What was your experience like being friends with people who made you feel like you didn’t belong? If you’re no longer friends with them, how has life changed for you?

5 comments

1. I felt like a shell of a person, always trying to do what I can to be liked instead of actually living.

   I have much more confidence now and I feel like my own person instead of trying to people please to fit in

2. My best friend was very popular unlike me. She had this really big group of friends where she did her best to make me feel included. I started warming up and talked frequently until they started to question me and called my humour ‘lame’.

   Many fights started to happen between me and the other girls in the group so I deleted Instagram which easily cut off contact.

   This definitely changed me in a good way. I have stopped relying on my best friend for my social life and met amazing people who I am proud to call friends

3. The experience was terrible, I developed social anxiety and eventually depression. I’ve struggled with feeling like i don’t belong anywhere for a really long time due to this. I’m not friends with them anymore and now i have much better friends and finally start to feel like i’m finding my place in the world.

4. [removed]

5. I moved interstate 4 years ago, and I desperately wanted friends. I befriended a girl at work, who introduced me to her friends, and we became a group. I felt so out of place with this group as they all shared common interests and I just felt totally left out (they were a few years older than me).

   The girl I befriended at work turned out to be very unkind. She would gossip to me about other girls in the group, and she eventually started putting me down without me realising it. She would comment on my clothes, hair, makeup, anything about me, and I would just accept it as constructive criticism but I eventually realised it was just plain criticism. I felt betrayed when I came to this realisation as I’d made her such a big part of my life – I got her a job at my workplace, asked her to be my bridesmaid (luckily I eloped and this did not happen), and just told her so much about myself and my life that I just *know* she has not kept secret.

   I cut her off completely, and in turn those girls stopped speaking to me. I was initially really upset and questioned if I’d made the right choice and if I was the problem, but my life became easier and I became happier. I have made new friends who make me feel wonderful and confident.

   I learned that I should not force myself into friendships that don’t fit. You don’t have to like everyone, and not everyone has to like you.

   *Edited to remove inappropriate wording*