I (F21) am just about to graduate college. In high school, I had a group of girl friends, but during my senior year they stated to leave me out of things to the point where I didn’t have any friends. Now that I am graduating college I am going through the same sort of thing with my friend group. All of my roomates came home yesterday with 2022 balloons and were getting professional graduation pictures and nobody thought to invite me. My question is: do people out there experience this too? Am I alone? I feel like people just kinda do what’s best for them all the time and it’s so hard to meet people that are loyal and think about other peoples feelings.
3 comments
Friendships are a joint effort. Doing everything you can to ensure it lasts only goes so far. Best to just see them as seasonal or based off of convenience. People change over time and their priorities and motivations shift. The things that made you friends may disappear and cause the friendship to fizzle out.
Match their investment. Make sure you to keep up to date on what currently interests them. Ensure that there’s open communication about what they like and dislike about what you do together.
This goes for you as well. If you feel left out, express that without being accusatory. Focus on how the situation made you feel and that you’re willing to work on a compromise.
Do you have one-on-one connections with any of these people? Sometimes being in a “group” of friends or housemates gives the illusion of a circle of friendship when there is none. (Symptom: being left out of things.)
In spite of group appearances, friendships are first and most importantly a one-on-one thing. So you should be able to have individual conversations, not just perfunctory ones, but ones that go deeper and touch topics that really matter to the person.
If you don’t have anyone in this group that you can talk to on that level, then you’re living with a group of acquaintances, not friends.
You’ll be starting over in the next phase of your life anyway, but keep in mind you’ll need to find a place where you can see people regularly, strike up conversations when you see them, and develop a rapport. Eventually after several weeks or a month, you’ll need to invite them to do something with you ONE-ON-ONE, and start having those deeper conversations.
That’s how true friendship begins. Good luck!
Friends can be good or complete fake trash in my experience. I broke up with my gf, my “university buddies” proceed to plaster themselves with her all over social media. I know these ppl for 3 years, they shove all the lines down my throat about how we are all great friends and should do a summer road trip, etc. You don’t know these friends are bad until they finally do something bad and you wake up. On the flip side, if I meet someone great, it’s almost like with dating, like you just click. You and the other person need to both put effort into it. When I want to make a new friend and see they are good, I actively ask to hang out or do something, until they start to eventually invite me to things themselves. It’s hard and you need to put some effort in, but if you end up enjoying the company, you won’t mind. Just don’t smother them or come off too desperate