16yo Daughter, friendship struggles

[MamaJR315]

My daughter is really struggling with her friends. They're smack bang in the middle of their GCSE's and her best (and pretty much only) friend, we will call her Anna, is just awful to her. Everything that happens in their friendship only happens if it suits or benefits Anna. My daughter broke up with her 1st boyfriend today, they'd only been together 8 weeks but she wasn't happy and was so grown up about the way she ended it. She tried to arrange to meet Anna tomorrow for a shoulder to cry on (she felt bad for upsetting him) only Anna can't meet her because she is meeting my daughters ex boyfriend (of 1 day!) and his mate!! My daughter feels so let down and really quite alone 😔 How do I get through to her that she needs a better friend? Or to at least be able to stand up for herself with Anna?

Wow that's pretty rubbish

At least she'll make new friends when she leaves school and moves on to whatever she has planned. Hopefully she not doing her A Levels at the school she's at already

Oh that's so rubbish. It sounds as though your DD is lovely and mature and "Anna", not so much.

Has she got another friend she could talk to today? A similar thing happened to me around the same age. I decided to ask another girl I was friendly with but not super close to go shopping with me and we've been best mates for the last 40 years. I'd encourage her to speak to other people.

What are her plans for the Summer and for September?

I’m really concerned about my 17yo daughter and her so called friendships. She has always struggled to find true friends and always seems to end up being left out of plans. After an awful experience with her ‘best friend’ in high school, who started constantly leaving her out and then literally just stopped talking to her overnight, I hoped things would get better when she moved to college and would find a larger circle of friends. She’s not the most confident and does seem to always want that ‘best friend’. She currently has a so called BF, but the girl only really seems to want her company when she’s needs a lift to college. Apart from that, the girl never asks her over or makes plans with her. Tonight, my daughter found out the circle of female friends she bothers with (inc the BF) were all out together and yet again she hadn’t been invited. They weren’t doing anything in particular, but she felt hurt and asked the BF why she hadn’t been included. The BF seems to have totally turned it around and had a go at my DD for making it a ‘controlling friendship’ and has told my DD she has to change. I don’t think my daughter feeling hurt by being left out is wrong, and I also don’t think saying so was wrong either, but she’s now ended up apologising because she said she’ll just be shut out of the friend group and will have no one. I really feel at a loss - I’ve told my DD to branch out her friendships many times to no avail. I genuinely don’t think she tries to ‘control’ friendships at all (if anything, I’d say she always just wants to be part of the crowd). The pattern of being left out of plans in these multiple friendships over the years though does worry me - why always her? I’m worried and have no clue what to do abt it all.