’t been able to because she’s better at socializing and I want to figure out how to deal with these feelings.