Very sad - most significant friends have ignored me for 10 years - not invited to big life events for them - no-one to invite to mine :(

[Missingfriendsandsad]

I have just realised, in a wave of nostalgia, that I am really missing friends I had at uni. Searching for their names found a load of photos of them at parties together - some 40ths, some weddings etc. I am gutted, really sad - they all seem to have kept in such good contact with other and totally excluded me - even though I really considered myself close to them in so many ways. It is even such that some of the people who weren't really in the main close circle around me, have been invited to these events - no one has searched me out, no one seems to even care - its like I died, but no-one noticed.

Its really sad because looking at the pictures of them I feel like I want to hug them all, I love them so much, but now, after thinking about it, I realise how stupid and wasted that love is because its obviously not reciprocated.

What is worse is that all the people from this groups that I had 'things' with are also missing - its as if we are a sad tainted jinxed version and it makes me really sad - some of my pals have had kids with each other and I didn't even know :( I feel so lost that I have been abandoned in this way and I really don't know what to do - I never thought people I would feel so strongly for could not feel the same for me but I know they don't. How do I deal with this?

pmsl

If I am to blame that just makes me feel worse and even less like resolving it

Well if you don't want to help yourself, who else do you expect to do it?

can't anybody be a bit angry with me for being treated badly?

You haven't been treated badly. You haven't bothered with these people in 10, maybe 20 years. Yet you are angry with them for the same thing. Double standards.

Are we supposed to suck up every poor treatement and blame it on ourselves?

I don't see any poor treatment. I see that you have neglected your friendships but are now getting angry with the world because you perceive they have neglected you.

It was still awful to see all my friends enjoying good times together without me hwoever much I, jesus, the sun allah, my friends, whatever are to blame - it made me feel awfully sad.

So aknowledge the feeling and realise you can change and maybe this will result in a better outcome in future. You can't control others, only yourself. If you want friends you have to be a giver and a listener. You can't just make it all about yourself. Having friends is difficult. You can't take everything so personally. You can't be bitter and accusing and self-pitying. You need to think not what your friends can do for YOU but what you can do for them.

I suggest you try to reason with yourself. See things from other's points of view. Think about the types of people you find pleasant and attractive to hang out with. Are they bitter? Are they self pitying? Do they blame everyone else for their own failings? Observe the good and bad qualities people have, observe the lonely people and observe the popular people. You will soon see, people with friends work hard to keep in touch and are fun and kind. Try to emulate these qualities.

oh no another one - now I have found out that some of the least interesting people have done interesting things and live in interesting countries and I have rotted in a small town.. what can I do yo get out of this? I think I need to try to remember who I was when I was freinds with them - I have totally forgotten all my ambitions and half my personality. ..

You need help.

It is not normal to miss people you partied with 20 years ago, and to say you "love" them after not having been in touch for 20 years, or even call them "friends" after spending 3-4 times as long time apart as you spent together.

You sound really sad. I suggest you book yourself an appointment with your GP to talk this through. Or call the Samaritans. It sounds like you need a listening ear beyond anything that Mumsnet can offer.

Aaaaaaaaargh.

So are these friends from University, or from School?

I never say let's go to Bristol and stay over, or let's go to a Show.

Come round for coffee, or bring the dog and we will go for a walk, are about the most exciting invitations I give out these days.

You clearly do not like yourself. You have to like yourself before others will like you.

This gets better. Cant believe anyone thinks its serious and is offering advice....

huh? I quite often go to stay over in a town on my own because no-one I know likes to be that adventurous.. and I don't even think its adventurous.

You are avoiding ALL responsibility for your own predicament. For what it's worth, I too have lost all my friends following a severe reversal of fortunes. Unlike you, I've made tenative contact with my old friends via Facebook (which is a godsend to me, not a force for evil) and am setting about he slow process of rebuilding any relationships that still have life in them. This makes me happy, not resentful.

It's nobody's fault but your own. You can fix it if you want to - and, if you try, you will get support here. Alternatively, you might prefer to sit there and whine. It's your choice.

why are you laughing at me folloyfoot? Its quite cruel to do that, I feel miserable since I found out about this.

When you say King's Road above where you work, do you mean the really quite famous King's Road, in that fucking huge metropolis of London?

I know, follyfoot

I think OP claims to live in Reading, a big town, very close to one of the biggest cities in the world. At first, I thought she might live in a remote part of Wales

You go and stay over by yourself, but can't afford to do it with friends?

How is Reading convenient for Chelsea? You come in at Paddington, don't you? I wouldn't call half an hour on the District Line convenient.

Well, if you were anything like this at Uni, I'd say they want nothing more to do with your self absorbed, self loathing, depressing personality.

Look, of course it hurts to see all these people apparantly having the time of their lives, when your is found wanting. But the way to solve that is make more of your own life. Getting in touch with them on FB alone won't improve your life. You moan about being poor, living in Reading, festering away. Well, change that. What good did your degree do, if all you can do is rot away in a little flat in the Kings Road/villiage in the middle of nowhere?

If you are for real, you have two choices. Accept that actually, you have caused a percentage of your own happiness by being a self-obsessed whinyarse and work out, probably with professional help, ways of changing that.
Or carry on whining and not having any friends. Because people who bleat and whine and expect everyone to look after them go through friends pretty quickly: the only people who don't run out of patience with someone who never stops moaning and sulking and blaming everyone else, are seriously nasty people who will get off on messing with your head even more.

Phew - nearly time for

BTW does anyone remember a thread from a while back: the OP had hunted down some people on FB who had been unpleasant to her in her student days and sent them ranting emails demanding apologies for their past behaviour. It then emerged that while they had been unpleasant to her, she hadn't been all that nice either but everything wrong in her life was always meone else's fault...

noooo I work in Reading too .. sorry I forgot how London people think... King's Road is where a lot of offices are and main bus routes..

These friends really need to up their facebook security settings.

So, OP, you live very close to some of your ex-friends then, assuming some of them are in London. Why not contact them?

So you live in Reading? Hardly rotting away in some small town.

I think you should get some sleep to be honest.

Stalking people on FB at 3am can be very tiring.

Can't understand for the life of me why you are feeling so miffed - you don't appear to have made any effort yourself. Should they all be running after you?

I KNOW that is why its is so awful that they are all partying in London and ignoring me totally. to tell you the truth I was working up to it to invite them to a significant '0' birthday, which I thought would have been joyous, but I now feel like I am going to be the weird invite from someone no-one wants to talk to- its been an awful shock to realise that might be the case :(