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Feel worthless because of friend
I recently made up with a friend after a big fight. I though she had changed, but the problem had just gotten worse. My friend constantly abandons me in school and leaves me feeling bad about myself. It's like she's embarrassed of me or something. Even if she says she'll walk with me, she just walks away from me and goes over to someone that's more popular than me, who she barely knows. The only point she wants to hang out with me is when we're alone.It gets to the point where she'll just follow the popular kids around and ignore me for hours at a time. I'm too socially awkward and nice to tell her how I feel to her face, and if I do it through text I'll feel cowardly. What should I do? Should I just treat her how she treats me?
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Maybe give some free advice about: Friendship?
It sure sounds like your so called friend is not only 'not truly a friend' but she has her reasons for wanting to be accepted into the popular kids group. This would mean that the times she hangs with you is because there are no popular kids around that she wants to align herself with. Why would she want to join them? Maybe a low self esteem that she believes would be solved by hanging with popular kids. The reason she abandons you to hang out with someone else is because she believes the others seeing her with you will ruin her chances of being accepted. She has not been accepted and right now is only forcing her presence upon the others by tagging along like a lost puppy. So she will continue to only hang with you as long as it suits her,, and your feelings do not even occur in her mind. It's all about her but then that can be the same for many still in school. YOu can do better than her for a friend. You can not change a person by telling them what you don't like about them and how they are treating you. Trust me, I know this from being married in the past to a man who verbally abused me and talking to him was a waste of breath. What I learned is that unless a person is ready to acknowledge that something is wrong with them or with the things they do and also having a want to change into a better person, then it is not going to happen. Since she is still chasing after popular kids, she has no clue that she has issues that need to be dealt with that being accepted into their group, will not change her. Change comes from inside, not outside influences, so it won't come from even hanging with the popular kids. You did mention being socially awkward. That is something I can understand as I was like that in the past but I may have been way worse off than you. I had social anxiety and my thoughts and fears were of things that never happened with it involved people. I was terrified of talking to othrs, other than a handful of friends who were maybe a little more outgoing than I. It was them approaching me that gave me friends. I was too chicken to seek out others, or just say a simple 'Hi' to a person for fear it would start a conversation and I would have no idea what to say. That really terrified me. So if you are not that bad, it will be so simple for you to learn how to seem friendly enough for others to find you interesting enough to want to be your friend.
Even if you are doing really bad, if you are consistant in facing your negative or distorted thoughts, you can overcome it in weeks.
To help you out, I am putting a description from a dictionary on the word 'Friendly' because a main reason others didn't approach me or want to be friends was because I seemed unfriendly. Here we go:
Friendly: being kind and pleasant.
"they were friendly to me"
synonyms: affectionate, affable, amiable, genial, congenial, cordial, warm, demonstrative, convivial, companionable, company-loving, sociable, gregarious, outgoing, clubbable, comradely, neighborly, hospitable, approachable, easy to get along with, accessible, communicative, open, unreserved, easygoing, good-natured, kindly, benign, amenable, agreeable, obliging, sympathetic, well disposed, benevolent.
These are what it is like to be friendly. For an easy non verbal way/body language to show you are friendly, then you need to know that a smile is a silent message to a person that you are 'approachable, social and friendly' which are all words from the definition above. I truly never looked people in the eyes or smiled at them. Now that I am cured, I come across a person like that and I can see now what kids throughout school years thought of me simply by how I acted in social circles. I was acting closed off, the opposite of the descriptions above. So it may be that some of that is going on with you due to your not being totally relaxed in social situations. Rather than show you the steps of what I did to become the total opposite, the social butterfly, or anywhere in between that is natural for you and works. Just let me know if you want me to paste in that story and list. But you must go to my column, Dragonfly Magic, to write directly to me and in a way I can answer. I can't answer in the ratings and comment column. There is no button on my end to push to be able to answer from there, only from those sent from my column.
The reason I feel this is so important a step, is because as I realized, once I got out of HS and was an adult, being not able to manuever in social ways in society was going to be very bad for having a happy successful life. Focus on yourself, and once you have enough confidence to smile, chat with others, you will be making new friends, and won't need to waste time with the so called friend who is really two faced and not a friend. SO no, you don;t tell her to her face or treat her how she treats you. IT won't work. If in your staying away from her, she gets curious enough to ask why you don't want to spend time with her anymore, you say to her, "If I tell you why, you will not be very happy so I 'd rather not." Either she will drop it realizing its something bad about herself she doesn't want to hear or she will ask again what it is or insist you tell her. (the curiosity will be killing her) then if you wish to tell her all, do so, but make sure there is no anger in your heart toward her and your words are shared softly, gentle tones. This is the one time I would say it is okay to tell her to her face. But as said, it has to be from a standpoint of wanting to see her get better in how she treats others, not just for your sake but the bigger picture of how she will make more friends, become popular without having to belong to the popular group and how it will open more doors in her adult life rather than closing or never opening them.
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