Alone With My Thoughts: Being Left Out

I’m Shelby, I live on my own, and I am constantly walking around my apartment talking to myself. I’ve decided it’s time to talk to all of you. Welcome to Alone With My Thoughts, a series of my completely unsolicited opinions on pop culture, media, and life.

I want to talk about something that truly grinds my gears. Like actually makes my blood boil. I know I’m generally talking about pop culture on here, but this article is a little more personal to me. I’m talking about being left out.

Being left out is something that I think can be done both consciously and unconsciously. Both obviously feel like shit, but let’s break it down. I genuinely think that consciously, clearly, intentionally leaving someone out is one of the evilest things a “friend” can do. Nothing upsets me like seeing a group of my friends hanging out and knowing damn well I wasn’t even invited. It’s like, sure I was probably going to stay in tonight anyway, but that’s not the point, I should have at least been invited.

Clearly, I’ve been through this in order to have such strong feelings about it. This triggers me so much because it happened to me constantly in high school. I had just started to become close with a new group of friends; I was friends with some of them individually and eventually became a part of the group, or so I thought. There was a group of girls and a group of guys who made up this larger friend group. There were constantly parties and hangouts, and I was constantly left out. They chalked it up to, “well the guys don’t know you well, and they’re hosting.” Sorry….how the fuck are the guys supposed to get to know me if I’m never invited to anything? Like? Bullshit! 

I say that consciously excluding someone is so evil, but I’m not even sure that’s what my friends were doing. I think they genuinely didn’t think about it, which somehow hurts more. Not only was I not invited, but I wasn’t even considered. Not even thought about it. That killed. 

I do want to say that my friends certainly always made time for me one on one; which is why some of them are still my closest friends to this day. But in a group setting, I never felt important to them. I literally begged for an invite to an after-prom party, and when the host said “yeah, I guess you guys can come” I may as well have kissed his fucking feet, I was so grateful. I think about that now and I’m like…..what the fuck. That’s literally lower than the bare minimum. Letting two more people come to your after prom party that literally every single one of my friends was going to be at? Thanks, king.

I think this constant exclusion throughout high school was traumatic to me in a way because I find that when it happens now, I have an extremely emotional reaction. Just last week I saw multiple Snapchat stories of my friends out together - did I get so much as a text to see what I was up to? Nope. Not even considered. It hurts.

I like to think that I’m someone who thinks of others and always tries to include others, especially those I care most about. Being left out of one night out might seem like such a minor thing, but every time this happens, it launches this bigger issue for me. That I always give more than I get. I always think of others more than they think of me. I love hard, especially my friends, and it hurts that I don’t feel like I get that love back.

I don’t really have a resolution for this since it’s still something I go through nearly 6 years after high school. I wish I had some better advice for you, but just know that if you’re going through this you’re not alone. God, how cheesy is that? But it’s true. And know that the right group of people will love you just as hard as you love them. That’s something I’m still learning, but we’re getting there.