Still feeling hurt over loss of friend group

[AreWeThereYet69]

I've just been reading and responding to the thread "Heartbroken over loss of friend group"
I didn't want to derail, so started this thread.
It's mad how many people as adults have been dropped/excluded by friends without any explanation or obvious reason.
It happened to me 2 and a bit years ago but I feel like I'm still struggling to get over it. Reading that thread really brought it back up.
Does anyone have advice how to move on from this?
I'm sociable and do have other friends but still feel the hurt over how I was treated by a supposed friend of 20 years, abd how the others in the group seemed to be happy to exclude me too.
I'd never want to be friends with her again. She's an awful person who's shown her true colours

I’ve also been reading that thread OP and it really resonated with me.
Just popped on to say that really, no advice sorry, it sucks.
I’m very careful who I’m friends with now.

I think it’s often worse than the end of a romantic relationship @AreWeThereYet69 It somehow feels almost more personal and a real rejection.

I do think though, when it’s a long time friend, that they feel they are not the same person as they were when they met you and maybe you have seen them at a worse time in their life. They might see you and link you to that time (although it’s nothing to do with you as such) and it’s like they need to shed their skin, if that makes sense. Lose all reminders of that period in their lives. A lot of people seem to get dropped by friends after they’ve helped them through something.

Group dynamics are funny and people are illogical sometimes.

When I worked with vulnerable people, it was part of our training to realise that a person may not want to work with me because I am white, female, young or old, married or unmarried, drive or walk, look this way or that, come from here or there - anything may make them turn towards me or away from me, and that is their right. I got really used to it.

I have the same rights apparently, and I recently made an overture towards a new friend and made arrangements to meet, only to think during the time together 'hmm I am not sure about this' and probably won't do it again. My reasons are my reasons, and when it happens to me, I have to think 'their reasons are their reasons.'

Once I wasn't invited to a day out only to find they all wanted to take magic mushrooms and I didn't do that. It hurt at the time but time has shown that those people are not my people and I went on to make other friends.

I think all we can do is surf the waves as they come to us. Maybe your friend of 20 years is just different now - did you suspect that at all? I am sorry you are hurt. It's not you, it's just life. I would work on accepting her right to float off from you. You didn't see it coming but I bet you can see some reasons now. And the wider group let that happen because maybe you didn't fit them, maybe you reminded them of something - let's say they all drink and you're toning it down as you get older, they aren't going to want you around talking about being healthy etc. They are going to be happier if you're not there. Or say they bitch and you don't, they are going to want to do that and not feel bad about it. There must be something they like or want that you don't naturally do, and they have chosen to carry on without you down that path. You are not wrong. You MUST be yourself and people DO get to choose whether you are their flavour or not, as do you. Time is limited and we all have that right.

Can you think of anything that led to the parting of ways, some way she was moving and you were not moving the same way?

I had this. Covid hit and all of a sudden me and a couple of others seemed to get dropped like hot bricks. Never heard from the group again. It was a shame as we had a fun social life together beforehand. People are odd. They were obviously a bit shallow and I don’t miss them.

I think there’s a lot in what you say. In the past I’ve been dropped by a friend of 10 years, who had a condition that stopped her driving. I drove her to many important things, gave her stays at my holiday home. When she could drive she moved away. It took a year of slowly ghosting me for her to disappear.
Another good friend of many years, is now reinventing herself with another group and snubbing me. Thats life I suppose, but it hurts all the same. I’m now very wary of new friendships.

We never expect friends to hurt our feelings but they can cause huge hurt.

As I posted on the other thread - I’ve worked at the same place for 20+ years and over the years have formed what I thought were close friendships but when it comes to weddings other work colleagues make the cut and I never do. And if I reflect I can always see why but it hurts and I always feel a bit ashamed also, that I haven’t made the cut when others have. And I realise these people like me well enough but we’re not friends in the way I thought we were.

To be honest, we’ve almost certainly done similar to other people without realising.

@AreWeThereYet69 I was wondering how you are doing now? I just posted a similar thread. Having the same challenge to move on. Mine was also about 2 years ago x