Did anyone else have NO friends at school?

[BownnTown]

Just reminiscing - at primary school I had one friend who ended up moving away. After that I had no friends at all.
Secondsry school - I had one friend in the first year who ended up making other friends and suddenly we were not friends anymore. I did manage to make another friend but this one ended after a few months too.

I moved school in 2nd year and made one friend - this one lasted a couple of months but they started avoiding me. I managed to make a different friend and this one lasted a year or so but she ended up getting closer to other people and again started avoiding me.

In the final year I had NO friends at all, nobody spoke to me and if they saw me in the street they would look away. I didn’t go to the end of school disco for obvious reasons! In fact I pretty much stopped going to school at all.

Reason I’m thinking about it now - I’m an artist and someone from secondary school has messaged me asking to commission a portrait. She’s acting like we were friends - she never spoke to me at school!

its weird, I wasn’t bullied at all, just disliked I guess.

Anyone else go through school like this?

I had plenty of friends in primary and uni but secondary school was a very lonely time for me. I remain scarred by it. It was entirely the wrong school for me. I get it.

I had people I would sit with at lunch but I wouldn’t say they were really my friends at all.. I was just there.

They were all close but I was always on the outskirts. Some people never spoke to me at all. They would all see each other outside of school and I wouldn’t be invited.

I never spoke to them again once I left.

I didn't really have any friends at school. I wasn't bullied either and I don't know if I was particularly disliked, I just don't think I was on most people's radar. I was quiet, did a lot of music stuff, hung around in the music room and was quite alternative. I didn't go to the end of school dance either.

A couple of the boys and I started a band in the 6th form but we weren't 'friends'. I'm not in touch with anyone from school.

But when I had my daughter, the midwife doing morning rounds was a girl I'd never spoken to in the whole time at secondary yet she came in, smiled and said, "It is you! I saw your name on the list and wondered if it would be."

We had a chat. We'd left school 13 years previously at that point. It didn't matter whether we had been friends or not or whether we'd ever spoken or not. We had the 'we went to school together' connection.

I'd imagine it was the same for the person who contacted you.

Yes. I was not bullied or despised. I just wasn’t popular. No one paid me any attention.

A girl asked me to go clubbing during the Easter holidays when we were in sixth form and I was pleased, until it became clear that it was because all her mates were away on holiday or with their boyfriends - there was a guy she was hoping to bump into at the club, so she didn’t want to stay home.

As it happens she did me a favour because I met a guy at the club and started dating him. I made friends through him then. He and I finished after a year but 35 years later I still have the friends! I see the girl I went clubbing with a few times a year too - we ended up getting on well and we stayed in touch after school. The boy she was hoping to see that night never appeared at the club, though!

I definitely didn’t really have any friends in primary school. Secondary school I occasionally had a friend but they’d drift away. I then had “friends” who weren’t really friends and just bullied me. Towards the very end I did kind of loosely have some “friends” but mainly I was just bullied badly throughout secondary school.

The memories are what I struggle with now as an adult sometimes, feeling sorry for my awkward and weird younger self. I do struggle to make friends as an adult I’m quite socially awkward. I don’t mind my own company and quite independent compared to the friends I do have though.

I didn't really. Only acquaintances

This feels like a sad thread, but I think about the people I hung around with and really, they weren’t friends. I grew into myself, and have lots of friends now, but it took a long time. Finding friends can be quite hard.

I didn't either. Plus I was bullied. I just used to sit in on a bench by myself at break times.

I had a lot of counselling as an adult as it really affected me. It doesn't now.

Not so many on uni
Secondary school was fine but they lived one end of the Borough and me the other and the 5th year were all went out separate ways (long before SM)

I had a few brave acquaintances who didn't seem too embarrassed to be seen with someone who had a glaring (genetic) facial difference that couldn't be hidden from the rest of the world. Perhaps they could see beyond my appearance and realised that there was more to my personality. I got bullied a lot, moved schools regularly, and it's hard to fit in and make friends with people who've known each other since nursery... especially when you're the new girl who looked 'gross'. Anyway, we all grew up and went our separate ways.

I was a weird, introverted kid who found it hard to fit in and conform, so I'm hardly going to start now that I'm (probably) a weird adult 😆

I didn’t. One friend at primary school and 2 neighbours I played with a lot. One friend at secondary. I didn’t go to uni and had acquaintances at work but no actual friends.

I didn’t really make friends till I had DC. Once I was divorced I started to make ‘real’ friends in my mid-40s. Since then (now mid 60s) I’ve built up a wonderful group of friends. I missed a lot of school due to illness (turned out I had a genetic condition ) so I don’t think that helped as a child. Plus I loathed the things my peers were into at secondary and at work - pubs, clubs, sports etc.

I had people I hung around with from my class - they weren't overly nice. I joined a youth group at 13 and made best friends there as no drama or bitchiness. I kept school ones as purely surface friends, even started going home for lunch from 3rd year (as amazing mum fought the principal). Looking back I just didn't cope well in the noise and bustle outside of class so going home for lunch let me reset.
I was bullied horrible for 4 years by a girl who destroyed many of my possessions and my 'friends' turned a blind eye

I was bullied at both primary and secondary school. Had no real friends. Hid in the toilets at break times. Stuck with me for years.

Now in my 40s, friends have come & gone but I admit I have none now. I think I find making them easy but maintaining them hard. I wonder if I missed some social skills at school.

I have made my peace with it, I have my family & dog for company & that’s ok with me. I think that comes with age a little.

I would say you were bullied. It's how girls bully other girls - by excluding. I had similar in the earlier years of secondary school and honestly find it painful more than 20 years later.

I didn't really have any friends. Mostly on my own. Somep people could be awful, others wouldn't have noticed if I was there or not.
I detest those 'best school memory' things as I don't recall ever having a particularly good time at school - I was also an early developer and middle school was hell as the boys wouldn't leave me alone, I was constantly touched up etc. There was no other school I could have gone to either.
High school was slightly better and at least there was no prom as I wouldn't have had anyone to go with.
I made damned sure my daughter went to an all girls high school!

I had friends in primary school and when I started secondary school my mum had an affair with one of there dads and that was that.. She was very popular and everyone grouped with her. I went to zero discos and spent my lunch break in the toilets hiding.
I don’t blame her, she was just a kid but it’s one of the many reasons I am no contact with my mum.
The girl messaged me on Facebook years ago and apologised and said she’d carried a lot of guilt about what happened which was nice of her considering it had been 19 years since we’d left school.
My own kids are in there twenties now but I was really big on teaching them that at school if you see someone being left out to try and be friendly and include them.

Definitely was not popular. Bullied and mocked at times. Tried desperately to fit in. Changed the trajectory of my life I think. Left me with very poor self worth and low self esteem. I made some terrible choices in my teens as a result. I could never speak about this in real life, I'd find it too upsetting.

Friendships weren't allowed and I was totally aware of the rules.
I was expected to keep my own company at school and after school expected to take myself back to a communal area and wait for adult return for access many hours later, without attracting attention to myself.
A kind friendly girl in primary offered me friendship and I secretly accepted.
I got to go back to her home, which resulted in her expecting and pressurizing to come back to mine.
I couldn't have shown her round the squalor hoard I lived in even if I'd been able to get in, so panicking eventually cleaned up an almost empty room in the basement the cat lived in instead, and naively invited her there to play.
I didn't mean to upset her, I was just in danger of losing her friendship for not reciprocating,
The absolute hell that erupted from that after she told her mother, meant other than when demanded to by bullies, I put my head down and ensured my own shunning by never even speaking to anyone else for the rest of my time at school.

It was hammered home that I absolutely didn't have any right to.

But a childhood spent silently observing brought me to art too.

That is desperately sad, @Elleherd.

I had a couple of friends at primary but I think I was tolerated - not a full friend. Ditto at secondary. Two friends from primary were in a different class and largely dropped me (inevitably) and the one who was in my class found others more appealing and also dropped me.

We too had a horrible unmodernised house and an outdoor loo and no bathroom. If it had been in London it would have been pulled down! So I cannot say I have many school friends now. I have one. She was in the other class but we reconnected through going to a music venue.

I’ve learnt that friends come and go mostly. The true friends I have extend invites to me and DH and we reciprocate - even if they have moved away. We now don’t crave friends and realise who true friends are. DH has no school friends but a couple from university times. Like many men, he’s not very bothered about friends. More acquaintences to play golf with. He has a few via work though and again, we see them regularly but we are not close to them.

I was fine at primary and for the first couple of years of secondary but my friends ended up becoming frenemies of sorts….usual teenage bitchy girl drama but I always ended up being left out or ostracised in some way. I absolutely hated my final 2 years at secondary and couldn’t wait to leave.

I also struggled with keeping friends, although I never fell out with anyone- they just found people they preferred to me. Secondary school was a lonely time for me, in particular a couple of years at 13 and 15.

I can make social relationships easily and have some lovely friends now, but equally I have also lost friends I thought were friends for life- both through just a gradual loss of communication, living far away, and also more abrupt ruptures which I still don’t understand (again, no failings-out).

I am definitely anxious about how I handle these friendships now, and get worried about things I say or about not hearing from someone.

Noting I'm /probably/ ND, I had friends in primary and this all dissolved in secondary. At secondary I had fickle frenemies but no one I'd stayed in touch with. I'm utterly terrible with friendships now too. They take an effort i just don't have the energy for, awful as that is to say.

PS & SS yes, because I was shy and didn't have the same interests as most kids, or because I was not taken notice of in general. There's also the children "collecting" the high-value friends, and I wasn't one of them. Things slightly improved in University.

I'm now in a job where I know I lot of people's faces but am not close with any of them, and I struggle to make friends outside of work. Thankfully I find things to do on my own and I find happiness in them.

I had friends in primary. I got bullied a bit in secondary and then I cracked the bully on the nose. In 6th form I had loads of friends (still see a few)

Made lots of lovely friends at uni. Going to a birthday party today.