Hi. First time posting in this thread so apologies if its a long one. My 17 yr old Dd has had some difficulty developing friendships over the last few years. She attends college and either previously knew some of the students or has met new people. With both groups she seems to have found herself in a situation where she is often left out of things, not invited etc and its starting to have a real impact on her emotionally. She genuinely feels like no one likes her and at best tolerates or is indifferent to her and she is struggling to understand why. There isn't anything in particular that makes her different to your average 17 yr old. She is sociable, has a good sense of humour and is a kind hearted young woman. We've talked a lot about possible reasons why she is having these issues and are working on various ways to maybe improve things but in the mean time she is struggling with feelings of sadness loneliness and loneliness and it is starting to affect her self esteem . She has a boyfriend who is a lovely young man but he lives an hour bus ride away and neither of them drive and both have part time jobs so they only see each other once or twice a week. Even so she would like to develop some friendships with some girl mates so having her boyfriend doesn't make up for her lack of friendships. I was wondering if anyone knows of any "safe" forums online that she could join not necessarily to make friends to meet up with but a place where she could chat to girls her age in similar circumstances and hopefully have an outlet to share her feelings and talk to young people going through similar things. I use the term safe because I don't mean to sound awful but some online stuff for young people can be really heavy with kids talking about self harm, suicidal ideation etc and she would be extremely put off by that. She doesn't have any issues around anxiety or depression about life in general and for the most part is quite optimistic and a glass half full sort of person. Apart from the friendship stuff she has no other difficult issues as a 17 yr old. She is quite bright and in many ways emotionally mature for her age. She had a bit of a heart wrenching sob tonight about the friendship issues and we discussed ways that she might be able to try and improve things but I thought it might help her to be able to share her feelings with someone who isn't her mother and is her age group. As much as she acknowledges intellectually that lots of 17 yr olds feel this way and has these issues, she doesn't actually know anyone in the same boat who she could talk to so deep down feels alone with this. I did suggest she maybe open up to one or two girls at college as maybe they don't realise how much she is hurting but the thought of in her words, 'embarrassing herself by sounding needy is not something she feels able to do or wants to do. Does anyone know of something that might fit the bill or have had a teen who has done something similar and got some benefit from it then I would really appreciate your input. I feel so sad for her and just want to make it all better for her but sadly I feel powerless so reaching out and hoping for some possible suggestions.