All my life I’ve struggled to make friends. Currently I have one friend I see with any frequency, and a long term partner. Otherwise I feel totally reclusive.
People simply don’t like me and I’m not entirely sure why. I’ve tried being very polite and quiet, I’ve tried being funny and gregarious, I buy gifts for others when I can afford it, etc. etc. But people don’t respond to my texts, they don’t invite me out, they sometimes don’t say hello when I say greet them.
I started noticing it in college, when I tried really hard to be friends with my roommates, but quickly realized they didn’t like me when I noticed I was always inviting them to do things, but they would leave me out of activities. I don’t want to shoehorn myself somewhere I’m unwelcome. I dialed back our relationship, but still bought them birthday gifts (we lived together so it seemed like a nice gesture) and they didn’t even say thanks or acknowledge it. I get that I shouldn’t expect a thanks, but I guess I was surprised it wasn’t even…well, reacted to. I confided my partner about this because it was bothering me, and he told me that he thought that they didn’t like me very much because I was pretty.
I don’t think that’s true at all, because frankly I’m not that pretty. At best I’m well groomed and at the time, was very thin. I suppose he was trying to make me feel better but that’s doesn’t solve my problem.
That’s just one example. Or in high school I did a team sport after school activity, and I thought I got along decently with everyone. But they kept telling me if our team could be compared to The Office characters, I would be “Toby”. I never watched The Office so I just laughed along and moved on from it. But then I asked my partner about it many years later (as he had seen the show) and he basically just described Toby as a character everyone hated and didn’t respect. Like what? What the fuck did I do for people to think that way about me…
After graduating high school most of that group stayed close knit, but none of them even like my photos on social media anymore. They even still interact with our coach and his family – who we all openly agreed that were abusive alcoholics.
What about me is so repulsive that they would prefer to keep contact with someone that they OPENLY hated?
Part of me wonders if it’s because I keep interacting with white people. I don’t want to resort to that line of thinking, but I upon reflection I do notice that all of those people who seemingly dislike me only have white friends. My college roommates only have like one token minority friend. Even the high school group – they were all white, and are seemingly out of contact with the non-white teammates (3 out of 20 or so people).
How do you figure out what makes people hate you? I only have two external possibilities that I don’t actually believe. I think the issue truly lies with me, but I’m not sure what about my personality is so dislikable. I’ve straight up asked my one close friend what’s up and she just described me as eccentric. My partner just comes up with a variety of reasons that blames the other person. I’m scared to ask other people I don’t know well, and clearly self evaluation has left me lost. What can I do?