Coronavirus has made me realise how little people bother with me

[SallyNoMates]

Name changed for this

I am lying awake having a bit of a pity party, please pull up a chair and join this Sally No Mates.

The whole pandemic situation has highlighted how little I matter to others.

It dawned on me a few weeks back that it was always me getting in touch with others, so I left it to see what happened.
Nobody has texted , called or suggested a walk etc. Its been like this since March. Even the person I considered a close friend is clearly not interested.

I just feel like such a loser. Dh is going for a walk with his friend today and his phone is constantly pinging messages.

The thing is I have always got the friend thing wrong somehow. I moved alot as a child and went to numerous schools so never had longterm friendships until adulthood. But I just seem to get it wrong. I have been thinking about it for months and I feel like I do the right things;. I dont slag people off, I dont go on about stuff and stay in touch. Just try to be a good friend , but its rarely reciprocated.

Example, I have a small group of friends from uni I am the eldest by a few months.. My 40tb came and went , we all went for dinner to celebrate that I arranged but there was no additional effort made. 5 months later it was someone else's 40th and a whatsappgtpip was set up to organise a gift and night out.

I look back and it's always been like that. I am just never quite in the group. I always seem to be the one doing more for others.am I alone in this ?

It's like theres an invisible set of rules I dont know about.

The other example was a group we met when the DCs were tiny, there were 4 families and to start with it was good. But then a few of them became toxic , lots of backstabbing etc. DH and I stepped away a bit but stayed in touch.ijust didnt want to be sat listening to X slagging off Y or vice versa.. there was no drama or argument, we just didn't take part in the bitchfest and tried to be neutral when comments were made. Then I realised we were being squeezed out , no longer invited to events etc. Fast forward 15 years and they are all still friends , all over SM at parties etc. I dont get it because even now , if I were to bump into one of them the other would make a sly dig about the other even when they're all over FB hugging each other etc.

Every job I have been at I have felt the outsider. I leave and dont stay in touch like others seem to.

The common denominator is me, I know that.

Anyone other Sally No Mates out there ?

Oh yes I'm also a sally no mates.

During my school years I always seemed to drift among friendship groups. Then at college there was a group of 5 of us that traveled in the same car every day, the 4 of them still meet up and I was never invited.

After leaving jobs no one has ever made an effort to keep in touch with me so eventually I gave up too.

At 37 years old I can say I only have 1 friend, and I only met her 18mths ago on an app for new mothers.

It's something I'm very sad about.

Same! I've noticed it more since having DD. I don't always have time to text others but only now do I realise how little they message me. I have 2 friends who I can say don't fit into this category but they're the kind of long time friendships where you can do weeks without speaking then spend all day of the phone and it's like no time has passed. But tbh I find I'm an outsider even amongst my family, we've always been a close family but I'm the youngest (amongst the adults) and am still very much treated as the 'baby' and not included in things :/ IM 25!!!

I’m the same.
I had friends at high school. Some of them would go into town at the week but I was never invited. When I left school I never saw them again.
My ‘friends’ have always been the people I work with. When I’ve left a job I’ve left those friends behind too.
I don’t have anyone that I’d call a friend. No one to ask out for a coffee or call on if I needed help.
I’ve still got one DP, a DH and my children, but that’s it.

I think it’s more conman than you realise!

Whoops! Common

Same. I have one friend from school, we're no longer close but she is lovely. Aside from that there's my husband's friends and acquaintances from work or baby groups.

I did join a women's group of activists and we formed a small core group who are always talking. I would say we're friends but we don't meet up much.

I realise it sounds like I have lots of people and I'm so grateful for those I have, but there's no one I could just call to meet up for a coffee or a walk.
I too moved around lots as a child, but luckily am a bit of a homebody.

90% of my friendship relationship is on my effort. But the people I am friends with don’t have loads of others, I think I’m the most confident in pushing ahead with asking people out for a walk/talk etc. A casual observer might think I have lots of friends but truly I have no one I could turn to in that unconditional way some people do.

I am the same.

I think it is very hard to make friends in the adult world once you have left school or university. Everyone I know with best friends has had them since an early age. In adulthood you only really meet new people at work, and work friends are very rarely 'real' friends who you would talk to and meet outside of work.

I have lost touch with all my school friends because life happens. People move away, people change, people have different priorities. While it does seem nice in theory to have friends since you were 11, in reality I don't think I ever could have because I have changed so much.

I came to terms with the fact I'm friendless a long time ago and I don't really care anymore. I was always a bit of an introvert anyway.

I wonder whether there are fewer tight friend groups than we realise, but we notice them because they are 'loud' about it? As in, groups stick out more and post all over SM.

There's a bit of a type to those groups, I think, and I'm not that type. I actually think that the sniping is some kind of social oil and that if you don't do it, it makes people uncomfortable. Perhaps we seem inauthentic or something. Too self contained, perhaps?

I don't know. I miss it sometimes.

Same! I feel like I have been used as a free counsellor for the last few years by some people.

Yeah I find that people are sometimes a little bit lazy and will rely on others to make the effort. I feel really out of it at work - I always ask after their children but they never ask about my life. They organise fundraising things and never ask me to participate. I don’t watch the programmes they watch but I just can’t bring myself to do things just to fit in. I have mum friends but during lockdown I’ve had to initiate all the contact. Same with family, before lockdown it was always me trying to get the kids together on school holidays, if I didn’t it wouldn’t happen. I wrote Christmas cards yesterday knowing that I’ll get very few back. I have a very low self esteem and find myself assuming that people tolerate me rather than like me. I’m not a very practical person and I always have brain fog and get things wrong so I am a bit useless generally and being nice and kind is how I get a bit of self value. When it’s not reciprocated it’s tough. You’re not alone op - it sounds like you would have to be fake to fit in with some of these people, maybe it’s better to be true to yourself and eventually you will meet like minded people. You do have to put yourself out there and it’s harder when you’re an adult. Be kind to yourself first.

I guess I look at things differently. Yes it is often me suggesting things, but I enjoy meeting others, they seem to be happy to meet up. At the end of the day we all have busy lives but it is nice for other people to feel they are valued too. When I had a major health issue people all rallied around to help me and my family. If I had stopped arranging things a few years earlier then they might not have done. I have found that I am better 121 than in a group, so I concentrate on that now. I guess it depends if you feel you are missing out by not arranging and seeing people.

Yes I am the same. I drifted through friendship groups at school and have never really had a close friend as an adult.

By that token ive had 2 of my children diagnosed as ASD and a third one is also possibly on the spectrum- I took a long hard look at myself and came to the conclusion I know where they get it from . I suspect I have Aspergers and this is why I struggle. Funnily enough after coming to this conclusion it has worried me less and I’m like well you’ll just have to embrace my weird and if you can’t-well at least my DH loves me

This. I don't have the money to socialise so I'm a persona non grata.

I think this year has made me realise how little I actually do to stay in contact with others to be honest.

I haven't talked to my brother for a good 4 months (before that would, it would have been Christmas 2019), but to be honest, I've got very little to say to him. My relationship with him is more of tolerance than anything else. No idea what way he sees it. Next time I'll have any contact will be Christmas Day.

During this last lockdown, I've spoken to my parents twice on the phone and that's it. I'm going to see them today, but after that, won't for 2 weeks at least.

I've never kept in touch with people from previous jobs, but thats through choice. I keep work and my private life completely separate and never in 30 odd years have mixed the two.

I am the same. I do have some individual friends where i make more effort than them but they do make a little bit.

I have never succesfully been part of a group. I dont even get the impression people dont like me. Just i dont bring anything to a group dynamic. There is one group where i see each member individually but they dont invite me on the nights out or to book club.
I also wondered about aspergers. Is there something i am missing about how a grouo works.

I dont have any proper friends either.
I have on person I keep in touch with over WhatsApp. We talk 2 or 3 times a year but they live abroad and I haven't seen them for over 3 years and am not sure if we will meet again.
Apart from this I just have my siblings.
Luckily we are close. They are my main social contacts. Without them I would be isolated.

Hi OP,

You sound like a lovely person. You wouldn't want to be in that bitchy tight knit circle. You have different values from them.

One thing I wonder though is, are you always on best behaviour with friends - being careful and nice - never dropping your guard? Because people who are always impeccably behaved can make others feel a bit uneasy, as though they are being shown up. Or, as if the super-polite person doesn't trust the group enough to relax and be herself. Or as if the real person beneath is an unknown quantity, which can be quite unnerving. It's easy to cope with people who are easy to categorise: she the bitchy gossip, she's the boozy one, she's the bossy Alpha female. People know where they are with that.

That's not a criticism of you at all, just a social observation. Maybe they didn't sort out something for your birthday because they don't have n instinctive sense of who you really are.

My lovely DS has struggled to make friends at uni. He is funny, kind, intelligent, loyal, very interested in all sorts of things. But he tries too hard. he's so focused on trying to make others like him that he puts them off. I think people start feeling that they are being interviewed for the position of Important Friend In My Life. He places too much value on very casual exchanges. I've done the same in the past, often, when I've felt lonely. And I've also been on the receiving end of it and felt unnerved by it.

It sounds silly and a cliche, but I found my friends when I absolutely stopped caring whether other people liked me or sought me out. Had a very quiet year with almost no social interaction, and then people started crawling back out of the woodwork saying: How are you? I miss you. And these people gradually became my friends. Don't see any of them very regularly - maybe once a month at most. But there's enough of them for me to have a couple of lockdown walks a week, the occasional coffee, lunch or drink between lockdowns and that's all I want these days.

My idea of hell is that social group you describe. I extricated myself from a similar group and they are still backstabbing and partying away. It's just a different way of interacting socially, They instinctively knew you judged them for it so excluded you.

That "feeling like there is an invisible set of rules" is very common with neurodiversity such as ADHD or ASD as a few people have mentioned.

But it could also just be what Labobo said ie they enjoy interacting that way and don't like that you don't engage in it. Some people see backstabbing as a natural/enjoyable form of venting, and not actually incongruent with being friendly towards the same people.

Same, over lockdown no one messaged to see how i was unless i text them first. Cant remember the last time i was invited for coffee/walk, ive got a couple of people who would go if i asked but its one sided

I’m the same - moved around. Friends just sort of fade out gradually when I’m not interacting with them loads. Example Nct group lovely lovely people but of course as our kids started school and others had more we all drifted a bit but some people just manage to stay in touch. I don’t want to be a clingy friend - so I’m out of sight out of mind. I miss people and lockdown makes it clear that they don’t really miss me.

Me too. Only my DP would notice if I wasn't here (and I think he'd be over it pretty quickly tbh ). I knew this before Covid though . Nobody ever bothers with me unless I get in touch with them first and even then I barely get an acknowledgement rather than any real engagement.

Op

I have a very low self esteem and find myself assuming that people tolerate me rather than like me.

I think this is a common denominator for a lot of people who struggle to make friends and keep up friendships. My lovely SIL is exactly like this. And she attracts crappy friends because of it. She doesn’t feel like she deserves to be prioritised in anyone’s life, so she isn’t. And she comes across as a martyr, when she really isn’t. I try not to get impatient with her cringing because I know where it comes from, but it’s hard.

In the kindest way, your whole post is about how other people don’t include you in their lives. How about turning it round and thinking about how you could include them in your life? I know this is very hard in lockdowns etc. But in normal times, I have lots of friends and different friendship groups. I put a lot of time and effort into supporting my friends, and keeping in touch, and I organise stuff - 121 meets and bigger events. I welcome people into my home, and - crucially - I assume that my friends actively want to hear from me, to spend time with me, to be part of my life. Otherwise they wouldn’t be my friends? If I get a vibe that they don’t prioritise me in that way then I let them go their own way, quite happily. There’s a world full of people to be friends with. My mum is exactly the same - sociable, willing to open up, generous, an organiser etc.

But feeling good about yourself is the first step, believing that you are important too. And that’s not easy if you’ve grown up being taught / believing otherwise. Getting older and giving less of a crap does help!

I am the same and I have recently started to wonder if I am autistic.