Realising that actually none of my so-called friends gave a fig about me really...

[PinkAndPurplePirateGirl]

Hi everyone

I've posted in here before about struggling with friends and feeling like no one likes me. I've always had low self esteem caused by emotional abuse in childhood and as a result have always been left out of friendships and treated badly. I've been having counselling and CBT for ages now and my self esteem is recovering. I think I've always attracted the wrong type of people before and been willing to call anyone and everyone a "friend" when actually I think horrible people zoomed in on me as my self esteem was low and just treated me badly.

Like I've said before on here I decided a few months ago to stop bothering with people and basically sit back and see which friends proved to be true friends and would bother with me. I always feel that people like me but no one likes me "enough" to call me their best friend or to confide anything big in me or to think of me first when inviting people to something. So anyway, I've sat back and, erm, no one has made any contact really. So the friends that I was thinking were my friends obviously weren't and it was just the effort from me that was keeping the friendships together. They're all nice enough when they see me and lots of 'oh we must meet up' is mentioned by them but they don't arrange a thing or even really bother to try to contact me at all.

So where do I go from here? I am still in touch with my best schoolfriend, and she does bother to contact me, but even so she has done things in the past that hurt me, and I have a couple of online friends that contact me a lot but they live hundreds of miles away from me.

What I want is to a) attract friends that are like-minded and will treat me well and b) have friends that value me and make an effort to contact me. I am happy to make effort too in friendships but I don't want to make all the effort as I have done in the past. I think the key is to not bother with anyone that's treated me badly. One woman at the school kept chatting to me and we met for coffee a few times but I didn't make any further contact as I found her self-absorbed and it wasn't a conversation, she just wanted to talk "at" me, and I don't want friends that do that.

I am good at starting friendships but don't seem to be very good at continuing them. I don't think I am very tolerant these days of anyone that treats me badly and have clear ideas of what I want in a friendship and how I wish to be treated. I keep going back to the idea of actually giving up on friends altogether as clearly I am not someone that people warm to or want to spend time with, I'm just kind of "there" to make up the numbers.

Thanks all! I really appreciate the support and replies

Hey Hyperballad, I'm ok thanks. I am confused but then I'm always confused so that's nothing new

In response to your earlier question about low maintenance friendships I mean that I don't want to come away from seeing someone socially and feel guilty or stressed over something they've said, I've experienced this in the past and it made me miserable. Of course if a friend needs help I'll be there 100%.

I'm nearly always distracted when I arrive at school and simply speak to whomever i happen to see first. I suspect a lot of other parents are like that too, very much agree with mumsyblouse.

But what if you'd upset them, Brandnew, and they tackled you about it? Would you just ditch them as they'd made you stressed? Genuine question btw

Pink, I think the difficulty lies in NOT knowing how to read other people. Someone on here, i forget who, said that was all you had to do, but for me its as daunting as climbing Everest.

I over analyse my friendships at times because I'm not sure where I stand and have, in the past, cared too much about that to just be able to relax. I find it hard to gadge other people, and have often offended others by miss calculating where people's limits are. I also grew up in a household where you walked on eggshells in order not to annoy my sd, and I think my paranoia and worry about how i come accross stems from that too.

actually now I think about it our house was often a cross one and that's what makes me edgy a lot, it's something I have to tackle though as I can see I am like this myself in my own house, and that's terrible!

This is a really nice thread.

Pink you come across as a very thoughtful person.

I liked the advice about acquaintances. I actually researched this once... apparently all those hellos to the cafe staff, the neighbour, the nursery workers, the school mums etc are very valuable to our wellbeing. And friendships are an extension of these hellos, to varying degrees.

So you might have a chatting-about-school-stuff level friendship with a couple of other parents, a laugh-about-weird-clients/work situations friendship with work -colleagues, a mutual-admiration-of-our-amazing-children relationship with grandparents/in-laws or similar and a vested-interest-in-the-community friendship with some neighbours.

Some of these low-level friendships will naturally advance with time, others may stagnate but all the same they add "crumbs" to the social diet and are of value.

Ways to fan out further are to pursue an interest such as a walking group, scrapbooking club or similar. In these you don't need to make much small talk because the natural topic is the reason you are all there and everyone is on equal footing.

It is lovely to read that you are now expecting better treatment from others, I think try to trust that with time and practice this will become second nature and you will attract a better class of friend.

The "friend" who chats on her mobile while keeping you waiting, ugh, that is just so rude and ignorant. In time these sorts of "friends" will become but a dim memory and you will have a network of people around who treat you with the respect you deserve.

I used to be friends with another couple of women, we met up once or twice a week while the dc's were small. Every couple of weeks or so, one of them used to confront the other two of us about something we'd done to upset her. These incidents ranged from talking to much to one another and leaving her out, our children playing together and leaving hers out, to once walking too far ahead of her while we were all out together. No matter how hard we tried not to (and we genuinely did!!), she still found something to be upset about. Over time, it became way too stressful to spend time with her, and leave wondering what we could have potentially done to offend. We stopped seeing her, but are still really good friends with one another. It was a shame, but she was incredibly hard work to be a friend to.

So to answer your question honestly, if a friend repeatedly tackled me about things (such as the above) I'd done to upset her, and I was genuinely oblivious and knew it wasn't intended, I would probably conclude we weren't that compatible as friends and distance myself. If it were something I'd done thoughtlessly, and I could understand her point I would of course apologise, and mean it.

And of course, if you feel someone is deliberately and actively ignoring you in the playground (not just usually distracted, or mid conversation with someone else), go and talk to someone else. As others said, just do it really breezily and don't make any issue of it, just mentally discount them as friend potential if you're certain it was deliberate.

I felt like this at times a few years ago - had lots of uni friends who all lived near each other whereas I was in a different part of the city. I'd always hear that they'd met up on a weekend and I began to feel left out and a bit miserable. Then I decided to buck my ideas up and invite myself along a bit more and they were really pleased to see me and just assumed I was off doing my own thing with other friends, hence not getting in touch more often.

Pink,
Thanks for posting this thread. It's really given me a lot to think about and I've been glad of the chance to write about and think about my experiences.

I agree with everything the others have said on this topic. I think what I have come to realise is that, for me, the key to successful friendships seem to be having "single" friends. By that I mean not having all your friends as part of the one group. I'm not sure if it is because of my negative experiences with my previous group of "friends" or if it is really just the easiest way. Interestingly all my current friends have other friends, but none are part of a tight knit group.

Sure, I socialise with various groups of people, but these tend to be nice aquaintences rather than actual friends.

For me, friends are a hugely important part of my life and I really feel your pain. I think you are probably in a sort of transition phase between friends. It took me years to rebuild my friendship group and my confidence, but it has happened. I'm sure it will for you too. I wish you luck. You sound like you would be a fab friend!

mermaid, i think that's a very good point and i realise that i have NEVER had a group of friends, just singletons.