I’d been in the same friend group all through school and didn’t really have any issues. I kind of knew I was always one of the “background friends” who was sort of just there to fill space but I guess I didn’t mind it because I had people to talk to and we had good times together. Around halfway through secondary school, this person joined who never liked me for reasons I still don’t understand. He’d always kick me out the Xbox parties and then the Discord calls when we all moved to PC. I always felt targeted and what made me feel worse was that it felt like none of the other people in the group defended me when he’d come at me – they kind of just let it happen which always rubbed me the wrong way and is what started making me slowly distance myself from the group. I just felt so unwanted and unappreciated and that was confirmed to me when we all started college 2 years ago.
During the first month of college, I started to feel so out of place in the group and felt I was only really close with 1-2 of them. I’d always be walking behind the group and nobody would seem to take notice. When we’d be in a circle talking I’d always end up getting “pushed” out of it when other people came and joined the conversation and I’d just let it happen since I’ve never been a confident person and never really know how to stand up for myself. After the first half term I just decided that I should “put myself first” and stop being treated as less by people I considered friends. So for 2-3 weeks I slowly decided to distance myself from them all due to feeling depressed and unwanted. Not one of them reached out to me to ask if I was okay and this is what I used to confirm to myself that I should just leave – since it was like nothing changed in the group when I was gone. In hindsight I really wished I had just spoken to someone in the group about how I was feeling because maybe then I could’ve done something to save the friendship I had with all of them.
Fast forward to 6 months before college finished, I reached out to the person I was closest to in the group (it took me months to build up the courage to do this) after over a year from me leaving and explained everything to them, how it was a mixture of the person who hated me and also feeling left out/unwanted that made me leave. Within 5 minutes after reaching out – we were speaking as if nothing ever happened and that was honestly the happiest I’d felt for ages. Things were good for about 3 months but the friendship I had with them and some of the other people in the group I’d reconnected with started to die down again as college was finishing. I think one of the major reasons for this was because throughout college, whilst I wasn’t in the group, they’d made so many new friends and there was so many new people in the group that I never really spoke to – I always wonder if I’d never left would I have been friends with all these people now.. I always felt “scared” to join discord calls that the new people were in, for no reason other than my mind telling me not to – which created even more distance between me and the ones I’d reconnected with. Additionally, I’d always find it was me messaging people first, which made me feel like an inconvenience.
I don’t know what I’m looking for posting this, if I made the right choice leaving in the first place or if anyone else can relate and has been in a similar position. I made other friends in college but they were sort of just “classroom” friends that I didn’t see outside of college, which made me alone most of the time and has done wonders for my mental health! (obvious sarcasm :/) I’ve often found myself just crying in my room because I don’t have any actual friends when I’m about to turn 19 in a couple months. I’ve always been an anxious person and tend to automatically think of the negatives and having no friends around hasn’t helped this whilst I’ve been trying to apply to jobs/apprenticeships and keep getting rejection after rejection, it just all piles up. 🙁 I just wish I could’ve had a true group of friends..
Sort of just a rant post to get stuff out of my system, but thank you for taking the time to read anyways 🙂