I’m quite of an awkward person, but i belong to this group of friend who i feel quite close with a few months ago. We’d go lunch after class and although we didn’t hang out quite a lot, i feel quite happy. Likewise in every group of friend, everyone has their own favorites. i feel awkward when it comes to interacting with them in person, except for this guy. but this guy is likeable by everyone, so its easy for him to get along with others, leaving me with no one. dont get me wrong, i let him go, i dont want to be that annoying possessive friend, but i also feel like that’s the reason why i no one really got attached to me, because i didn’t do much effort to maintain the friendship. Whenever we group up, i always feel like i was just there… so with or without me they’ll be fine. In fact, i never been included anymore, everytime they go somewhere they never ask me out or anything and that they do it while i was there. so i suppose they kind of state it clearly that my presence in their life is unimportant.
To compensate the absence of friend in my life, i tried to get to know some other people too and i kind of hang out with them and have lots of fun, way more fun than when i hang out with my group of friend. However, we just hang out by chance, and there’s no sense to include me in the next occassion. I know that i must look for friend, not the other way around but i also dont want to be that desperate attention seeker.
2 comments
I totally relate to you. I recently had a group project in physics with my class in an amusement park. We were supposed to ride some carousels and there after solve some hard physics problem. Being about 20 min late to the amusement, they were already done riding the carousels – sure, it’s my fault that I was late. When I arrived, I asked them where they were, but they told to me to stay in a sertain place untill they were done solving the problems. I kept asking them for their location so that I could participate in solving the problem, but they didn’t want to reviele it. Having been alone the entire 3 years in my school, it sort of made sense to why didn’t want to include me, but I still felt hurt standing in the middle of the amusement park alone during 40 minutes, while classes from different schools were working on the same kind of problems and riding different carousels. So I rode the last carousel with my group ride and tried to answer the questions with them, but they just circled around their paper leaving no room for me and just started working. I of course didn’t need to go home and could just ride all kinds of carousels in the amusement park during the remainder of the day, but that happens to be extremely boring alone.
The next day rolled around, when we were supposed to write an answer repport of the questions we were given the day before. Now, if they wanted my help, they would just ask me, right?
Well no, they just huddled up together with me being present in the classroom fully aware of me being assigned to their group and just started working. They didn’t ask me if I wanted to participate – as if I wasn’t even there. What hurts the most is that you often ask people that don’t engage in group projects to help out, out of frustration. You at least take notice of these kinds of people.
I just had to vent out some fresh blood. Sorry about that.
With respect to Group #1, you need to make an effort to develop a connection with at least one other person. I agree the super popular guy is not a great candidate since he probably doesn’t need that. So pick someone else and start talking to them more one-on-one, be sure to greet them by name every time you see them and ask how things are going. Follow up on previous conversations.
I also think it’s a great idea to expand your social life in other directions, which you seem to be doing. I do get the sense though that you aren’t resonating with people that much. Like, they’re fine with you while you’re there, but then they forget about you when you’re not.
Here are four traits that are almost universally appealing, I call them ECHO: Enthusiasm, Confidence, Humor & Optimism. Most people don’t have all four, but if you can develop two of them you’ll be a LOT more memorable!