Yesterday my friend and i went to a concert. She brought her boyfriend and other friend who I kind of know and we met up with these other people. We had met one of them once but the others were new to the group. We’re in a local discord group so we’re still meeting the people in it. I invited my friend to the group a little bit after I joined because I didn’t want her to feel left out if I ever mentioned it and I thought she would get along with the type of people in it. I was happy to start feeling more extroverted because I’m a part of this group and it gave me the illusion of having friends.
But at the concert, they were all so talkative with each other and she already had one of the girls’ numbers and I kind of shut down because it didn’t feel like there was room to talk to anyone and now I’m comparing myself like why is my friend all of a sudden seeming so extroverted and I’m not talking at all. Now I’m kind of wishing I didn’t invite her to the group because I think it would’ve been easier to make friends with them if I was doing it all on my own. For some reason I get more quiet when my friend is around and she kind of takes over.
Now I feel like the one left out and I have the urge to go find my own friends elsewhere. Why do I have such a hard time having mutual friends with people? It’s like I feel weird about people close to me seeing how I’m like with new people.
1 comment
Just get out of your head and talk. There’s no secret trick to this.
I knew a lot of people like this and they were way too focused on looking bad or sounding stupid— basically, too self-centered to get outside of themselves, and they suffered for it by missing out on things they thought they wanted. Predictably, they ended up making friends who were *just like them* and only focused on how awkward they might’ve looked, how dumb they sound, etc., and would complain to me about how horrible those kinds of friends are. You don’t say.
Your friend being talkative and having a good time shouldn’t impact your ability to do the same. You made the choice to shrink back and not talk— your friend didn’t make you do that. This is clearly an obstacle for you, so why not just go out places without your friend, so you can talk to people and maybe have a good time then.