Thursday, January 24, 2008

Exclusion

When I first moved into this new town a year ago, I really struggled to make new friends. I'm horribly shy and I do terribly with starting a conversation with a stranger and maintaining small talk. But once you get to know me, I'm a nice person, a good friend. You might have to trust me on that one, but I promise, it's true.

Anyway, I thought I'd struck gold when I came across this NCT coffee group in my neighbourhood. We meet up every Monday afternoon at a different person's house every week. There's roughly 6 of us, and we all have similar aged children. It was slow at first getting to know the other women, but I felt that over the past 6-8 months we've come a long way. I knew that the other women had known each other for a lot longer, but I felt accepted into the group, felt like a friend. We've gone to each other's children's birthday parties, girl's nights out, holiday parties. We've discussed close-friend things and had a good laugh.

And then I found out that the rest of them are not only meeting up on Monday afternoons but also Thursday afternoons, with one exception. They don't invite me. Why not me? I'm a likeable person. Elliot gets on well with the other children. They know I don't have other plans for Thursday afternoons. I don't get it. It feels really hurtful and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to bring it up with them without being overly hurt or confrontational. It might just be something unintentional, right?

On the other hand, it has been harder because I had to make friends with them all in a group setting. There hasn't been a lot of one on one time and I can see that that must have some bearing on it, but it doesn't hurt any less. Since I've found out about their Thursday get-togethers I've made the attempt to make other friends, but am I back to square one? Back to those uncomfortable 'Hi, how are you? how old is your child?' conversations at toddler group... SIGH.

3 comments:

  1. I'm sorry that happened. I have a hard time making friends too and this would break my heart.

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  2. This is upsetting but maybe they have no intentions to leave you out. If they've known each other for a long time, it may just be that they want to spend time with each other as the 'original' group. And they didn't tell you because they didn't want to hurt your feelings.

    I would feel the same as you about it though but I think if you are having fun with them, and you feel their friendships are worth keeping then there's no need to question them on this. You could let them know somehow that you know about their Thursdays but if you show that you don't mind then they will relax about it and realise how nice you really are!

    I hope I haven't made things worse. I think you're extremely brave to make friends with a group of people. I'm useless with groups. I always prefer to make friends one-to-one (probably because I get paranoid in groups). I hope you feel better about it soon. xxx

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  3. I don't have any advice but I'm sorry that it happened and that you feel bad. I have a hard time making friends too, so I can relate to those feelings.

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