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?

One more time before hiding thread :

ARE YOU GOING TO SEND THEM FRIEND REQUESTS ON FACEBOOK AND RECONNECT OR CARRY ON MOANING THAT THEY DON'T CONTACT YOU?

was i up till 3am? I have hardly been out today either - perhaps you have a point, it is sunny after all...

WELL?

what are you shouting at/for? I don't know yet - I still feel shocked and hurt.

reading is a small town isn't it? It feels small to me, nothing goes on here (like I say apart from the festival)...

If someone I hadn't seen for 20 years invited me to their 40th I'd send a polite "nice to hear from you, but I'm busy that night".

I really think you should move on. 20 years is a LONG TIME!

Why have you not stayed in touch with your friends?
What has happened in your life that you suddenly look them up now?

btw on a slightly different topic - is it stalker-y or just sort of sensible whistful natural curiosity to want to go and see an ex's house that you never saw when you were going out with them? I am listening to 'miss you' by Everything But The Girl and I really feel like going to see an ex's house - I would be mortified if anyone knew, but I would like to do this...

Right, that's it, you've had some fun. Haven't you got something better to do?

why is everyone saying 20 years, its only 10, maybe 12

Yes time to hide thread.
You had us all going for a while there. EXcellent.

To be honest, I think you've done quite well. It does take some intelligence to keep the suspense up when you're trolling.

I feel like looking them up now because I have just decided that all the effort I am making to try and make some money is doing nothing and getting me nowhere - I wanted to focus, get a good job and some money and then be comfortable enough to be nice to my old friends, but I just decided that was never going to happen and that all my ambitions were just stupid fantasies and this 'one life' has been a waste of time - then I thought that the last time I didn't feel like that was with my old friends who made me feel ambitious, like life had a future and that better things were ahead, so I go and look them up and its like going round someone's house to wonder if they are alright, to find everyone except you at a big friendly dinner party

why are you all going on about trolling - this is a serious issue for me and one that has hung over me for the last few years, wondering if I ought to make moves with old friends, but then realising that they maybe didn't want to.... they were a significant part of my life and then sort of all 'died' and I am sure it has affected the way i feel about life, and myself.

and I was just looking up an ex's house on google maps and getting some old feelings back - why did that all make you go 'troll!'.. :(

Because you've stretched credulity one too many times.

People have given you good advice along the lines of make contact or forget them, think more positively, and all you've done is whine.

Then you got caught on the fact you lived in a small town and a large city, which was far from your friends even though you live in Reading.

And then you bring in another silly thing - is it stalkerish to turn up at an exes house?

Ridiculous

I didn't say turn up at ex's house I meant go to see it, just out of curiosity.

Well, if they're having 40th birthdays, and they're you're university friends, then it must be twenty years ago, no?

What you're missing - if this isn't a wind-up - isn't your friends, but yourself, aged 20, and all the possibilities you thought were ahead of you. I can sympathise because I found my own post-college diaries recently, and was whingeing on then about friends leaving me behind because I was earning less and didn't work in the same sort of environment as them. It wasn't a nice feeling. But at the same time, I'd forgotten how miserable it was to be 21 too, all the panic and doubt and fear that goes with it.

In your imagination, your friends are enjoying the same carefree, party-going student lives they had at uni but transplanted to London. They're not. Those dinner parties will largely be get-togethers on a strict babysitter-dependant rota to agonise about mortgages, ailing parents and voluntary redundancies. And in the case of the men, whether to bother with Rogaine or just shave their heads now.

Meeting up with them again, and having them fling their arms round you and sob that they've missed you all these years will not make you happier about yourself. It would probably just make you hate them even more for being hypocritical. This is really about you, where you are in your life (you're far too young for this sort of 'it's all over' gloomery) and for that you need some proper, logical CBT style help.

Some people need to not torture themselves with Facebook. You're one of them. You sound depressed to me, and I agree with a poster above that there's something bigger going on here that's leading you to reminisce and obsess over Facebook.

your friends, obv.

Oh OP

Anyway. I think it's madness that all of these friends have their privacy set so low that you can look at all their shit. That is quite simply...breathtaking.

you are depressed

you need help

you are taking EVERY little thing personally because if this.

you remind ne of an ex that i had uni who suffered with depression. When he was having a bad patch he would bombard me with tearfull calls & texts, When he finally got help, he was told that his fixation with me wasnt actually with "me" but when you are in state of depression, your mind takes you back to a time in your life when you were happier. He had a complicated family life but things were quite settled for him at that time.

Your uni days were a time of hopes & dreams for the future it is also the last time in our lives that we are surrounded with so many people of the same age & aspirations. So your mind is taking you back there.

Go & see your GP

and there is nothing wrong with being poor! we will always be poor, but would rather my family is healthy than rich!

I live near Reading in a teeny tiny village (if Reading really is a 'small town'). It does have a King's Rd. It is on the one way system in the town centre. Not really a destination place but some nice old period buildings around. Certainly not akin to it's namesake in London.

Can't comment on losing friends. I've lost more friends over the years than I have currently! It doesn't bother me as the friends I have now are right for this stage of my life. I'm not bothered about old shared history as, imo, it is rare to have a group of friends who do grow up and grow older together. The fact that I see other friends connecting on fb and not including me doesn't make me think they have deliberately excluded me. I may feel like this if I was feeling depressed. OP have you spoken to your current friends about how you feel?