Posting here as the children concerned are teens but really this is a question of boys vs girls friendships, sorry it's so long! Being a woman (ex girl!) I'm not sure if I should be concerned about DS15, or what advice I should/could give him. He has a group of boys he shares a common interest with and they spend a lot of time together and have a great time, there are no arguments or bullying, but to me (as a woman) it seems that these boys arent really his friends. None of them ever ask him to join them, it is always him asking or doing the organizing, or he gets invited as part of a larger group. His messages are often ignored/go unread or the other boys will lie to him about what they're doing and with whom, ostensibly (if they realise that DS knows they've lied) so as to "not make him feel bad". I understand that it is not always possible to invite everyone but every time it happens it seems to be DS who gets left out. This has been going on for years now and DS sometimes tells me that he's upset about being excluded, or tired of always being the one organizing. To me as a woman, it seems that these boys do not want to be his friend and he should ditch them but I don't know if this is simply what teenage boys do and it's not a big deal and he should just carry on? Apparently boys/men's friendships work very differently to women's?