Friendship issues eating me up

[Thegirlisnotright]

I live in a small place, kids all go to the same school etc. Not long after I moved here, another family did and we became friendly with them. Our daughters are great friends. We’ve been on holiday together. The other mum is very sociable, and now has a huge circle of friends. There is no one I’m friends with in this small place that isn’t also friends with her. She now has a tight friendship group that doesn’t include me. I think in the case of a couple of them they actively dislike me. Their husbands all play golf and drink together and that excludes my husband from their groups too. My friend is happy to spend time with me, but it now tends to be 1:1 only because I’m not included in that other friendship group. New people have moved into the village and been included.
the issue is that the thoughts of how rubbish I am and how unlikeable I am consume me. I wish I was more popular but I’m not. I sometimes don’t sleep because I’m thinking about it. How do I come to terms with it? I know I can’t control what other people do, and I can’t make people like me. I know there’s no rule that says people should invite me to things. I love my friend and I wouldn’t want to cut ties with her, plus it’s a small place etc as detailed above. Help?!

Can you develop friendships with other villagers who are not part of your friend's group? Effectively make a 'rival' friendship group? You can maintain your 1 on 1 with your friend but don't have to bother with the cliquey ones.

Are you tee total? Some of these groups love a drink

Are you good looking? Great job? Lots of money? Could be jealousy

This doesn’t make a lot of sense, OP. Just because she’s a friend of yours and a member of another, separate friendship group doesn’t mean she has carte blanche to invite you to things they do. It’s (presumably) not her sole decision. If several in her fruendship group have a dislike of you, they’re not going to want to socialise with you. Also, do you even like these people? You say two of them dislike you, but do you like them?

When we moved to a village I developed a couple of individual friendships. Those people didn’t usually include me in their other social groups. I didn’t expect them to. It was an entirely different set of friendships.

I would be wary of putting too much pressure on that one friendship op. She is a social butterfly - friends with everybody but a friend of nobody. If she is mixing with huge amounts of people she is unlikely to fully invest in meaningful friendships or be there in any true sense.

I really would work on friendships and hobbies outside your immediate area, and diversify. You have a concentrated area where you live. It’s an awful feeling to feel excluded. The issue is that it is making you feel so bad about yourself. Friends should make you feel happy and lighter, better.

That’s a huge assumption, that her friendships must be superficial because she has a lot of them. Some people are just good at friendship .

I agree with you, though, that the OP should not put too much pressure on that one friendship. Nobody wants to live in a permanent cloud of reproach from one quarter that they’re not invited to all your socialising either other people.

Do you live near a town/city or other villages? Broaden your horizons. You don’t have to only socialise with people who live within the same square mile. Unless you’re very rural, branch out and join a few meet up/hobby groups a bit further afield. Do you work? Are you friends with any colleagues?

What is the name for behavior where posters deny the very real valid experience of a poster and try to convince her she is the problem?

Gaslighting feels too strong a word as I understand this is ongoing longer term behavior against an individual - and my oh my do I have extensive experience of being on the end of that.

Any suggestions as to what we can call this rancid behavior on here I see it again and again on posts on MN. Is that what the latest deleted poster has been doing?

OP, your feelings are right. Distance from Queen Bee social butterfly and branch out quietly into other things, hobbies, people you feel good around. Flowers for you.....💐

This makes perfect sense. She has a close friendship with someone and they don’t ever include her in group activities- that’s going to cause hurt and upset. I also wouldn’t expect my close friends to hang out with people that actively dislike me.

Emotional invalidation! I have also been on the end of it.

Yes that sounds exactly what it is. Thank you 🙏
I have lived a life of it from family and then chose a partner to do the same. Thanks to years of counseling and amazing good people, I see it now. It is rancid.

Do these posters know they are doing this to OP? I still can't always discern where it is deliberate cruelty, an empathy deficit, or projection based on one's own difficulties in life.

I second - OP makes perfect sense. Her feelings make absolute sense.

In fact, her mind has probably tried to convince her out of multiple feelings that are telling her the truth. I imagine this post only touches the surface of what instincts are picking up for her with these ' friends '.

I'd look elsewhere. Join a sport, hobby or volunteer. Keep up your friendship with the nice friend. I think sometimes people don't fit in a group because they aren't the type to comply. The dynamics can be that there is a kind of queen bee who likes others to defer to her. If you're not like that they'll not try and enlist you. Better to find one on one friends elsewhere.

I think for most it’s a lack of empathy- unless you have had that experience it is difficult to fully understand. However, I also think for a few it’s to validate their own poor behaviour towards others - perhaps they recognise behaviour in the post that is similar to their own.

I am sorry you have had these experiences and glad you now have good people in your life.

Respectfully, that’s ridiculous. People are allowed to have separate friendships, and they’re not obliged to adopt their friends’ likes and dislikes. The OP sounds vulnerable and anxious, absolutely, if she’s concluded that her friend being more popular than her means she’s a ‘rubbish person’ and stays awake at night worrying about it, but she really can’t rely on other people to solve her self-esteem issues. That can only come from her. I do sympathise, as I’ve also lived in a small place where I definitely wasn’t flavour of the month, but those people just weren’t my tribe. I made friends at work.

Come off it. Emotional invalidation in action.

There is so much more to this story and dynamic than someone wanting and rightfully pursuing other social engagements. There's a power play where a vulnerability in OP is being exploited.

The confusion and any anxiety, if OP has anxiety, is the dissonance between a public mask people around her are putting over their faces and the behavior that is setting her instincts off like crazy. That causes anxiety. That confusion, that dissonance. If this bestie likes her so much, why is she actively and deliberately excluded from something that all these others are not?

When people start a post with ' respectfully ', it rarely means ' I have respect for you'. It's being a total......( fill in the blank. )

This is brilliant x resonates with me and I hope I helps you OP x

This is a really damaging response to a vulnerable OP. What you
see as ‘validating’ her feelings is actually just demonising other people. We have no idea what any of the people involved are like. Either way, the OP simply cannot control anyone else’s behaviour, only her own responses to it. She’s clearly not ‘dislikable’ or a ‘rubbish’ person because she doesn’t socialise with a specific social group. Those people are not responsible for the OP.

And respectfully your response is exactly what I’m talking about! Where have I said people are not allowed separate friendships or have to take on each others likes and dislikes? What I have said is my close friends don’t hang out with people that have taken a dislike to me, that would be hurtful, particularly as is the case with the OP in that there is no reason for that dislike. And secondly that it is ok for the OP to be upset that she is left out of group activities.

OP, if there's cliquey group of couples and some of the women dislike you- don't hang out with them, they sound awful! Your friend may just be one of these people who is a bit of a social butterfly and likes to be part of lots of groups and has individual friends as well, but I agree with the poster who said stop making her the centre of your social life or thinking about your social life. You sound lovely to me, if very self-critical and down on yourself, and this other group, not so much. They just aren't your people because they aren't open to you and that makes them unsuitable!

The advice to seek interests, hobbies and other friends elsewhere is a good one, this village life seems a little claustrophobic to me, and best dipped into only occasionally.

I don’t see how that is helpful to the OP. Her close friend does socialise with people who apparently don’t like the OP, though it’s impossible to know whether this is just the OP’s poor self-esteem speaking. We can have no idea whether there is any ‘reason’ for the dislike. And it’s not the OP’s group. It’s a group of people with whom her sole link is that she’s friends with one member. There’s no particular reason to expect to socialise with them, but the OP is tormenting herself about it.

Word salad....

OP knows what she feels. She's right to listen to those signals.

Report me if my replies are so detrimental to the well-being of OP. Look at the advice offered and show me the detrimental impact any of the suggested responses would elicit....

I hate the idea of having to belong to a "group". Life isn't like Cold Feet.

I’m not sure if you read the OPs post correctly! She lives in a small place and people are social but not with her and she finds that hurtful.
You’ve then decided to tell me I’m ridiculous because I’ve said it is hurtful when you are left out. I’m sure the OPs friend has lots of groups of friends but she is only upset about being left out of this particular group. I presume that’s because the obvious thing would be to include her. Another poster has pointed out that potentially this group could be a bit cliquey and that would be my take on the situation, and cliques come with lots of social politics (and before you say it I don’t think all friendship groups are cliques).