When I was in high school I switched schools 3 times (so a new school every year) and every time I went to a new school literally no one would talk to me or try to like include me or associate with me or ask me to hang out with them. Everyone just ignored me or maybe talked to me in some classes but that was it. So because of that I literally was alone all the time and didn’t have any friends and would go entire days without talking to anyone. Because it’s a thing people do even out of high school that if they don’t ‘know’ you then they won’t have anything to do with you. And also it’s not taken well at all if you just decide to try to go up to a friend group or kids hanging out and just go up and start talking to them or just include yourself if no one else is giving you that written invitation you need.
I started hanging out with this friend group, I knew them this one girl invited me to hang out with them once but I got nervous and didn’t and she never asked me again. I had no friends and was alone every day and hated it and no one ever invited me to hang out with them, so I decided to just ask this group if I can start hanging out with them at lunch so I wasn’t alone every day because it was embarrassing being completely alone every day so I just started hanging out with them every day after they said ok sure. At first everything was fine, no one had a problem with it if anything they liked me plus I finally had friends to hang out with. That was during the last month of the school year, also over the summer I had some of them on instagram everything was fine then too, this one girl in the group was liking my pictures meaning everything was fine nothing was going on.
Then next school year came, and that same girl all of a sudden had a huge problem with me. Like suddenly she HATED me. Like she did not like me at all. My very presence bothered her so badly. I remember the first day of school I just assumed my spot in their friend group, so without saying anything or asking anyone, I just walked up to them and just stood there and started hanging out with them. And as soon as I did that this same girl everything was fine with before just was glaring at me, staring directly at me giving me dirty looks she was PISSED that I was there. I had no idea why she hated me all if a sudden since everything was fine before. This was on and off some days she would act like this other days she would be fine and act normal. No one else in the group had any problems with me or acted like they hated me or were bothered with me.
Then one day as I was walking over to them at lunch, I saw all of them got quiet and were just staring looking at me weird as I walked over. When I came up to them I was just like ‘why are you all looking me weird’ or something. And that same girl said ‘why do you hang out with us. Nobody likes you.’ ‘Don’t you have anyone else you can hang out with? Aren’t you friends with so and so why don’t you go hang out with them?’ In front of everyone while nobody said anything and just watched. And these two had this smirk on their face and were trying to hold back laughing. And I remember just being embarrassed and humiliated. And shocked like what the fuck?? How do they all actually feel this way towards me. Then that girl again was like UGH. HELLO. And was motioning shooing and was like GO, LEAVE. Then they all unfollowed me on Instagram and literally none of them ever spoke to me again and I was back to having no friends and being completely alone every day, no friends no boyfriend no one interested in me, no important high school experiences/ milestones were had.
I never understood why she did this or why they felt that way or did that or why that happened.
4 comments
One, I’m sorry this happened to you. I’ve had so many similar things happen to me I have C-PTSD and I’ve all but lost faith in humanity. Two, people are dog shit.
I have no idea why they would have done this, because I don’t really understand why people do a lot of the seemingly spontaneous and irrational things they do to begin with.
Maybe they weren’t happy with the group dynamic shift, so they were trying to restore the old status quo? People can be pretty fickle about those sorts of things.
Without knowing more, my best guess is that the girl who invited you to the friend group had some sort of hierarchical power struggle with someone else in the friend group, and that other friend used you to make fun of your friend and put her back in her place.
This is kinda what people in college/post-college mean when they refer to “high school drama.” It’s drama created by the fact that adolescent humans are thrust into hormones (which urge them to compete for social status) in a situation with no firmly-established social hierarchy. This makes everyone pretty cut-throat, and unfortunately the cruelty tends to run downhill onto people who did nothing to deserve it, like you. Everyone’s so terrified of losing social status that they will kick and punish whomever they think is threatening their position or dragging them down.
In other words, you were likely punished because someone else punished your friend or threatened to punish her.
I can relate to the feeling, OP. It’s taken me about ten years to get over some of that “high school drama.” It does go away, though, eventually. It goes away, of course, because other things, which establish the social hierarchy for the rest of your life–that is, money, education, career, land ownership… these things jump in and make a very firm social hierarchy that no amount of bullying or mean rumors can really affect. The good news is these hierarchies don’t tend to look very much like the social hierarchies in high school.
Ill tell you why. Because she is a c***. When you go back to your high school reunion you should try and embarrass her as revenge. That’s what I’d do.
As you get older you will start learning how to cope with not understanding why people do or act a certain way. The clear answer to you is to stop tormenting yourself about this, it was not your fault that they were mean to you. I understand it’s a traumatic event that have affected your social skills to this day, however you have to slowly let go. There is no way in earth to know why they acted this way towards you. From a behavioral perspective could of been; you become better looking than them over the summer, maybe you did summer activities and shared on insta and they were jealous of, maybe her crush once asked you for a pencil or helped you pick up your notebook or spoke to you a single word once, maybe it was a group thing for dominance, maybe that she had to prove to follow orders from the group leader and had to be a mean to you, maybe you look like her grandma was she was young and she hates her grandma, maybe all these reasons together. You see my point? It is impossible to ever know why they did this to you. I have wasted years thinking why people done things to me when from my pov I didn’t don anything to them, and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere but sad anxious and negative. It is a hard thing to let go, and has to be done slowly but we can do it. Best of luck!