I have a friend group of about 7 people. They will always include me in their plans. If I’m not talking, they will reach out to me. Most of the time they will text me first if they want to talk to me. Sounds like a great friend group right?
However. I struggle with abandonment issues and anxiety and they never seem to make time for me. When I want to game with them, or make plans to go on a trip somewhere they will just say they’re tired or ignore me or whatever. However, when one or 2 people from that group will make the same plan, everyone suddenly has time. It makes me feel bad and I ruminate over it and then I just want to leave them.
Should I just leave them and move on, or is this just my anxiety fooling me again?
7 comments
I’d say you’re in a position that most people would envy.
You should be happy that they are always including you! A lot of people don’t get that nowadays.
It is valid to feel the way you feel, I can understand that feeling when no one can make time for you but seem to make time for everyone else, it’s good they involve you in plans, however they shouldn’t ignore you when YOU when want to plan things, they should at least be honest.
I have had a friend group like that, I chose to stop hanging out with them for many reasons, but try not to let it get to you too much, but if you feel like it is affecting you then you know what to do.
I feel for you. I have these two friends I occasionally meet. They are usually great with organizing. I love to spend time with them. When we go to a city, I happily “tag along”. They make great plans & they always entail everything I was wishing to do. I kind of let them take the reigns. Because when I suggest something, it’s never good enough for some reason. I feel like my plans are always rejected, so I don’t feel comfortable suggesting anything anymore. I don’t think they mean it in a hurtful way. But on the other hand I feel like someone who’s just following and not as an equal.
I guess what connects us is that we should be honest to our friends and let them know how their actions/words/inactions make us feel. Our feelings are valid, but if we won’t speak up, we’ll always feel like that unfortunately. Hopefully they will take you seriously. If not, it’s time for you to leave. Good luck 🙂
Just tell them what you noticed and that you’d really appreciate it if you could join your plans, and that recently you’ve been feeling a little down because it hasn’t worked out so far. Most likely they will make excuses or feign ignorance, and when you reach for the examples, they’ll give you excuses on top of excuses, “Oh that was just because…” At that point in the convo, you can just beg them to “try harder” and “see if you can” because “sometimes [you] really want to do <this> with somebody else.”
I understand your situation, and being included is definitely a HUGE win compared to most of us here as the other comments have mentioned, so I wouldn’t leave them. Try making new friends who’d join you on your plans. One thing I’ve noticed is that in any friend group, there are the initiators and the followers. The initiators (most of us here) are always the ones reaching out because the followers won’t reach out ever and nothing would ever happen. both parties are usually ok with that, because an initiator needs a follower, and a follower needs an initiator. Then there are those that despite being one or the other, desire reciprocation. That is you, and well, that’s also us. We are mostly initiators that desire experiencing being followers, and you’re a follower who desires to experience being an initiator. So despite having the opposite problem, I can totally agree that it is definitely a problem to at least the same degree and concept. I hope you can work things out with your current friend group, although it does sound unlikely. The initiators are probably content where they’re at. In that case, you could always fall back to this current group whenever you feel neglected as an initiator, and never hear from your friends – always having to reach out to them, in your second friend group.
How do you ask the question? Can you write an example of how you ask your invite? And clarify whether it’s verbal or via text usually?
Friendship is about life circumstances. Your life makes you see their face everday so there is no way running out from them.(That’s my assumotiin btw.)