To think it must be my daughter's fault that she has no friends

[persianpeach]

I have a 20 year old daughter and a 10 year old daughter (I also have two sons but this hasn't happened to them).

Since middle school both of my daughter's have struggled with friendships, this I know is normal to some degree but I'm really starting to believe that it must be my daughter's faults or the way I have brought my daughter's up that has caused this problem. I feel absolutely gutted for them.

They are alike in the respect that they are both lovely girls, mature, kind, good morals, witty, funny, genuine, honest and maybe a little shy. I would have thought that these were great qualities for someone to want in a friend but not so.

They can't seem to keep friends and friendships that start really well seem to end abruptly with no explanation and they are then outcast and totally ignored like they don't exist.

This is making me so sad. We invite girls over for play dates, days out and occasional sleepovers but still this happens.
I'm starting to think I must have raised them in a way that makes them seem unattractive to friends but I just can't figure out why.

My 20 year old daughter still suffers now not having girls to hang out with or holiday with and what's so awful is I can see this pattern repeating itself in my 10 year old daughter.

Has anyone else experienced similar, if we knew what was going wrong we could try and put it right but we are clueless. I'm wondering if they are socially inept, if they have some sort of undiagnosed autism or similar. My eldest has had counselling but they couldn't see why she would have a problem and thought it was just a self esteem issue.

They are lovely girls I just can't see why this is happening but it's heartbreaking please help. I don't think I can go through it all again.

When you say cast off... who is doing the casting off? Your daughters or the friends?

My DD Can be a bit like this insofar as she easily makes friends and then sheds them very rapidly. She is very intolerant, I'm trying to encourage forgiveness and tolerance but it doesn't come easy....

How many female friends do you have OP? Your children will learn by example.

I must admit I tend to have transient friendships and it does suit me. Especially since having children. My mum was the same and I probably did pick up the habit from her.

Male friendships are completely different to female ones.

We all have loads of mates, male and female if we followed the male pattern.

You are being unfair. There's loads of pressures of young Women and the result is more isolation.

A lot of people's friendships are real and this is what adding to the drop in mental health and the rise in anxiety in young Women.

You can only encourage them to get involved in anything they've got a real interest in. Hopefully they'll find friends.

How well were they/are they socialised?
How do you socialise?
What do their teachers say about it?
Have you observed them playing with others?
How do they get on with their brothers?
Can you expand on the ‘outcast’ comment?

My son has this problem and cries daily that he is lonely (only child) but he is autistic and doesn't quite have the social skills or empathy. It's completely heartbreaking and is making me a bit depressed tbh. I feel for you OP.

Both my sister and I struggled in highschool, girls (including us) were horrid at that age. In uni women can revert to the same bitchiness. It's not their fault unless they are bitchy or cruel or make no effort. Support them and hopefully in adulthood they will fond like minds.

Learning to make friends and keep friendships is a real skill. I always say to my children, who have had their ups and downs and felt unpopular at times, that you only need one good friend to be a winner in this game. You don't need to be super-popular, be on Insta all the time, in with a big group who then inevitably fall out or exclude you or someone else for some unknown reason.

Aim fairly modestly, and spend time with one or two people you really like and who really like you, and it all becomes a lot easier. You can encourage this skill- especially in your younger dd and don't get swept up in worrying about having lots of friends, or being very popular, but encourage them to make interesting connections with people they like, and be a good friend to them, unless they see signs of bad friendship in the other person and move on.

It's definitely the friends that do the casting off. They seem to attract friends really easily at the start but then lose them just as quickly without any reason that we can identify. They have just been their usual nice self and everything's fine one minute then the next it's all off.

My 20 year old daughter has had awful bullying at school and currently at university for doing absolutely nothing wrong, it's almost like her face doesn't fit or her personality doesn't and we just can't work out why. She asks why do people hate me so much? I can't give her an answer, I don't have one neither did the teachers or lecturers or counsellor.

I can't help but think she must come across in an aloof or superior way without meaning to? She's a very self reliant brave individual which is just as well with the amount of rubbish she's had to put up with over the years.

She is quite principled because I have brought her up with good values, but shouldn't that be a plus?

Eldest DD struggled with friends when she was at school. I think she was very poor at social cues. She still is! But she has a few close friends she made at Uni and 3 close friends she made in her first job. She's 48 now and goes to various groups like book club and Spanish group.
Youngest DD was fairly quiet at school but confident and has always had lots of friends and a great social life. It's just the way she is.
DS was always very popular at school but makes no effort to keep in touch with friends and they have to do all the running.
Three very different DC but all brought up by me so I think it's nature rather than nurture.

neither did the teachers or lecturers or counsellor.

She asked her lecturer why women don't like her?

Does she have male friends? I had more male than female as a teenager. More female later. I was loud and nerdy. Worked for boys not girls.

The girl with the curly hair...might be worth a read.see if it fits x

Are they part of any clubs / sports / hobbies / volunteering - where they could focus their social efforts - much easier to have something to actually do and talk about (passionately) in common rather than banal small talk ?

I suppose I am quite choosy about friends but have a good selection of around 4 friendship groups I go out socially with every few months and two best friends that I see individually every few months. I'm a very warm person and find it fairly easy to make and keep friends. My husband has definitely struggled a little over the years and there is autism/Aspergers in his side of the family (His Mum and his brother and our niece) so could this be a result of our daughter's being on the spectrum?

I would be able to cope with it much better if it didn't upset them so much but they keep coming to me and asking why. It's awful to see them so sad.

Yes MrsTP my daughter asked her teacher/lecturer as this has caused issues of bullying at school and university that were affecting her studies and attendance and she wondered if the perpetrator had mentioned what she could have done wrong.

What do you mean by principled and good values - can you give examples? Are there certain things that she doesn't agree with that could cause a problem?

Is she on the spectrum or are you wondering whether she is?

My best friend seems to have this issue (with others, clearly). I can’t for the life of me see what she’s doing wrong but it’s hard to know details as we went to different unis.

I did spend a chunk of time with her recently and noticed two things, firstly she can come across as a bit try-hard/desperate, and secondly she misses social cues.

To elaborate, for example she always apologises for not replying immediately to messages (to the point where it’s a bit irritating). Always super-thoughtful remembering throwaway comments I’ve made, excessive gifting etc. Probably to her family it seems kind but it can be a bit overwhelming. I’m genuinely concerned about when she gets married/has children because I’ve no idea how to reciprocate her enthusiasm! And to the second point, she seems to think people are her friends when she’s met them once or they have a professional relationship. I think these things can drive people away, a case of “too much, too soon”.

Could it maybe be something like that? Your DDs need to be a bit more aloof? Sorry you and they are going through this, it sucks.

I was wondering about the 'moral and principled' thing too. In what way?

For me I found that my friendships until my mid twenties was mainly male based. At school and further education people like me tend to conform so it’s hard to find each other. Now as an adult I do not have a huge amount of friendships but I have found my tribe. Looking back I can see why for my peer group I was boring, I just did not have the same interests. I also began the belief that I would be cast aside so never gave enough, the circle completed itself.

I’m so sorry your girls are having a hard time with friendships. I just wanted to say when I turned 30 I moved to a completely new place and found my tribe. Prior to that my friendships were very fluid. I’d never met such nice people before and made lasting friendships (it’s now 10 years later). I hope the same thing happens to them. I’m sure there is nothing wrong with them. If anything, I’d encourage them to focus on their own goals and interests and assume friendships will come when they are at their happiest in other areas.

Watch this video on female Aspergers from a specialist in this area and see if it fits.

Is she at a big university or a smaller place?

I struggled to maintain friendships, but I just wasn't (and still am not) very interested in other people and activities that don't involve reading.

Now that I figured out that if a friend asks if I want to do X activity, just saying no loses me friends, and saying "No, but I would like to do Y" or giving a good excuse helps keep friends, I am a bit better at keeping friends.

Are your daughters socially clueless, like I was?

Or are they possibly ... feminists? That's not fashionable nowadays.

Being a feminist caused me to lose quite a few pseudo-friends I had made over the internet, but they weren't real friends so I don't care.

Do the friendships fade out slowly, or is the end rather abrupt?

How do your daughters interacts with the friends they have?

The problem sorted itself out for me over time, as I acquired more friends. Still don't have many, but I am content.

Having read the thread and having a DD on the spectrum I was wondering if they were too.

They aren't needy. They do not overwhelm people, they are the same as everyone else in the levels of attention they give to friends.

They do however seem more moralistic maybe for their age and I suppose and have a strong sense of right and wrong.

They both hate bitchiness and two faced people and will avoid these people once they have found them to be like this (but this seems to be the norm at that age which makes it so hard).

My eldest has never tried smoking or taking drugs and she can't and never could understand why teenagers hate their parents and says that she's never felt that way about us and just kept quiet when other powers slagging their parents off.

It's almost like they are too mature and sensible for their years. Maybe it's my fault for investing so much time in trying to raise them the right way. I feel like I have done them a disservice.