Long time lurker, first time poster of course. I’ve always had issues with not having a real “best friend” or feeling overlooked by my other friends (i.e. there’s always someone else they’d rather hang out with). For example, last night I had invited one of my friends of a few years out. I got there about 20/30 minutes before she did, which wasn’t a problem especially because I’m a regular at this bar as is she. While there, another guy I used to be friends with pulled up to hang out across the bar, as he’s also a regular. Emphasis on “used to” because I intentionally stopped talking and hanging out w him because of CONSTANTLY having to call him out on being a dick not just to me but also the other friend, not putting effort into our friendship, etc. And I’m not the only one he’s had that problem with. Anyway, he sees me and just asks “is (friend I invited) coming out?” And I just shrugged at him, bc out of all the times over the years he’s ignored me, even when I tried to talk to him, THATS when he can start a conversation and just to ask that?
The friend I invited got there not to long later and sat with me, and we started talking. Later, she moved to the seat on my other side to start talking to the guy friend (we all used to work together but I recently left for a better job). After a while I’m pretty sure she realized I was just kind of sitting there, since I wasn’t part of the convo, and told me “I promise I’m not ignoring you for (guy friend).” I appreciated that she was trying to tell me that, but it still very much felt the entire night she was. I only felt like that was my own fault because I’ve never been a super great conversationalist even when I try.
I don’t want to bring it up to her because I know she was still trying to check in on me in between talking with him, and based on our friendship I know she wasn’t trying to ignore me. I’m not sure how much of this is me feeling genuinely overlooked and how much of it is just anxiety, but things like this happen all the time and is one of the reasons I don’t like being the one to make plans because something always happens.
How do I become a better conversationalist or otherwise stop feeling like the friend that just kind of exists in the back of other peoples minds?