i have no friends :(

[icantthinkofausername]

This is probably going to sound really silly and childish but i feel so low i have no friends.

Ever since secondry school ive never really had any friends i was bullied in school and left out, people in my class use to get together at weekends but i was never invited.

By the time i started college i made a few friends but they werent proper friends as soon as we left college the contact stopped.

im not a confident person at all, on the outside i come across as quite confident but inside im not. Im scared of getting rejected by people ive never had a proper relationship because of this. I get scared i will get hurt.

In my job ive tried to make friends, i go to the xmas partys and go out with them if i can i really thought that they were friends of mine. Ive always been kind to them and had a laugh with them. but now its all happening again :( there they were in the staff room talking about meeting up next week after work to go for food, talking about it in front of me not asking if i wanted to go to (i didnt have the confidence to ask myself if i could come), i felt like a school kid again i felt like i was nothing.

I know is sounds silly but im sitting here crying about it . I genuinly thought i had made some real friends but i obvisouly havent :(

Hello there
I'm so sorry you are so sad. I am sure you are a lovely warm person and I am sure there are millions of people in the world who would love a friend like you but you may need to push yourself to get 'out there' to find them. I don't have lots of friends and like you I am not very confident, but sometimes you have to make yourself join clubs or talk to people and let them know what a great person you are. I joined badmington and running clubs and perhaps you could try a dating site you may then find similar minded people who like you want to find friends.
I know it's not easy and a good cry now and again never hurt anyone, but get it out of your system and decide to try something new. YOU ARE WORTH KNOWING AND I AM SURE YOU WOULD MAKE A GREAT FRIEND - GO FOR IT!!!

i agree with 9stonewanabe , you of course are worth knowing and would be a lovely friend , perhaps your work colleagues just didnt think you needed an invite perhaps it was just an open sort of thing if you maybe suggested joining them , they would probably would love you to join them and may have no idea how you are feeling , i can understand how youre feeling, i too worry about wanting people to like me etc , if you didnt want to come straight out and ask to join them perhaps if in future just casually say something like oh wheres that youre going ? im sure they would be mortified if they thought you felt like this x

I could have written that. I met dh and it just felt right, scary but right. I'm sure it'll happen to you too.

I still don't have any female friends though. Dh works with women whoare friends, go out after work and holiday together but then slag each other off all the time. So I don't see it as a bad thing altogether.

I aggree with joining a club your interested in, and don't get scared when they try to get close you've nothing to be embarrassed about.

[Not sure if a post from a man is really wanted and I hate to intrude. Please ignore this if it isn't :)]

I just had to say something as your post could have been written by me until recently. I've never had a lot of friends and recently moved to a new city where I just didn't seem to be able to get to know anyone. I spent a lot of time alone and was getting quite despairing about it. I agree with the above that joining clubs and groups really works, many of those who do also have reasons for wanting to meet new people. I joined social activities group that I found via a website for real life socialising (you just type in your postcode to see what's local to you). I've since joined a vegetarian group from the same site as well as a local book group that was advertised in the library. Almost everyone I've met has been lovely, really friendly and welcoming. I've also been going to kickboxing classes and that's been great (as well as enabling me to eat more chocolate). Voluntary work is also worth looking into, as are evening classes.

I've always been shy, painfully so when I was younger, and I still have to push myself a lot of the time. I'm the kind of person who always thinks I've said the wrong thing and I'm always worried what people think of me. But you know, I think loads of people are like that and they just don't show it. You really are worth knowing and people will see that. You'll find the friends who are right for you. I also got a couple of books from the library on overcoming shyness. I know a lot of people are sceptical, and I was to be honest, but the tips they gave were really simple and actually seemed to work.

Good luck :)

I think as others have said its all about taking the plunge and pushing yourself forward,it isn't easy.I was widowed last year,and having spent 15 years with dp and involved with children my social life was nil.I had people at work who are lovely but not really close mates IYKWIM.anyhow recently I have started socialising with mums from ds school,we go out every now and then and also a lovely lot of fellow mums of special needs kids,we are all very different but go out for a meal and drinks monthly.Initially I was terrified but it has been lovely and I have been made to feel welcome and have the beginnings of a social life.Do you have any hobbies?Maybe a group you could get involved with??It is horrible being shy but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet,and see where it takes you!!Good luck xx

Sometimes it is easier to be friend with yourself, to enjoy your own company and not NEED other people to make you feel complete.
I find that I am sometimes more myself with acquaintances than with friends, as there is no danger that hey can see the real me AND NOT LIKE HER :(
However, the thought of being the one not invited to the party is especially hard, even if you didn't especially want to go.
Bad news, ICANT, you have to invent an event that you invite them all to, cinema, dinner, pamper evening at local spa, your birthday etc, so you are in control.
Or come over to my house and we can quietly and calmly ignore each other in a friendly way :)

The trouble is, some women LIKE the exclusivity of cliques. Just look at some bits of MN for proof of that.
These are not the people you need to be your friends.
Start your own inclusive-all-comers clique. We will join.

I'm really sorry you're feeling so low about yourself. I think a lot of people feel like this at times. I think it's important for you to try to separate your adult self from your past. School experiences can have such a role in shaping us and haunting us for decades to come. Being bullied during school can make you feel as though you're not good enough for friendships for life.

I would try to view each new environment/ context as a new experience where you try your best to be friendly, rather than seeing it all as an ongoing, linked nightmare of the same pattern happening over and over again. So your workmates organised a meal without thinking to include you. That's OK - that's one experience where they may have left you out, not an ongoing pattern and not something that can't be changed/ shifted. Instead of letting it get you down I would try to approach it in a confident, brave way - you felt so awful and said nothing at the time, but perhaps something as simple as asking where they were going/ what kind of food they were getting would have prompted someone to invite you. You said nothing to preserve your dignity/ protect yourself from hurt, and I understand that and do it as well sometimes - but people aren't mindreaders so from their perspective, you probably just seemed disinterested in the possibility of coming along.

One quote I like from Eleanor Roosevelt is: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent". If you're being a genuinely nice and lovely person to others, then people will think you're a lovely person. If people don't, often they're the ones with issues, not you - though that's hard to believe when you have low self-esteem. If you had high self-esteem, and didn't need to seek outside validation/ feedback to buffer your sense of self, this incident at work would not have affected you. You probably also would not have thought twice about asking if you could come along to the dinner. I think your assumption that you're not a desirable friend is playing a big part here in the way you behave and ultimately the patterns of "rejection" that you're noticing in relationships.

And people are right in saying that some women/ people like the exclusivity of cliques. It can make lots of people - you included, but plenty of people experience these feelings - feel left out, not good enough, like there's something wrong with them, baffled by the unnecessary exclusion/ high school mentality, etc. But I find it helpful to rise above that and wonder to myself: What is it about these people that makes them so insecure that they need to be in an excluding clique? Why can't they be kind to everyone, why must they "stick to their own" and be so obvious in their preferential treatment? Like everyone's behaviour, their behaviour is meeting their own needs in some way - but how? My guess is that they're insecure and have immature social skills/ focus on their own needs over the needs of others. They need a lot of feedback that they "belong" and that they're "good enough", and are willing to hurt others by being unnecessarily excluding, in order to get that feeling that they fit in, that they're OK. They may also have delusions of grandeur and still be stuck in a high school mentality, where feeling like they are in a group that's hard to penetrate means to them that they're in the "top tier" socially - whereas in the adult world, most good people start to steer clear of and resent such immature thinking/ behaviour. In a world where so many people try to be kind to everyone (as evidenced by the people responding to this thread), I think it's more helpful (and accurate) to think of cliquey/ exclusive people as the ones who have something wrong with them.

I would hugely recommend that you get out some books on understanding/ improving low self-esteem so that you can try to address any issues hanging over you from high school. For an excellent social skills website, try this link: www.succeedsocially.com/index.html

Ive no friends either, through not working and solitude. I don't go out of the house so how can I possibly meet people, I can't.

Been like it for six years. Moved and left all my friends behind, have worked since but not in a field whereby I could make friends.

Really housebound now for 4 years.

manicmarie, are your comments really going to help the OP? I don't know the background but outing her and suggesting she be less defensive..is that not a bit off.

Can't see that at all, Manic Marie.

do a search on 'manic marie'....you'll see she's a troublemaker

the op certainly isnt me in a namechange,she's just carrying on her vitriol from the hobbies thread where she decided to show herself up

sorrry op that this idiot has hijacked your post!!

Thanks Tilly. And sorry OP. I hope you're feeling more positive now. There's a lot of good advice in the above messages so go for it.

Fabbychic, thanks for your thoughts on another thread. Sorry to hear of the situation you are in but no advice I am afraid. Hugs

OP where abouts in the country are you, there may groups and stuff you can join, I know I will be looking to expand my social circle after recently splitting from OH

thank you all i feel better today after reading your advice x

ican - if you are near me I would be your friend I am in Yorkshire. Couldn't you have said in a lighthearted way to your colleagues - "does the invite extend to me?" I am sure as sure they wouldn't have said no. Perhaps they thought you considered yourself to be included?

Fabby, same with you too about being your friend.

It is so Fabby as you always come across on here as lovely and outgoing - i know you can be lovely and introvert, but I hope you know what I mean.