I don't feel like anyone ever really likes me.

[PinkAndPurplePirateGirl]

I have namechanged for this.

I have low self-esteem. I'm currently having counselling and CBT to help this, and it is helping, but I feel so low because I feel no one ever likes me. I think people think I am just "there" but no one thinks very highly of me.

I'm much more assertive now than I was before and say no to people if necessary, I just feel left out of things. I was emotionally neglected and abused by my mother as a child, and my counsellor says this is the cause of my low self-esteem. My mother also favoured my sister and I was always left out, and now I transfer this into situations in my adulthood (I am 35).

On the surface I appear to have lots of friends. At school I had a huge group of friends, but not one of them would say that I am their best friend, even though we are all still friends now. And I still feel on the outside, even though to others it wouldn't look that way at all. The girl I was closest to at school and who I thought was my best friend clearly wasn't as she chose another girl from our group of friends to be her bridesmaid and godmother to her child. I've only ever been a bridesmaid once, to my sister, no one else has ever asked me. I am always the kind of person that gets overlooked for wedding invitations and just invited to the evening do. I guess people think they can walk all over me. Likewise in other situations where I have got close to someone and developed a good friendship they then refer to someone else as their "best friend". I think people want to know me if I'm doing something for them or listening to their woes but when I had a crisis a couple of months ago very few people helped or even bothered to ask how I was. I don't know if I'm just better off with no friends as at least I have no expectations as I'm not "giving" my time/effort to anyone.

I do appear to be a confident person, but I always feel people, for example, at the school, talk to me until someone better comes along. I was dropping my DD off this morning and another mum came to talk to me, then her 3 friends came along and I could tell she was just itching to get away to talk to them, as she kept looking round at them whilst she talked to me, so I said I had to go as had to take the youngest DC to nursery and off I went. I don't know why the other 3 couldn't have come over to talk to me and just said hello, as they all talk to me normally and I get on fine with them. I joined an online baby club when I had my youngest child and although I get on fine with people on there I feel left out. Peoples' replies to others are always warmer to each other than they are to me. I think that's the thing, everyone seems warmer to other people than they are to me. Also so many people in life say what they think and are honest and people respect them for it and carry on being friends with them but on the few occasions I've "dared" to speak my mind or be true to myself people fall out with me. I want to be able to be honest and speak my mind.

I think my mistake is I try to please everyone when all I should try to please is me really. I just find myself smiling away and probably making an idiot of myself.

Thanks wifey6, I'm lucky, my counsellor is great. Well I just went to school to pick up the DCs and stood in my usual place with a "friend" that I usually stand with and chat to a lot. When I got there she was talking to another mum, and usually if a third person came up I would include them in the conversation but my friend barely acknowledged me and so I just stood there. Waited for the DCs to come out and by this time the other woman had gone and the friend was stood there waiting to chat to me, so I just said "See you tomorrow" and walked off. I'm not going to just chat to people when they decide they have time for me and stand there patiently when they have someone better to talk to, and I hope this got the message across to her.

A round of applause to Pink for the change in behaviour at the school gates!

Thanks Mouse

"....and I am trying to be kind to myself, I think the best thing I can do really is be my own best friend and love myself. xx"

LOVED those words Pirate Girl - have name changed and your words have spurred me on today! Arrived first at the school gates and instead of making sure I smile and greet everyone, I hung back and waited for the Mums to come and join me/ greet me. Not one did!

So no more smiling, greeting everyone, friendly chatty effort...no more inane conversations, non reciprocated coffees. They are not my friends and I am no longer going to worry about not having formed any meaningful bonds with any of them.

Like many others, I could have written your post! Well done and thanks. I am feeling a bit sad today, but a penny has dropped....I am going to be my own best friend and love myself!!

Awwwww Thealien, I'm glad to have helped. I too have started to do the same as you, just hang back, grab my children and go, and let people approach me. I have also started being "too busy" to stop and talk to people. I totally agree about the inane conversation and on reciprocated coffees, they can all bloody shove their coffees where the sun doesn't shine at the school as far as I'm concerned.

Just think, at some point their little cliques will all come unstuck and then you and I, and lots of others that feel the same as we do, can sit back and watch and laugh at the downfall of some, and be glad we don't have to be involved in all the gossip. x

Also I don't know about you but I have been getting bored with school mums coming round "for coffee", it always ends up being about either kids reading books, or PTA events or something equally boring. Then later at the school said person that has just been in my house for coffee totally blanks me in favour of someone they deem more worthy of their time.

I have been doing what you are embarking on for a long time now, I love spending time with myself, and I have had loads to spend and focus on the children.

The danger is you get a bit self absorbed, not a bad thing if you have not pleased yourself before in your life and need to get to know who you are, I am itching to branch out again with people. I was far more drastic, I wasn't having counselling at the time, I didn't really understand what I was doing when I did it, I fell out with a lot of people to get away from them, your way sounds much more healthy.

I'm half expecting to fall out with some people on the way, Mouse, although my counsellor says that this will happen and that is inevitable, and that if someone gets upset with me for being honest or pulling them up on rudeness then that is their problem and they clearly never cared about me in the first place, just themselves.

I have even extended it to FB and am going to stop for example putting Happy birthday messages on peoples walls apart from a very select few schoolfriends and a couple of neighbours. How I feel at the moment I don't really care if anyone falls out with me, I feel so reckless haha.

The extra time to spend and focus on the kids sounds good too, the DCs can do all the socialising they want to at school, after school activities and parties. x

I don't know if it was the same for you or not? Before, when I was with "friends" my children were not get the same attention and placing in priorities as they should have done.

Having said that, I was not socialising them enough with adults the last year and a half, and we met up with someone yesterday for a short while after school She and I met at 2.30 for some adult talk first and they were not good at asking her anything about her life, and didn't kiss her goodbye or anything, following my lead, although I manged to get them both to give a kiss goodbye in the end, secondary school children should imho start to have such behaviour with adults. The last time they met a friend of mine was at half term with her kids, so I need to do more of that now.

v. interesting discussion, and a lot I can relate to, I tend to withdraw and show little of the real me, for fear of rejection, but now I find it ridiculously hard to talk about myself..... maybe you would be better off altogether without facebook, as it's not really a tool for genuine friendship much of the time.

I have been in this situation, feeling very left out by the mums at school. I really was in quite a state about it at one point. I think there were childhood factors at play too, magnifying and intensifying my feelings of being left out and excluded and generally unwanted. This is how I felt as a child when my mum and 2 sisters often got together and went off and did things without me.

I also had/have low self esteem, something I have been working on improving. I finally realised that the mums at school were not very nice people and it was no loss at all that they didn't seem to want to know me. I used to worry about DD being excluded as she is friends with those mums' DD's. But I finally realised those DD's were not the best sort of friends with such selfish, thoughtless, stuck up mothers.

Pink, you have found the answer. You do absolutely need to really learn to love yourself, be your own best friend, and treat yourself with the kindness and respect that you deserve.

Since I've stopped wasting my time on the horrid mums, I've actually made some proper friends with some mums who I didn't really talk to much before.

I had a bit of a ' clearout' of other friends too. Got rid of one 'friend' who is never there for me when I need her, when I've spent hours listening to her problems despite having plenty of problems of my own.

But the best thing is I have come to enjoy my own company and don't feel the need for friends like I used to which has been so liberating for me.

Hello everyone

I thought I'd pop back on with a bit of an update.

Well, I've spent the last month or so keeping myself to myself really, and really pulling back from so-called friendships where I am just used or where I am not respected and dumped in favour of others, or when the "friend" just talks about themselves and their other friends constantly as if I should be in awe of them all.

Interestingly, I decided not to send Christmas cards this year; I normally send quite a few, say 20, to local friends, and it occurred to me that actually people were probably only sending them back because I'd sent one, I'd never be first on someone's list of who to send one to. And sure enough, I got two! So-called friends were at the school were giving out stacks of cards but because I hadn't given any out first I only got two. Speaks volumes to me about a lot of "friends" too!

Also I've had a bit of fun really, being assertive. There is a "friend" I stand with at the school gates each day, but if I arrive and she's talking to someone else, she won't even really acknowledge my arrival but will carry on talking to the other person and won't try and include me in the conversation in any way. She also lives near me and sometimes calls by mine on the way to school pickup, but if she is walking with someone else and I walk out of my driveway as they go past, she totally blanks me. Anyway, before the end of term I was going to school pick up each day, standing elsewhere, then when she'd finished her conversations with others she'd want to come and talk to me, so I started saying "Oh hello, can't talk today, I'm in such a rush" each time she came over to me, and also she called round for me a couple of times before the term end, and each time I said I was unable to walk with her as I was waiting for someone else to pop by.

I also had another friendship, that was mainly texts, as we met on the online group I talked about earlier, although we have met a few times, and again it occurred to me that it was always me making the first move with texts and communication, never her. So I stopped the texts too and guess what, nothing!! So again that speaks volumes to me.

To be fair, I think a few people have picked up on the fact that I'm feeling like I don't give a monkeys now and are making more effort with me. I've stopped commenting on peoples' FB photos and statuses. I plan to be like it with everyone until people have effectively proved their worth to me as a friend and proved that they value and respect me.

OP, not read all the thread but your post struck a nerve with me.

I was exactly the same.

As a child I always felt like I was an irritance to family members, if anything "silly" was done, I automatically got the blame. I had no friends in primary school (which wasn't helped by the fact that I was moved around 5 different primary schools between the ages of 5 and 11!) and I had no real friends in secondary school either. Yes a few of the girls would walk home with me now and again but only because they couldn't find their real friends and didn't want to walk alone. On the last day of school, aged 16 when everyone was crying and hugging one another, I left the school alone without anyone noticing and walked home on my own. I never heard from anyone again until very recently (Facebook) and even that is due to pure nosiness!

In my adult life I tried very hard to make friends, I tried TOO hard and was TOO friendly and ended up being walked all over. Same situation as at school, mums at the gates would talk to me but only if their real friends were not around.

Last year was a weird one. I just stopped caring. I can't explain why. I didn't make any effort to speak to anyone, I did my own thing. Decided on a new career and began pursuing that. I started University in September and couldn't be arsed with the friendship thing so made little effort. I was polite to people and joined in conversation but I didn't try all that hard. I didn't care if they liked me or not, I wasn't there to make friends.

Well - since I stopped caring - I have developed a whole new circle of friends. Real friends. Friends who text me because they want to speak to ME - not because they can't get a reply from anyone else. I am invited out for drinks almost every weekend - sometimes I go, sometimes I don't. I don't feel I HAVE to jump on every friend-cementing opportunity anymore. I'm not overly reliable, I'm not the one people can rely on if nobody else will go out. I have been invited out with 3 different groups for New Years Eve. I've never been invited out by ANYONE for New Years Eve before.

Probably not very helpful but all I'm saying it, it changed for me when I stopped trying. People either like you or they don't but being overly nice isn't going to make the non-likers change their mind. Be yourself, be proud of who YOU are and eventually the people worth being friendly with will notice you.

just be you and dont be too hard onyourself, i have low so self confidence when you try to change yourself you just come across as an idiot try not to other think things when meeting people.

I'm glad you are feeling better about yourself, I really am.

But don't play games with people, its not 'fun' to assert yourself over someone. If you feel she is not a genuine person, then its fine to cut her off. It says more about you than her though if you enjoy toying with her.

FWIW it doesn't necessarily mean someone is blanking you if they are absorbed in conversation with someone else when you arrive/pass by. IMO that is not a reason to think they are fickle, if they ate friendly towards you on other occasions. Equally, you wodnt want that woman calling for you on the eat to school EVERY day would you, not really??

I said before, I think the school run is quite an unpleasant social situation and you shouldn't judge yoursf based on interaction there, but it sounds Luke you are being over sensitive

The Rocks, you sound exactly at the stage that I'm at these days. I really am just not caring at the moment what people think about me. I'm glad that you have made some nice, genuine friends now.

hotmomma, yes I totally agree, no point trying to change, have tried that in the past and it doesn't work.

bejeezus, I have decided to cut this woman off as I do actually think it's quite rude to speak to someone sometimes and blank them at other times, when a quick hello would suffice. I'm not prepared to just wait around for her to decide to speak to me and then give up my time talking to her when she has just ignored me for the past 10 minutes. And like you say the school run is an unpleasant social situation, and whether it makes me over sensitive or not, I dont' really want any friendships on the school run. By "fun" I meant I am enjoying being assertive and enjoying my self esteem being lifted by being assertive.

Hi there Pink. I haven't read the entire thread yet but your initial post totally stuck a chord with me, I feel exactly the same. I have never had a best friend either really (some closer male friends but none that have really lasted, I'm 32). I've just begun to think that friends are not necessarily going to stick around forever and have sort of accepted that mine will come and go, but I never can stop thinking about the fact that my friends from school are all still really close and I am always on the periphery - always, like you, the one who is only invited to the 'evening do' at weddings. I was the third child in our family out of 4 and my mother was depressed when I was born, I don't think I ever really had much reassurance or time to build up much of a sense of self-esteem or self-respect. I am a really high-achiever, always trying to gain respect that way I guess.

I can't believe the things you have described in your post - it's like I was writing them about myself... wow. I agree with MoChan too; being physically demonstrative and emotionally open is really important in maintaining relationships with people I guess. I mean, I never call people to invite them to places because I just assume that they won't want to hang out with me or that they are just doing it to be polite. I am always surprised when people invite me to places. I hardly ever instigate things with people, including my husband. My father used to walk out on us a lot when I was a child and the whole family used to just cut off from the situation and carry on as though we were all fine - we still do that when there are problems now I suppose. I definitely think that's partly the cause of the way I am, I'm not blaming my father but I think the whole family shapes who we are - the relationships there are so important. I am now married to a man who was left at boarding school and was miserable as a child - he is also a pro at cutting off his emotions and we're not communicating well at the moment. Life eh???!!

I think it sounds like you're doing all the right things to improve your situation. The important thing is to look after yourself and then to be brave and start trusting people (I need to too!!). I know how hard that it though.

The silly thing is I reading your post thinking - I would be your friend! Not a stalker, just relieved that someone else feels the same way I do! Hope you're starting to feel a bit more cheered after reading others' responses.

I'd better go downstairs and make an effort to talk to my husband now... oh dear!

Hi Pink ..just to say I read this last night with interest and it's very true that you can be polite and friendly without trying too hard or wasting valuable head space over it all.
Good luck!

pink - Glad things are getting better for you. I think you are right not to try too hard. When someone tries really hard they seem to attract users who sense the persons vulnerability. I think nicer people tend to be put off by people who try hard.

giraffequeen - I have dropped friends who never instigate things. It ends up making you feel that they can't really be arrsed with you. They will do things if you make the effort to instigate them, but don't care enough to instigate them themselves. I know thats not how you feel, but you might be giving this impression.

This thread could be about me too. Thank you.

Me again! Thought I'd pop back with another update :)

It's interesting to know that so many of you feel the same way as I do; it's reassuring to know that I'm not alone.

I'm still on my "friends" break although I have had contact with those that have made an effort and contacted me. A fair few haven't bothered at all. One in particular I have been "friends" with for several years and we always go to an exercise class together on Friday nights. It occurred to me around the time I started this thread that it is me keeping the friendship together and me always texting each week "Are we on for Friday night?" and making arrangements. She is frequently too busy to meet for coffee in the week or to do anything else, and if I ask her if she wants to meet during the day with the DCs she'll offer me "an hour or two" when she's free in about 3 weeks' time. Anyway, I have heard nothing from her and there's been 5 or so Friday nights since I last contacted her so I guess I have my answer about our friendship. But, I've taken the bull by the horns and started going to a different class, on a different day, alone. And that's the way I'm liking it. I do chat to people there but am just trying where possible to keep myself to myself and enjoy the class.

I have also totally ditched another group of friends in which one is often unkind to me if we go out as a group and sometimes talks about me loudly or takes the piss out of e. None of the so-called other friends stick up for me and all just say they're not getting involved when I've said about how this woman behaves yet they are happy to be involved enough to listen to this woman talking and not tell her they dont' want to hear it. So I've been ignoring texts and FB messages from these women and it feels very liberating.

I really feel that my "social circle" was far too wide and I think it was the problem as I was being spread too thinly, trying to please everyone and just being used.