I seem to have missed out on some social skills lessons in my life, and I’m looking for guidance on how to navigate a particular situation within my hobby group. Over a year ago, I started attending this group where we pursue our shared interest. We often car share to different locations for our activities. I realised that another member, Jackie lived close by to myself (and didn”t drive) and I figured if we got along I’d offer. I’m not keen on offering as it feels like it would be a bind / I’m not great with driving in unfamiliar places and I often get lost / my anxiety gets in the way. I attempted to strike up a conversation with her – general stuff such as saying Hi / commenting on what was in front of us / the weather etc. Jackie rolled her eyes at me / sighed and walked away or responded with one word answers – she seems to be friendly with everyone else though : ( Although she spends a great deal of time moaning about her kids / swimming lessons / her life and honestly from the sound of the ‘Uhh … aww … what a shame … ‘ noises that I hear I feel like she’s very much a sucker of life type of person, so to speak.
Then she (and the rest of the group) realised I lived fairly close to this person and suddenly she was acknowledging my existance and a person in the group (who has to go out of her way to collect this person) made a point of mentioning that I lived near Jackie. I just kind of ignored the hint and the individual returned to never acknowledging me etc and all has been fairly well as I don’t have a great deal of free time to spend on this hobby. I don’t offer to collect anyone else either as I didn’t want to make a point of picking this person out as such. However, I’m starting to spend a bit more time with this group and these type of things have come up fairly often in the past – so I’m trying to work out a way to navigate it.
Part of the issue is that I am always going to be the person who lives the closest to this person as I live around the corner and didn’t want to be dealing with the responsibility if I suddenly decide I don’t want to go this evening / want to go shopping afterwards etc.
Has anyone else dealt with anything similar?