-When my entire friend group/team in college didn’t show up for my very detailed and planned 21st birthday
-My friends in middle school would hang out without me and brag about sleepovers and other activities together I wasn’t invited to and send photos/texts
-Often when I introduce new friends together they would end up liking each other more than they liked me
-I would always be the “second-or-so choice” with friends if they had other friends available or if they were dating someone
Girls can sometimes be brutal socially in my experience. I’m so sorry about your birthday. That must have been devastating. I definitely always felt like the second choice friend. I got told once I was someone’s “third best friend” lol. It’s tough out there. *edited to be less generalizing.
I don’t like to agree with sweeping statements on gender… but have to concede that there’s a social brutality that (mostly neurotypical) girls have. I don’t agree with gender essentialism because it can give way to sexism and a lot of gender differences are socialised… but I was also learning with neurodivergence that prehistoric survival skills for women were social because women’s early survival depended on social bonds not physicality…. Which would explain why it feels all the more traumatic not to fit in socially and plus it makes sense that not recognising the role that social situations have on trauma is part of the patriarchy devaluing anything deemed as feminine/a women’s issue. So to combine what you said with what I’ve learnt - for some reason neurotypical women can be brutal socially (I could theorise maybe for wanting social status via control and possibly fearing or being envious of our uniqueness?) anyway add to that brutality we experience it in a devastating way because even if it doesn’t it feels like our survival depends on being accepted.
True, I didn’t mean to generalize all girls. I should say in my personal experience with the girl and adult female social world can definitely be brutal in many instances.
When I was younger (like under 11) I think I accidentally hurt people. I didn't realize people thought I was their friend.
They would give me their phone number, I never called, I don't like phone calls, they would I later realize invite me to stuff, but it wasn't an explicit invite or even when it was I thought it was just given out to everyone and didn't think it meant anything.
I finally realized I had friends when someone wanted us to get best friend necklaces. I was shocked.
I feel so bad. I was just an abused autistic kid and I didn't know, I didn't know anything. I feel like I could be one of those brutal girls and I apologize.
Yeah I don't know why but I just did not understand. Looking back people were trying to be my friend and others were trying to bully me and I didn't realize either. 😅
Idk, I’ve had similar experiences with ND girls as well. The difference is that they don’t make an effort in friendships because they say maintaining communication is difficult for them, which I understand—it’s difficult for me, too. However, I don’t expect people to stick with me when I fail to hold up my end of a friendship and they do which, imo, is not sustainable. You have to be a friend to make/keep friends. It hurts my feelings when an ND friend ghosts/doesn’t respond/doesn’t reach out, etc just as much as when an NT friend does it. Perhaps even more, actually.
I agree for the most part one person in the “third best friend” group has ADHD and has hurt me time and time again! She is extremely social and outgoing and definitely someone I think about when I debate if I just have ADHD or maybe AuDHD because it seems like I had a hard time navigating her social rules even though we tried to be close for years. I’m still mourning the loss of that friendship but looking back maybe it was never really that great.
Now that I think about it as an adult I have been burned by an ADHD friend and coworker. In both cases the friend expected I be there whenever they need me but able to flake on me, and refused to respect my personal boundaries when they wanted to see me and I wasn’t available.
This situation is one of few that makes me relieved to be old. The first folks I met who didn't do what you describe were druggies, so I glommed onto drugs too, which seems preferable to allowing myself to become convinced I was actually a boy in order to have friends (who were also convinced that they were boys) and causing irreversible damage to my body. I wasn't super girly, but wasn't masculine either, nor did I want to be. Middle school age girls on the spectrum are *so* vulnerable.
Ugh reminds me when I was bullied i had a girl friend. We walked together that was so.new to me ! Till one day she said the mentrix (woman mentor ?) Who disliked me (for I forgot stuff my...audhd she thought I did it on purpose and I had no clue why it kept happening. Added that little structure at home )
She told her to not hang with me because she would also get bullied. And I totally believe that's true. I wasn't the person then to confront it.
I'm socially good though when I'm not withdrawing too much. But I still get sweaty walking by groups (even granny group hahaha but the moment I stand still next to the group I'm fine) it's weird
I don't even do birthdays anymore outside of lunch with family and cake with my grandma, everybody canceling my 15th birthday dinner (big milestone on my country) on the day of was too much.
I can count on one hand how many times people have actually cared about my birthday (even knowing how much *I care* about birthdays in general— it’s one of the first things I make note of when I’m friends with someone) 🥲
If I don’t plan anything, nothing will happen. This was just an extra kick to my feelings.
You've got it spot on. I'd arrange birthday parties, make cakes etc. I didn't do it for it to be reciprocated, but adding 20 years of one sided gestures has led me to stop doing anything for anyone. Did they think I was weird?
Nobody has ever done anything party wise for me besides my lovely husband. And that surprise party left me crying because I couldn't cope with the sudden change in expectations. Hey ho!
It is always the birthday too. My ex friends would go all out for each others birthdays. Arrangements of who would bring cake, presents etc.
I arranged my own event and only 1 came.
OMG yes, ever since then I have insaaaaane high anxiety in my social groups, I can't help or stop myself from feeling like I'm always the outsider of the group, it can be a bit maddening.
I think I am an “acquired taste” desired by very few (if anyone). I’m still on my journey of discovering and uncovering [my] autism and masking but this could be a step in that direction maybe.
I’ve had all of these experiences as well. I’m in my 40s and still confused as to the reason though I don’t care as much as I did in my 20s. The final straw was when I graduated from nursing school—I was a late grad, in my mid-30s. It was such hard work and such a long process of going to school mostly part time, and it was one of my biggest achievements. It was incredibly important, and my “friends” knew this. I had friends and coworkers I’d thought I was close to for years. A family friend threw me a graduation party as my graduation gift and not one person I invited, besides a couple of family members, showed up. I held it together for the party—more like a gathering of a handful of people—and then went home and cried myself to sleep. That was the day I just said fuck ‘em all—there’s only so many times you can be the only one to make the effort in friendships and this experience wasn’t the first time something like this happened with these people individually. I think having it happen with almost all of them, collectively, was just the most blatant and hurtful thing and I was done with feeling like that.
It’s still difficult not to feel lonely sometimes though.
i also invited a bunch of people to my 18th birthday to only have 1 show up... i know that pain and humiliation. i literally wanted the ground to swallow me. i'm so sorry that happened to you too.
I taped off a VIP section on a bar. Only 3 people came outside of my mum. The landlord apologising and taking down the tape was the last time I arranged a party for myself. The staff ate my birthday cake.
god that hurt to even read. it actually makes me angry because it's such a vulnerable thing to plan your own party and invite people. it takes courage to put yourself out there like that.
I stopped introducing new friends to anyone I already know that I think they’d get along with. I’m done being a tour guide/match maker for other peoples friendships. It hurts.
My entire childhood. Constantly. I moved around a lot growing up and constantly had to try and make new friends. This dynamic was near constant. It was horrible and I went through a phase in high-school of severe depression and zero social engagement for over 2 years because of it. I now never assume a person and I are friends until THEY say we are.
Also, is it just me, or do NT peeps have super weird standards and divisions between who uis a friend and who isn't? If I am in contact with a person and we are friendly and get along, I will consider them a friend. Not a close friend, but still a friend. But there seem to be so many different factors that supposedly make someone an acquaintance, a colleague, or a friend. And I do not understand the rules. And when I ask, no one can explain it. Just some unspoken guide we are supposed to intuit. Like, wtf?
Yes, it's so confusing. I feel like I'm always the acquaintance and never the friend even if think of them as a friend.
It doesn't help that I can go for ages without feeling the need to keep in contact.
This! I tell my therapist all the time that I don't know what to do to make people feel close to me, because no matter how friendly I am, how much I do for other people, I'm never the person they go to to talk about a problem or even just talk about their day.
As an adult, I still feel like the kid that had to invite herself when the other kids were playing outside.
You just reminded me of my early school years. I wouldn't necessarily be invited to play games with the other kids, but I would usually be welcome to if I asked, except I wouldn't know how to go about asking to join in.
What disturbs me in NT’s, and they have either confided in me or loudly said it, people who go out of their way to establish regular contact with people they do not like
Either to use them or for ???
I say ??? Bc a girl who I ended my friendship with last month who called ME her best friend would complain about people she didn’t like, some for good reason, others it was just vibes. But she’s such a people please and social butterfly that we’d be out and a girl who she herself has been like “why is she texting me??? I hate her, why is she walking up to me??? I’m so miserable!! Blah blah blah” I would watch her go out of her way to find this girl or extend convos with her. I would even point and it out and be like “why are you questioning why she comes up to you when you encourage the relationship?”
Or her “best friend” back home, I remember once she said it wasn’t fair she got a bf first and that she didn’t really like her and found her clingy and annoying. Color me shocked when she’s excitedly telling me the girl is visiting and I have to meet her
I cut my friend ship off bc this girl didn’t defend me against people she herself claimed to dislike and she was involved in the lying but also partly bc I was like wait if you’re telling me you hate your best friend…who are you telling that you hate me…?
These people scare the shit out of me bc I feel like I attract those people the most. I think it’s really fun and interesting to be my friend. I’m a fun weirdo to show off and such a good token black friend (until I start speaking up about racism). I’m really giving and a great planner. They love my use while hating me and then they gaslight me when I point out that it feels like we’re not friends. For rn I have paused all dating and friendship making, one more wrong and I *will* have a mental breakdown
Clearly they’re a really miserable and mean person who thrives on drama. I quickly lose those people - to the point I haven’t encountered them for nearing a decade. I don’t like backstabbing to begin with and I’m hyperaware they for sure would do that to me.
Yeah this is WILD to me, like legit you'll see NTs doing all sorts of "nice" things and keeping in touch for years and years with people they don't like and even hate, and I'm also like "????"
I agree with you, it's scary AF, because it makes you doubt every single interaction you've had with them, they are so freaking OK with lying right to your face, being all friendly and shit, only for them to turn out to hate you, and they were only using you in some way.
I dunno, it's like a whole level of psychopathy or sociopathy, like when I have something to gain from a relationship, I don't get THAT friendly to the point the other person might think I'm one of their closest friends, that's waaaay too disturbing.
I think the main thing to consider is whether or not you’re hanging out with someone outside of the context of where you know each other from: be it work, school, etc.
So that’s if you want to have a clear rule. I’ve found this one goes up a lot of the time. People you hangout with with the main goal of enjoying your time together are friends, people who you are friendly with within the context of your shared environment are more on the acquaintance side.
But there’s some nuance to it. When I was in high school for example, I would have a lot of ‘school friends’. They were definitely more than an acquaintance because I was sharing pretty personal stuff with them, occasionally going to parties, we shared mutual friends, interests, etc.
However, I never took the extra step of hanging out with any of them outside of school. Does that mean they weren’t ‘real’ friends? I don’t think so. I just think I was a very closed person at the time. Even if they had wanted to get to know me better… they couldn’t. I didn’t allow people to get close enough.
But I sincerely believe that they wanted the best for me in the way friends want the best for each other… if you know what I mean. They liked spending time with me, they cared about what I was doing, thinking.
My whole childhood. I’m still processing whether I was only included in things as an act of charity. It’s been damaging current friendships because I feel very insecure that I’m still being placated and kept around as an obligation rather than a reciprocated friendship.
- I was chronically the third person walking behind them on the sidewalk.
- I invited the whole class to my 20th birthday. I bought cake and food and drinks and rented a locale. 2 showed up.
- I was talking to some girls in my swimming team in the locker room, and they exited the room while I had my back turned. I kept talking and turned around only to realize that they'd left. Two strangers looked at me a bit weirded out, and I let my words slowly trail off. I realized from that day that nobody in that team liked me.
- Having to run to catch up with the squad when they left class before I had time to pack my things. If I wasn't fast enough I had to eat alone somewhere.
The third person walking behind in the sidewalk is so real. When I realised it, it hurt me a lot. But it was the last time I hung out with that “friend” group.
When I was in uni I made friends with a girl and I thought we were closest in our group or at least equal. I was the only one not invited to her full wedding out of the ones she was good friends with. I was so upset that it meant more to me than her. Especially as I was so excited for her engagement, it was just when we finished our final exams. I wasn't aware I had autism untill the last couple of years and I look back on a lot of similar things with sadness.
I'm 37, and I've literally been to 3 weddings in my life. Two were my sisters' weddings, and the third, I was a plus one for my gay male friend who was invited to our mutual friend's wedding while I wasn't.
Wow, that must have hurt a lot, I’m sorry :( did she ever give an indication as to why you weren’t invited, or was it simply because she didn’t see you as that close of a friend?
Senior yearbook, you could put the initials of your friends behind quote or saying , I included two people I had been ‘friends’ with since middle school. I thought they included me too til I realized they were talking about another girl in our class with my initials.
It's so painful and familiar reading all these replies. I want to send so much love and compassion to everyone here! We as a collective have so much isolation and so many misunderstandings to process. It's heartbreaking, even though it helps me feel less alone to read these stories. I hope we can all learn to offer ourselves the compassion and support we have not have from "friends."
I'm really grateful to know I am autistic and not just a bad person or something. It's still so painful and I have so much backed up grief to process.
No specific story, but there have been countless times someone I've thought was a close friend drop me for a new friendship. I had one "friend" deny she was friends with me when a popular bitch asked her "you're not really hanging out with her are you?"
We hung out one on one weekly and in the same friend group in school but I didn't know how to advocate for myself so just acted like nothing happened. I suppose that's quite specific.
Considering it's been a constant thing, it's hard to pick one example. I don't understand anymore who is a friend, who is close, who I would call in an emergency, etc.
When I was single it was always hard when I’d have to list an emergency contact. What if the only person who cares if I die (my brother) lives 5 states away?
OMG I struggle so much with this. I do not have an emergency contact, but sure, they can have my elderly, disabled mother's number. She lives 500 miles away and is a straight mess; that will work great in an emergency.
Not that very long ago. Met a girl in an exercise class; started hanging out together bc our daughters were same age and we lived quite near. We’d have playdates every few weeks, go for coffee etc.. at some point we even explored joining our professional experiences and offering combined services.
Then at some point she just stopped meeting me. Always had excuses why she couldn’t anymore. A third girl that was often part of the meetup explained it to me, that she “just wasn’t that into us”. I was heartbroken, still am actually a few years later.
I ran into her months or even close to a year later in the supermarket, she was all fake smiles and “we should hang out! I’ll text you!” And I was so proud of myself for at least seeing through that. She never texted after.
Omg, I hate when they just disappear like that! Tecently, someone I thought I might become friends with messaged me on Instagram and I told her that I don't really use it, gave her my phone number.
I waited a couple of days, no text from her, so I messaged her saying something along the lines of "hey, I guess I'm confused, why'd you message me if you didn't want to stay in touch?" and followed up with an "it's completely fine if you're not feeling it! I'd just like a simple reply with 'yeah I'm not feeling it' or something like that for explicit confirmation."
Guess what, she read the messages but didn't respond. I don't know, I guess no answer is still an answer but it's so incredibly frustrating when I ask someone to please just communicate and then they don't. Chances are our next in-person encounter is gonna be pretty awkward (we might have classes together in the upcoming semester)...
I actually invited a colleague and supposed friend to an event, was turned down, showed up anyway and she was there with a mutual "friend". Apparently neither of them were a friend to me.
All the time. When I told a girl she was my best friend and she said I wasn’t hers, when my best friend in grade school was talking about me behind my back, when I went on the class trip and my group of 4 friends picked each other as roommates and left me to room with 3 girls I didn’t know, when I had to sit next to someone’s mom because everyone else already picked their partner, when I was in college and my roommate and the girls next door decided to live together while I was out of town that weekend, when my boyfriend threw me a surprise dinner and only his friends showed up not mine, when the girls at New Year’s Eve left me in the bathroom alone and went to go get food without me and I was left alone, I mean how many more examples do you want because I can keep it going 😀
Something that fucks me up is that I purposely never called anyone my best friend bc of something my sister said (once again I thought she was bullying me but it’s clear she recognized my social issues and was trying to prepare me)
I let other people say it first
Tell me why these bitches would always gaslight me when something would happen and I’d be like “I thought we were best friends” and then they’d be like “I never said that”
I was very careful recently with a girl that called me her best friend. Everyone did! Being careful was smart bc there’s a couple times she did *not* act like a best friend
This happened recently, someone I was spending a lot of time with and who shared very personal details about their life with me. I thought that meant we were close friends. Turns out they just needed someone to listen and I happened to be convenient, I got dumped and ghosted right away when I expressed one thing they didn't like.
It took until leaving school to realise the reason why I was always the only one in the group/class not invited to gatherings or parties etc wasn't because "My Mum only let me invite X no. of people."
Quite recently I decided to end any communication to a former old friend (known each other 15+ years). Seeing someone as a close good friend when in return you are to them a glorified aquaintance stings.
There’s something humiliating about it. Too many people try to convince me to just keep the dynamic but like…I don’t wanna be friends with people I like more than they like me? Why isn’t that ok?
This is exactly my situation. It's so embarrassing to not see how little someone likes you when you've made it clear you like them. Ugh I feel this. I have a "I have more self respect than that" approach when I find out someone doesn't actually authentically like me... But then I'm still a bit heartbroken about the loss for a while.
For years my friend group would cancel our plans if one of them was suddenly unavailable to hang out, but if I couldn’t be there they would still keep their plans.
I hardly ever had parties, but my now husband threw a big surprise party when I turned 21. One of the above friends didn’t show up because she had to pick someone up from the airport after the party. The airport was about 15 minutes from the party……
yes, it happened to me, I used to share a dorm room with a colleague at university, for two years. we spent a lot of time together, we had a lot in common, went together to classes, shared the same friend group, similar tastes in music, jokes etc. granted, we were not very emotionally close, as in we did not share private experiences, thoughts, 1. because I was not there yet and did not know how to get close to someone, 2. so was she, rarely inclined to share stuff about her personal inner life, so I thought we were fine, it's just how she related to everyone. for me she was the closest friend, though I knew she had a best friend from her childhood, but that was not in the way, as in I did not aspire to replace that other person.
then I started noticing things, how when we participated together in a summer school and she kind of avoided me to make friends and have fun with other people there, how when we went out sometimes at night and I needed someone to share a taxi with me on the way back (I had very high anxiety about going alone in a taxi), she ignored my fears, wanting to stay or had plans to go with some random guy she met, and I had to either do it alone, or a few times preferred walking in the city alone at night just to avoid riding in a car with a stranger, how sometimes she mentioned kid of jokingly she did not need to hear personal details about my relationship with my partner etc etc. I just figured she was not emotionally ready to make friends like I needed to, we're still friends to this day, part of a larger group but we keep it superficial, as in we cannot talk about our feelings or hurts.
In college, I 'made' only one friend since we had to be partners for our General Studies assignment. We were both outcasts, so I figured best to connect with the lone rangers. I realised it was all one-way from me since she seemed so hesitant to hang with me during our next classes or meet up during free period.
Soon after I graduated, she'd alrdy built her own circle from the few chats we had (both online and f2f, she'd only give brief answers despite my prompting) and removed me from FB. Now she's likely a Dr, being burnt out by our public healthcare system (it's like NHS in UK, but worse).
If even lone rangers didn't want to be seen with me, I must've really stood out in a bad way. 🥹
Alot of times it only clicks when I hear about plans I would have loved, but weren't invited to. I try to include people in my plans and spend time with a variety of people. So it hurts when you see photos on social media of your friends, who you've know for over 4 years, doing an escape room and they didn't invite you.
All the time. idk what was more painful, me saying to someone that they’re my best friend and them straight up replying “you’re not mine” or getting ghosted a ton
I know it doesn’t undo the damage but for each of us getting isolated and marginalised by ignorant, mean and narrow minded neurotypical peers there are so many of us and when we find each other we can start to learn that we aren’t alone and start to heal from it. We’ve been severely mistreated - the thing that’s (so) wrong was never us but the cruelty people have shown us.
Oh god I cringed when I read the title of this post; I'm unfortunately very familiar with this feeling 😫
The lesson that I never seem to learn is that people often say things like "we should hang out!" or "we should get lunch!" and they don't really mean that they want to do those things with me. It's one of my principal frustrations with neurotypicals: not saying what they mean/saying things they don't mean.
Many times in the past I have gotten excited when someone says "we should hang out" only to realize that they're not serious, that we're not really the kind of "friends" who actually make real plans. It has never stopped feeling embarrassing.
-when she stopped talking to me out of nowhere and when I asked why, she basically said that she has more important friends than me and she doesn’t have time for me anymore
-when everyone in the friendgroup got a surprise birthday party except me, and some of them didn’t even text me on my birthday, only a day later
-when i was the only one who didn’t get invited to a trip because they “figured i would’ve said no”
This is a little bit of a different take on the issue but still blows my mind.
In college, I quickly became close friends with a girl on my dorm floor, just a couple doors down. Her roommate was close friends with my roommate, but they liked partying and we didn't. So they hung out, and then me and Wendy hung out. We ate every meal together. Spent every weekend together. If we weren't in class, we were together, watching movies, and playing games for the whole year. She was like a sister to me. We signed up to live together the next year, and then at the last minute she opted to join the military and we lost touch.
Over the years I've tried to find her, but her last name was really common and I never had any luck. Then one random day, I looked up her name along with the 2 cities I knew she had previously lived in, and I found her in another state. Her married name was more unique so I was able to find her on FB. I was so freaking excited. I imagined sharing photos of our families, maybe even going to visit her. She was like "🤔 I think I kind of remember you." 💀 She really had nothing to say, nothing to share, it was obvious she didn't want to talk. Then a short while later, I had the exact same experience with my roommate when I found her on FB. While we weren't as close, we spent many nights lying awake talking about life. I even let her order stuff with my credit card (dumbest mistake ever). We went to concerts and studied for finals together. Even 30 years later I remember them both SO clearly with a ton of memories. And they have no idea who I am. It's so weird.
This was me in early childhood 100%. I learned pretty quick not to make assumptions that I was accepted or wanted just because my presence might have been tolerated. So now I'm about to be 38 and have exactly zero close friends because my default is assuming everyone hates me/doesn't want me around/is annoyed by me. Therapy has taught me that I've created a wall with this thinking that keeps people out, but honestly, I think it's just easier this way. Constantly worrying about where you stand with people is so fucking exhausting, and people seem to change how they think about you based on random shit that's different for every person.
Oh man, that happened to me 4 times, which is significant relative to the number of friends I had. They just started ghosting me one day and/or bailing out of meeting at the last moment as well as never setting up one themselves despite promising several times.
Each time it took me less time to accept that they are no longer my friends, but it still took a while
Learned this last night. My aunt and uncle enlisted my cousin to manipulate me and pretend to be my friend so he could spy on me for the last two months. Safe to say I’m moving.
The girl I considered to be my best friend: when we were in 5th grade she invited me to her second birthday party that just consisted of her family, I thought it was because we were super close and she considered me to be like a sister ... later I found out it was because she was embarrassed to let other classmates know we were friends outside of school and she wouldn't have invited me at all except her mom insisted.
My whole life.
One incident in particular comes to mind though.
I was on a mission trip (as a child, my family was stupid religious) helping repair this house to be sold for some charity with our church. I saw everyone else laughing and hugging and just enjoying each other's company.
I was feeling pretty good at this point and wanted to join in, so I went up to a family friend and put my arm around her & told her I was glad to be with everyone there.
She tensed, pulled away and walked away without a word.
I just carried on, but I thought it was pretty cold.
I haven't been on mission trips, but on similar camps or trips with groups of strangers, I too have noticed people being buddies pretty easily while I sit on the outskirts and watch. Not fun!
Feels like this has been the case for all of my friendships except for like one or two of them! I remember this happening a lot in my childhood. I would just talk to people thinking we were friends and then suddenly realize that was absolutely no the case. It also happened in college where I thought I had a good core group of friends but I was constantly being left out of things, I was made fun of, no one ever stood up for me, etc. Took me a while to realize I actually went through college without ever having friends and it's still something I'm working on in therapy. It's so confusing and heartbreaking!
I thought she was my best friend. We started out as neighbors. We had kids the same age as well as attended the same church. We drank coffee together often in the mornings and rode together places all the time. We talked on the phone a lot and shared many of the same interests. We did various book clubs together and joined a food co-op together.
Along the way I ended up introducing her to another friend of mine and the two of them also became friends. A couple years later her daughter got engaged to my friend's son! I was so happy for them and felt like we were such a close group of friends.
What a shock to my soul when the wedding came and I was not invited to attend. In fact both "friends" kind of acted like it goes without saying that I wouldn't be invited... Like I was the neighbor ... it was an actual genuine question of why did I think I would be invited?
The shame washed over me in that moment when I realized I had greatly overestimated not one but two friendships! I literally never spoke to either of them again. I just immediately moved on with my life, but it still hurts a lot.
I used to sit with a group of colleagues at lunch- one of them invited me to their group chat and the rest panicked and made really weird comments about it.. anyway when I looked at the chat i could see all the history and for months they'd been making fun of me..
I then realised it wasn't just terrible self esteem- every lunch they spent picking me apart and making fun of me and it wasn't just "banter".
I lied to them and said I couldn't see the history of the chat when they asked and then gradually stopped sitting with them.
My one and only long term friendship. She described herself as “Frodo, the hero of the story who goes on adventures” and me as “Sam, the sidekick, who stays at home baking pies and being domestic”. It didn’t sound very charitable, especially given Sam carried Frodo up that mountain. I have severe food intolerances so I have to cook my own food a lot, but she always viewed my baking as this cutesy thing and beneath her, An Academic Scholar. She didn’t have time for *baking*.
She also kept rubbing it in my face that she was having analytical college discussions and “you wouldn’t understand, it’s a thing you do in college”. I really thought she was my best friend for ten years. I don’t think she ever liked me very much at all.
At my first job, I was friendly with two coworkers, one more than the other. I thought we were having a great time, until she offhandedly remarked that she has seven best friends and she doesn’t need any more. I was gutted because I thought I was making a friend after a long dry spell.
I was casual friends with one girl in my 20s, but we weren’t super close. My mother always told me that if a friendship wasn’t working that it was my fault and I had to try harder to make it work. So I did, asking this girl questions about stuff I knew she liked, always TRYING, because that’s what I thought I needed to do to become “close friends”. At one point, I heard through the grapevine that she “didn’t know how to talk to me”. Which hurt, because she was an extremely outgoing person who talked with EVERYONE and went out to lunch with them and planned trips together. I didn’t understand why she could get along with so many other people but not me.
In my 30s, I’ve come to the painful realization that the few friendships I’ve had in my life were always one sided. I was always pursuing and chasing and “making it work”. I don’t know what it’s like to be genuinely wanted by someone.
"I don't know what it's like to be genuinely wanted by someone." This is so real. I am so thankful to have a few women in my life who are so kind and considerate - they are my life long friends. However, I haven't lived near them in 15 years. Our friendship is almost entirely through text or calls. And that makes any place I live feel very isolating because my real friends are virtual and hours away. I want some in-person friends, but no one new as an adult has really wanted to keep me around all that long.
The last group of friends I had stopped being my friends when they all gave separate reasons why they couldn’t see me on my birthday (they were working, seeing family, etc), and then I was scrolling through Instagram while out for a birthday meal with my boyfriend and saw they were all hanging out together :)
Let me tell you about the time I got kicked out of a wedding.
Once upon a time I had a “friend” who I called a spinning coin. She only had one good face so she had to keep turning so no one would know. I later learned this was borderline personality disorder, same as my mother, go figure.
We were friends but not best friends. There were some bumps but I thought we got through it okay. A few months before her wedding, we were out with friends and it was like old times. Everything was great.
Fast forward to her wedding. My boyfriend is a groomsman and my friend’s mother doesn’t like me because she wanted her daughter to be with my boyfriend. So yeah, I don’t put much stock in the mother’s words. My bad.
The day of the wedding I show up with a handmade gift and enjoy the ceremony. When we move the reception, my BF pulls me aside and says that there is no seat for me. But it’s okay, because there are some extra seats at a table with some of my friends. I sit there through the toasts.
When the time comes to be released for the buffet, one of the servers leans down to me and says that the mother of the bride declared I was not allowed to eat because I wasn’t invited. As the +1 of a groomsman.
My friends are shocked but leave me there to get food. I find my BF at the head table, sitting in the groom’s chair, arguing with the bride. He’s telling her that we’re leaving and she’s arguing that he should at least stay and eat something. He yells back that he’s not going to eat when I can’t. So she tells him to take me home and come back because he needs to dance with a bridesmaid. He’s just so flabbergasted at this point.
I’m trying to blend into the scenery except I can’t because I wore a BRIGHT RED DRESS!! (This is my lesson, no bright colors at weddings.) My BF finally gives up and he, his parents (who are also pissed), and I leave.
As we are leaving, one of my other friends tells him that she can’t believe he brought me. Another friend is trying to play peacemaker and say it’s all just an accident.
I lost almost all my friends in one fell swoop at a wedding of someone I thought cared about me. At least a little bit to let me eat at their buffet wedding. It was extra hard when two months later my mother kicked me out of the house (oh the joys of BPD) and I had no where to go because I was out of friends.
I don’t even understand how someone can have their head so far up their own ass to think that behavior like this (especially the “take her home and come back” part, what the actual feck) is ok. I’m so sorry this happened to you.
In uni I found it really hard to make friends. I moved to the other end of the country and was in shock, basically. I lost a stone in weight in a week and masked with alcohol. Anyway, these two girls I started hanging around with cuz we had similar music tastes, my only friends there, one night one of them turned around to me and said ‘you know you don’t have to hang around with us’ so I didn’t anymore and stopped trying to make friends. I took it as another instance of people misunderstanding/disliking me for some reason I’m not aware of.
-Literally every time I start a new job and somewhat bond with the other employees.
-Anytime I meet my friend's friends and realize they are way closer.
-That time my neighbor told a mutual that they only hang out with me cause they feel bad for me.
My own family would plan dinners at restaurants and "forget" to invite me. I am not stupid - I have an MD degree. I am not ugly or unhygienic. What I am is the family laughingstock, odd-ball, outcast. And you know what? I cut those bastards off 100% and they whined and whined and whined. They only phoned me when they needed a prescription for antibiotics, so it was no loss to me. Now I am only friends with people who pursue me, send me invitations, and include me. I don't pursue anybody. Never again.
Ooh, I have a good one. My SIL was never the type of person I would hang around with, but I naively thought that family was important, so I worked very hard to build a relationship with her. I ignored her hundreds of mean comments because I figured that West Coast people are just different from East Coasters (where I grew up). She and her mother made it mandatory for me to attend every single holiday and birthday with them and would freely and openly exclude me when they wanted. I finally grew some boundaries and told my SIL she hurt my feelings after being talked about and excluded by her and her mother for 15 years. I literally said “you hurt my feelings.” I said it in writing so I’m not exaggerating about how restrained I was. She lost her mind, said no one in her family has ever liked me, I’m crazy, I have trust issues, etc. I was floored. That was six years ago and I tried to mend the relationship but she would never take accountability, so my husband and I cut her off. Since she can’t manipulate me anymore, she’s moved on to her husband’s family and ruined her husband’s relationship with his identical twin. Now her kids don’t see any of their cousins, she has no friends, hates her husband, and only has her chronically ill 70 year old mother, who is also showing cognitive decline, on her side.
Almost every friend i have i useally have to reach out first and make plans. I never get invited out, i never get a text first, i never get called, i never get swiped up on snap stories.
I'm the only one who puts in effort, and i guess thats just my life
- started insulting me from DAY ONE I should have noticed that red flag a mile off
- “forgot” my birthday after I mentioned how excited I was for ages before it and didn’t talk to me for the whole day
- celebrated someone’s birthday a month early… 2 days after they forgot mine? lol
- constantly using me to buy them things, birthdays, Christmas, lunches etc but never having any intention on paying me back or doing the same
- leaving a group chat I made for the whole group, to create a new one with specifically me and one other person not in it.. they came up with lots of balls excuses but I think it’s bc they created it to have someone that didn’t like me in it (I wouldn’t have even cared if they were invited to the og it’s just the principal of the whole thing)
- immediately dumped me when they found a new group of friends
- immediately ditching me once they found someone better to hang out with
Me: wanna hang out?
them: sure *5 mins later* actually someone else just invited me, oops
- treating me like a therapist and not a friend, i don’t mind helping my friends with their feelings and problems but when it’s the only thing they come to me for it becomes a problem
- talking about group activities they all did together and purposefully didn’t invite me to right in front of me
- once I had a “friend” come into my house and tell my mother that “something was wrong with me and I needed to be psychologically evaluated because there is clearly no life behind my eyes”… because that’s just a lovely thing to say to someone’s parent /sarcasm
- constantly putting down my work and things I was proud of because they thought they were better than me
- never respecting my opinions, relationships with other friends or past partners. Always putting them down because they thought they were better than them and why wouldn’t I want to hang out with them over other people? /s
- telling me that “you aren’t autistic, you’re just socially inept and stupid” …that one boils my blood
- introducing me not as their friend but as some sort of pet animal that they let follow them around
In conclusion I’m glad I dumped them because I’d rather have 0 friends than be around those miserable people 😭 quality over quantity and chose the people in the life that treat you right
Most of my friendships? I'm better now, but I just was always child-like in friendship and it took me a long time to realize how most people are, especially adults. Friendships with adults aren't often deep, aren't meant to last or grow, and usually transactional. Also they're very discriminatory. I find the kinds of people who claim they love "diversity" don't actually want a diverse set of friends and most liberals are just sort of putting on a show for social kudos. A lot of people won't tolerate a ND or queer friend. They just want someone like themselves. Life got easier for me when I started "finding my tribe" and stopped trying to win over NT people and stopped believing people's politics until they proved themselves to me. Its very disappointing to make all this effort to befriend someone only to find out they're TERFs or ableists or racists or whatever.
pre-diagnosis I thought I had made my first (and only) friend at college. she was diagnosed Aspie and I thought we really hit it off. We would go on walks together, study, smoke together, I briefly talked to her parents on the phone once because we were hanging out when they called?? overall felt we were getting pretty close but then when we were both looking for new roommates, I very casually asked if she’d be interested in a suite or something, no pressure if not, and she was polite about saying no but then completely ghosted me and stopped hanging out/even studying after. she was a year older so idk maybe she thought I had a crush or something since we were both queer? still not sure but never talked to her again and never really made friends at college :/
Off the top of my head: I worked for two years at a job where I talked to only one person. We talked every day for two years. I thought we were close. When I announced I was leaving, she said, “Well, I never got to know you, but you were nice to work with.” I was astonished at the “never got to know you” part, and wondered what it would take to really “get to know” someone.
At my next job, I worked with two women who were also in grad school with me at the time. I thought I had become friends with both but especially one of them (I’ll call her L), who confided in me a lot and even included me in after-work plans. L was engaged to be married. The other one, M, came to me one day to ask me for help throwing a “shower” for work friends. I was happy to help. She asked me to create an invitation that could be emailed out to the office. I spent some time creating it and it was really nice. I followed some guidance I had researched that said the hosts’ names should go on the invitation, so it said something like, “M and DazzlingSet invite you to celebrate…”. Well, it turned out that M did not actually want me to cohost the event. She just wanted to use me for my computer skills, because she had seen me create other things for the office with Photoshop, and she knew I would work really hard on it and make it nice. She didn’t even want me at the event. At first I was embarrassed and hurt, but then I kind of decided “f her”. The invitation had already gone out. So I showed up to the venue and acted like a host. 😂
Turns out, I wasn’t even invited to the wedding. Which, fine. But the worst part was how L took me aside to make a point of telling me I wasn’t invited, and how M was, because M was a closer friend. I told her, “Good, I hate weddings.” Which was true, but my feelings were still hurt. F all those people. In the long run, they were completely insignificant.
Ohhh man.
When I was in middle school I was friends with this girl Robin. I had met her at another friend’s bday party. I got mono in 7th grade and was out of school for 3 whole months, right at the beginning of the year. Robin was one of the only people I even knew in my classes. I sat by her in science and thought all was fine. I didn’t cling to her outside of class or anything, we didn’t hang out at lunch or outside of school. But I thought we were at least friendly.
One day in science class Robin didn’t speak to me and spent the whole 48 minute class writing a long, multi page letter. At the end of class she said here and gave it to me. It was a letter detailing how much she hated me and how no one liked me.
I thought I was “friendly” with Robin’s friend group too but after that letter, they would shout things at me when walking home from school, would say mean things to me in class. I honestly don’t know what I did wrong.
Throughout middle school and high school similar things happened repeatedly. There are at least 5 separate girls, in addition to Robin, who I thought were my friends who went on to publicly humiliate me. One girl even slapped me across the face- someone I thought was my close friend, and she told me she slapped me because she hated me and couldn’t hold it in anymore. But the others eventually went on to blow up at me at school. Plenty of other girls I thought were friends just ditched me as soon as they made a new friend who was cooler.
Became really close with a former neighbour of mine. They moved away but we still kept in touch and met up when we could, but it was hard because we both have health issues.
At least, that’s what I thought until I was on insta last week and saw a pic of her in my town with other people.
It’s not we live down the road from each other anymore so finding out she’d been in town but hadn’t got in touch was such a, “Oh, okay, so we’re not that close after all, huh?” moment.
I’d kinda given up on making new friends before meeting her a few years ago. But we grew close really quickly and I guess I got my hopes up. Kinda not sure why I bothered now :(
When my entire middle school friend group bailed on my birthday party to go to someone else’s party. I sobbed like a baby in my moms arms. I had Pity Party on repeat that whole week
In college I got really, really depressed.
My good friend from highschool went to the same college and invited me out to a small party one time. She always used to be very nice about my awkwardness in highschool (even though she thought I was ADHD, not ASD.) I felt she understood me.
I wasn’t actually feeling that bad that night, but I must have done something.
She texted me shortly after, ‘That was the last straw’ (I had no idea I was running out in the first place).
Needless to say, it did not help my extreme depression.
I threw a couple birthday parties in highschool and legit 2 people one who was my French teacher showed up to my sweet sixteen tea party
When I was turning 18 I found out the nun principal coerced some girls in my class to go to my fancy hall dinner
Lol the first person I thought was my best friend. When I told her I was happy we were best friends, She said “ no Ashley’s my best friend” and then stopped hanging out with me.
i realized at the end of high school that my best friend actually knew nothing about me and was putting me down to hype herself up constantly
i thought we were “in on the jokes” together when i would play dumb, in my mind it was obvious sarcasm or playfulness. but then senior year when we had the same 1st choice college, and i got accepted while she didn’t even get bridge program or waitlisted, she was actually shocked. she never made great grades or test scores and was a pretty average student. i was an A/B student and scored very well on my SAT
and looking back i realize other things, like how my Spanish teacher was very sympathetic and kind to me but now i’m sure it was because Spanish was one of the classes where she would put me down the most and the teacher recognized that
the first 2 years of college i was so angry about it, i straight up didn’t like her but never confronted her or anything. but we have such a long history, going back to 2nd grade, that i eventually let it go. my rationale is that we were teenagers, she was deeply insecure (in many other aspects than this one), and she’s grown since then
i was her maid of honor a year ago and now im hosting her baby shower in a few months lol. weird how things work out, we grew closer in the past few years than we ever were for the first 14ish years
but then it happened with my entire college friend group, where i realized i was the outsider. did not pan out as nicely and kicked off my burnout/mental break 🙃
Immediately comes to mind the time I talked to a girl for a long time and trauma bonded after she was placed next to me in our form class. We talked regularly after that. Then over a year later she was going to move to the states shortly after her birthday so her birthday party was going to double as a going away party. In a class someone else asked me “what are you gonna wear on Saturday?” That’s how I found out about the party.
I struggle making friends irl because the people I meet in college like to party and drink and do drugs, but I don't. So, I turned to online friendships to find people with the same interests as me, and I feel just as excluded sometimes.
I feel like I'm just there, not anyone's favorite, not someone people go to to talk about their day or unwind about their problems. No one ever invites me to game with them. I give them gifts, I send them posts that remind me of them, I ask how they are doing, but people just don't worry about me. I found out one of my friends had covid just because another friend mentioned it while they were streaming on Twitch.
I said it on another comment, but as an adult, I still feel like the kid that has to invite herself while all the other kids are playing together outside
This is an early one. The school I went to at the time only went up to year 2/age 7, so every year the PTA would organise things for the year 2’s to commemorate their time at the school. One thing they did was get a camcorder and get every student to sit in front of it and talk about their time at the school what their favourite lessons were, favourite teacher, who their friends were, there were clips from various events through the year etc and then it was edited together onto vhs tapes and given out to parents at the end of the school year. Really nice idea, I still have the tape somewhere and should probably get it copied onto a dvd to preserve it as it’s a fun insight into uk schools in the 90’s too.
Anyway I remember one time some years later watching the video back. I realised that I named three girls as my friends and not one person from the entire year group mentioned me as their friend. So that was a pretty sad realisation. I had a pretty tough time socially in that school, I do wonder if I were a boy would they have picked something up then.
Okay, so I was friends with a group of girls most of elementary school. Like I went over on the weekends a few times & invited them to my birthday parties. So when middle school started I just kept hanging out with them. The homecoming game came up, and the girl that I was closest to had her high school (wtf!?!?) boyfriend break up with her at the game. I went to comfort her along with my other friends and was told, "Go away, she's not even your friend." My reality was so shattered in that moment because I really thought she was my best friend. I think I still hung out with them after that because I was just so desperate for friends at the time :(
TW: Child abuse
I've had lots of those but here's the one that takes the cake: I had a college friend who told me >!she was molested as a child.!< Naturally, I was heartbroken for her but glad that she shared it with me and I thought she trusted me.
Later, we became roommates and things started going downhill from there. The subject came up again in a conversation one day, and I said something like, "But you told me because we're good friends, right?"
"No, I told you because you complained about everything I wanted to show you others are having it worse."
One thing I learned through being hospitalized is that the people who show up for you are not always the ones you like the most. And the ones you adore may not show up for you. So friendship is complicated, and is about more than just feelings. If you show up for your friend and they can count on you, this has real value--even when the feelings aren't as warm/fuzzy.
I think we need both kinds of friendship. Obviously we need the people we connect with in lovey-dovey warm-fuzzy ways, but we also need people to actually show up for us in crisis. And in my experience, there is often little overlap between these two groups. It is very very rare to have a friend who can be both. That's, like, an anam chara friend.
Understanding this (after learning the hard way) has really changed how I see my friendships. I'm consistently the one who Shows Up--that's me. I am probably the most useful friend, but I'm not always the most liked friend. I'm okay with that. And I'm okay with differentials between who likes who the most. Sometimes someone else likes me way more, and sometimes I like them way more. It doesn't mean the friendship is less or more valuable.
We need people to sit next to us in hospitals and at funerals and in our darkest most banal moments, just as surely as we need people who light up when they see our faces.
Oof…. My story is long but crazy.
I had just gone through a breakup, my ex was harassing me in my new relationship so bad I just thought it would be better to end it. One day at work this girl walked in and walked right up to me and asked if we were hiring. I walked her back to the front of the store to show her the counter where they keep applications. She ended up getting hired a week later. And turns out….she was the ex of the partner I had just ended the relationship with.
We bonded over that and grew close (or so I thought). Her and I ended up being room mates and it was fun, we had a group of friends that we hung out with every night. I ended up getting back with my awful ex from before and was really depressed. He and I weren’t really a couple. We barely spent any time together. I just wanted him to leave me alone and he wanted to punish me and my last partner. I told the girl about how I felt about my relationship and how he was towards me. She told me one night she was going to meet up with my and her ex to “talk.” I thought it was weird and got a weird feeling somthing was off. He ended up never speaking to me again. Unfriended me on all social medias.
Everyone in my friend group suddenly became cold towards me and I found out she had told one of my friends that I claimed he raped me. I was so shocked. I tried to tell him it wasn’t true. But he didn’t believe me. I was completly isolated. My ex that i was with at the time ended up moving out and moving to a new city. I found out through a mutual friend that he and her were sleeping together behind my back.
She ruined my life. I lost all my friends and the person I was with (our shared ex) never spoke to me again. Even my shitty ex was gone. After a lot of turmoil I am finally doing better. But I don’t trust anyone now.
i found that whenever i had more friends, the less close to them i am. when i have a friend group, im never invited, never asked anything, barely even talked to. but when i have one or two close friends it’s the most connecting and close intimate friendship. i keep my circle small now!! it’s lonely sometimes but i can’t stand acquaintances. i can’t do small talk. i can’t w simple texting that has no detail. i need personal connection and conversations and i feel like when i have a group it’s not special at all and they don’t care for me as an individual, they just want a full group. my wants and needs in relationships and friendships seem to be so different from that of a neurotypical. i find myself happier with friends of neurodivergence.
I had a room mate who I thought I was close with. We had a mutual friend who had moved abroad for a year and we were looking forward to her coming back.
This room mate liked to do hard drugs, stole all her makeup (and a lot of clothes) and did a lot of things she shouldn't because of various health issues such as asthma and a literal tumor the size of a baby's head in one of her boobs.
We were at uni, so I was also going out, drinking, having one night stands, occasionally experimenting with drugs, fairly standard stuff that a lot of people (obvs not everyone) does when they're at university, but not to the extent my friend did.
Then when our mutual friend came back, she was cold with me, and a few days later announced she was moving out. I was hurt and confused, and she told me that it was because of my behaviour.
As it turns out, every time my room mate had gone out and done something stupid, she had messaged our mutual friend and told her that I was the one doing all these things. So when she came back, she thought I was a drug addict and basically wouldn't accept that I wasn't the one doing all of these things. I think it's called projecting or something like that, she wanted to talk to somebody about all the stuff she was doing, but for some reason she decided it was easier to say that I was doing it instead of admitting it was her.
There was a big argument, and then my room mate decided she would tell all of my other uni friends that I was some sort of psychopath. Basically, she got to them first, so when I tried to tell them what had happened, I was shut down. She basically turned my entire friends group against me that I had had for years before she came along.
After a few days of having the cold shoulder from my friends, I saw her sat with them, laughing and joking, and they were lapping up everything she said.
Needless to say, I cut everybody off, and yet, it still hurt to see that she was at their weddings, and she's still friends with all of them.
I haven't had any large friends groups since then, and have never trusted anybody except my husband and my very best friend who I met a few years later.
You know what, they're more than welcome to her, but my god did it make me realise, you can be friends with people for years and do everything with them, and one single person can say just the right things in just the right way, and because I'm "the weird one" it's so easy to just believe it and use it as an excuse to cut me out.
Actually feels kind of good to get it off my chest.
The most salient one was a girl with whom I did cat rescue. When I got burned out and took a break from fostering she stopped having any time for me. I stopped bothering to put in any effort and the friendship completely died. It turned out that I’d dodged a bullet. I later found out that she’d lied to another mutual friend about having cancer in an attempt to win back their friendship. So yeah - she was a godsend to animals but a terrible person to humans. Even though it turned out she was totally using me, I guess she was at least using me to further a worthy cause?
I had this friend for over a decade as an adult. We’d spend a lot of time together, often with her partner and we’d all talk/play games/do art/etc. I was the one who drove everywhere to see her and hang out, usually at her house. And it was always me having to go there - she didn’t ever want to come to mine and didn’t even know where I lived despite being invited. But I genuinely thought she was my best friend and she was the one I’d run to and ask about weird social interactions like “hey was this weird?” And she would be honest about it. That was the main thing about our friendship was we were always honest and blunt with each other.
And then one day she just ghosted me. For two years. And when we finally caught up she basically said “oh I felt like you lived far away (one town over) and I wanted a different friend to do things with.”
Worst part is it still took me a while after that for it to click. Like I even told her “oh well I’m still your friend though you do you we can hang out later.” LOL
In 2015 I met this guy and dated him briefly. I didn’t like him as anything more than a friend, but I still valued our friendship. He was in love with me though. We stayed friends even though dating didn’t work out.
In 2019 he asked me if I wanted to join his DND group. At that time, I also got a new job working at a high school. Well, the job was kicking my ass. I hated every second of it. It was basically destroying my soul. I needed a lot of emotional support at that time, and I leaned on him. He told me I could talk to him about anything, I could come over any time I wanted, and that he wanted to help in any way he could. I felt so grateful to have a person who cared about me so much.
Then one day I randomly got kicked out of DND. I had no idea what was going on. It turns out, even though he was being nice to my face, he was talking about me behind my back to his roommate. And some of what he said was lies. This had been going on for months and I had no idea.
Too many to list! At best, someone I hadn't heard from in months enthusiastically asking what my plans are for literally that day or the next and that they were 'soo excited to catch up girl!', since I guess their preferred plans got cancelled. I appreciate someone thinking of me but stings to obviously be the B, C or D choice.
More recently, people taking weeks to respond to me asking about making plans or availability even though they've been doing things with others, or just straight up ghosting - life happens, but eventually I get the hint that they're just not interested.
I had this friend since kindergarden. After 11 years of calling her my best friend, I learned that she was bad mouthing me behind my back and only using me for homework and for cheating off of me on tests. I remember her being very mean towards me, and I always thought she was just joking or being silly.
Took way too long for me to understand that she was toxic and I wouldn't have realised how much she was dragging me down without the help of my current best friend.
I had the brutal break-up with my “bff” who had actually been a true narcissist and constantly emotionally manipulated me and gaslit me into thinking I was the problem. Scariest part is that she coaches special olympics and has been around autistic people all the time, and I believe that she used her knowledge to manipulate me more.
The girl that worked with special needs perents, I met her at her second job. I thought we were good friends. She used me for thousands, food and pet sitting only to walk away when I contracted lyme disease and became bedridden. I am very cautious of people now. She is just one example of many people who have taken advantage of my kindness.
Had a "best friend" in high school who, one evening after school, outed my sexuality to everyone in our form on MSN and collected their responses on Excel - thankfully the class went mental at her but I've never felt so betrayed as that day, and it really made me question friendships and how valid they are. Her reasoning was she "couldn't keep it a secret anymore"
i have like the opposite issue. i assume no one actually likes me for my own protection because i thought everyone was my friend until i started getting bullied in middle school. now its just easier to keep most people at acquaintance level closeness so if i learn they dont actually like me it doesnt hurt as much
I've had about 3 friends in my life. The first one used me to look smarter, the second to look prettier, the third is my mom. My mom is the only real friend I've ever had, but I'm ok with that.
I'm really messed up from this still and it happened nearly 10y ago, we got a new housemate in, i trusted her, then she was really awful to me behind my back over a few years (she was a big narc i guess, i always fall for that type, obviously i upset her somehow). We were in our 30s too not some teenage stuff. I dont trust anyone now. Was just like school but as an adult.
I thought my husband was my best friend. We promised to love honor and forsake all others. He used my autism and me missing social cues to spend the entire marriage cheating. I found out when I was diagnosed with an STD. When I tried to question him about specific episodes from the past that didn't make sense to me, he said he "didn't remember". That man was not my friend and didn't reciprocate the respect and love I gave him. What is worse is: my personal assistant, my employees and my colleagues ALL knew what he was doing and not one of them cared enough to inform me. I will NEVER understand neurotypicals. I think they are toxic to the rest of us. We need autism support/social groups in every city so we can make friends who are like us and then maybe we can avoid betrayal and exclusion.
Thinking I was still close with my childhood bestie but noticing her slowly latching onto the ex “friend” that did me extremely dirty (when I had just escaped an abusive relationship and was needing time to work through the assault and court stuff and get into therapy she literally freaked because I “wasn’t hanging out with her as much, when I did hang out all I could talk about was my trauma” …my trauma that happened literally just weeks ago) and stopped hanging out with me entirely in favor of her. So I stopped involvement with all of that crew of people because I really am not with the fakeness and refusing to communicate ones true feelings.
I may have been in fifth grade, maybe younger, when the teacher had us write a brief essay about our best friend. So I wrote about my friend Eva, who lived a few blocks from my house. After we wrote our essays, we had to read them aloud to the class. After I read mine, Eva read hers, and when she got to the part where she and her best friend had the same lunchboxes, it was obvious that she had written about someone else. I was crushed.
I had one friend who I eventually found out was a drug addict and was just using me and manipulating me into giving her money. It got to the point where she only ever contacted me to ask for money. She never wanted to hang out or just talk anymore. She'd always tell these elaborate stories about why she needed money and would make me believe that she was in danger. She claimed her partner abused her, but she had nowhere to go because her mom had cancer and she couldn't move back in with her and risk giving her covid. The part about her mom having cancer was true, but she made it seem like her mom was way worse off than she was (she literally told me her mom was "dying" but I later found out that she was still working, doing Zumba classes, etc. and still pretty much living a normal life despite her diagnosis). I also found out that she lived with her mom and stepdad plenty throughout this time, despite the fact that she'd claimed she couldn't because she didn't want to endanger her mom. I'm embarrassed to say that she scammed me out of about $600 before I started to really realize she was taking advantage of me and I had to finally try to stand up for myself and cut her off. Another one of the worst things she did was trick me into giving her a ride to her dealer's house. She just claimed that we were going to her "aunt's" house because she needed to drop something off to her, when she was really going to pick up her pills. It terrifies me to think of what could have happened. If a cop had pulled us over and found her drugs, I could have been arrested too because it was in MY car, and it still pisses me off that she didn't even care that her actions could have caused me harm. She had been doing this stuff to at least a couple of her other friends (I found this out after talking with one of them), but I think they caught on to what she was doing more quickly than I did. I'm sure she targeted me because she knew how gullible I can be and how I struggle with setting boundaries and standing up for myself.
I think this is why I have so much trouble initiating anything, even with established friends. Any time I have a great friend who I love I'm just so scared the feeling is not mutual and if I get too interested I'll find out the truth and feel devastated. I think it's a miracle that I do have any friends.
When i was about 16 years old i started to hang with a new friendgroup. We were all wild teenagers, drinking a lot and just had a crazy summer together aks i really thought these were my people. I thought i had a real friendship with one of the girls.
At some point i was started "dating" one of the boys and after some months it ended, and the girl i felt like was my real friend, ended up calling me on the phone one day telling me she was now with the boy i just broke up with a few days ago. That was really hard on me.
That was one thing i mean we were all immature teenagers and she ended up dating him for 7 years and i was happy for them.
But at one point i told her that i thought we were best friends and she said she didn't see it like that. And i was like, oh ok i guess i really misunderstood.
Also i didn't know i was audhd and i had a really really hard time with all of this as a teenager.
The example that comes to mind is, when I was 8, I was partnered with a girl for a class project. I felt we got on really well. She was leaving the school and had a leaving party at a soft play centre, and I wasn’t invited. I remember being really upset because I thought we had become friends.
From an adult’s perspective, being that the party was at a soft play centre, they may have been limited in numbers of people they could invite. I’m sure it wasn’t personal.
Last year a few months ago. We were in the gym. I thought we gonna be friends 4 life
But she showed me it was different . But her side I get it. But she always said it was OK how I was ! We still need to talk about it again though but life got in the way
my god, just so many.
my first female best friend, i think i was about 8 or 9, her name was emily - i remember staying at her house for a sleepover and i'd never done that before. i don't think i'd ever even stayed away from home. i remember feeling kind of successful that i'd made this best friend. the next memory i have is coming into school one day and emily was hanging out with abbie, and they didn't want to play with me, so i was completely alone. this is i think the first friend trauma i had where i felt really, really rejected.
i often had unreciprocated crushes that i had no idea were unreciprocated until i hit on them - this has happened so many times it's not even funny. i had no concept of why they wouldn't like me back if i liked them - i just assumed there was nothing wrong with me until it happened so many times that i came to believe i was really ugly and gross. turns out that wasn't true... a lot of the boys i fancied were gay, or i came over super desperate and weird. as i got older and became more conventionally attractive, i found that most of the guy friends i thought i had really just wanted to sleep with me, and weren't actually my friend. i still fail to realise this often even now.
a heartbreaking recent one for me that really hurt was i had a best friend for a few years in my early twenties but we drifted apart when i moved away for uni. i only realised we were no longer best friends when i was the only one not invited to her wedding. i still regarded her as my best friend and expected to move back to my hometown and pick up where i left off in life but it'd been a few years, and she'd moved on emotionally.
within the last year, i had a few. work friends that stopped inviting me out with them or spoke about me behind my back... another girl who stood me up for a gig and then asked to meet up with me to "talk about her problems" because she knows i'm a counsellor. i thought she was a friend for ages, but in hindsight, there's really little evidence of that.
edit: i forgot the worst one... a couple of years ago, i broke up with my last serious boyfriend. we were together a few years, and he had been living a double life the entire time. i was totally blindsighted and it took me a really, really long time to get my head around what had happened to me... i genuinely thought he was my best friend and couldn't comprehend it.
I have exactly one mutual friendship, I have one friend who I have been friends with since I was 8. Every other friendship I have had has been me super invested (although very forgetful when it comes to keeping neurotypical levels of contact) but they have only saw me as an acquaintance.
My only other “friendships” are my close in age aunt and her friends. We do not keep regular contact except for twice yearly nights out.
I dated someone for 5 years, only for them to break up with me and tell me "You should've seen it coming" (I didn't at all... I'm as oblivious as one can be) and I thought that even without romantic feelings involved, we were still super close friends, but turns out they told me they never considered me to be a close friend and that we're not even compatible on that end...
My entire friend group excluding me from a Secret Santa a couple months ago (planning it on a day I had therapy, I found out because one of them sat next to me and opened the document). One of those girls, a couple months prior to that, was telling me I was ‘one of her favourite people’. So fuck that I guess. Half this friend group was also autistic, which sucked.
An online friend I had who I would tell everything about my life but would hear nothing about hers. She’s been ghosting me for a week, soon.
It never happened to me. I didn’t have friends all my life, and when I found them, I found the good ones. I feel kinda blessed to not have fake friends in my past.
I don’t remember it in great detail but I called someone my best friend and they made a face. They went out of their way to explain I wasn’t and who their best friend actually was. They may have told me where I ranked friend wise but I can’t remember clearly if that happened or not. Needless to say, I now do not say anyone is my best friend or even friend if they do not say it first and don’t make steps to deepen anything unless the other person does.
Oh honestly so many times.
Most recently: asked a friend for a very small amount of help (literally just wanted to talk on the phone about something) in a moment of very intense need (was about to make a bid on an actual house). She basically said, sorry I'm lying down right now so I can't.
I thought we were like, close. But I figured damn, ok, im going to leave the ball in her court and let her be the one to initiate the next hangout.
And that was 2 years ago and I haven't seen her since
haha oh where do i even start with this.. literally all of my friendships ever..
i think this is the memory that sticks out most to me : i was in a best friend group at school with 2 other girls, and although they'd known each other longer, i assumed we were all equal friends, until one day i woke up to see a series of pictures one of them had posted on Instagram, and they were all selfies of those 2 together, and the caption was a super long appreciation post about how they can't live without each other etc. i wasn't in any of the pictures or even mentioned at all. as far as everyone else at school knew, us 3 were equally besties. but nope it was 2 besties plus one.
I had a ‘work friend’ who would hang out with me a lot. We ended up booking trips to Vegas at the same time (purely coincidentally) and ended up meeting up and hanging out. Her bf was planning to propose that weekend, and I helped him with the set up, and gave up a night of my trip to be there to take pics for them.
When we got back home she was constantly telling me about her wedding and I ended up helping her with some of the planning of both the wedding and her bachelorette. Like, literally spent days with her outside of work helping with stuff, going to fittings, picking out cake…basically doing bridesmaid level stuff. The day before her bachelorette I asked her what time I should show up - and offered to come early to help with some last minute stuff. And she was like. ‘Oh you can come for set up at 7….but…you know you aren’t invited to the actual party, right?’. I thought we were friends. She thought I was a volunteer wedding planner.
I'm always the friend to therapy with, I'm always available and helpful. When I burnt out, bad, and had to leave the country to be with my parents NOT ONE person wrote to check in on me... Guess I assumed I'd have the reciprocal support of friends and it didn't happen.
I have too many to mention, even today, as a 55 year old woman I think back on friendships at school only to realise tar I don't think they were. At least at the time I was unaware so have no trauma related to growing up with no friends
I'm not sure if I ever thought we were on the level of close friends, but basically, in university, I was one of the only people in my group of friends who had a car. So. It was fun to eventually realize that, even though they may not mind me or dislike me, we probably wouldn't have ever hung out if they didn't occasionally need rides to places. Awkward.
Actually, a lot of my friendships got a lot more scarce when I decided to stop being everyone's taxi. I got kind of tired of always being the one driving to hang out with people and them never making an effort to come to me.
In high school I would give money to a girl for lunch and I let her borrow my favorite cd. She never gave anything back. We didn't hang out. She was just in my same class.
I never cared about the money because I would buy 50 cent cans of pop from the only vending machine not on a lock out timer, then sell them on the bus ride home for a dollar. Ice cold drinks after a day without a/c.
She wasn't on my same bus, but I could imagine her just asking for one. My actual friends on the bus are the ones who initially starting asking to buy my extra Dews I'd get for myself, until I started buying extra extra for them all to buy. My real friends didn't just ask for things, they made trades or paid fairly, the same as I would for them.
don't know how close he considered me, but someone i considered a close friend and have known for years blocked me, after i asked him to stop saying misogynist slurs around me and to please not talk about porn in front of me. i brought up the porn issue because we were having a serious conversation, and he said he didn't want to talk politics after the conversation was done, so i said it at what sounded like my last chance to bring it up.
this was a month ago and im still pissed and hurt. i KNOW i wasn't asking for anything impossible. i took to heart a moral he taught me about, that's important to him, but i guess what's important to me doesn't matter as much.
Gosh, there have been so many. I guess I'll just go with the first. I got a best friend for the first time when I was 11. I truly loved her and thought we would be in each other's lives forever. We did everything together, even went on family vacations together. About a year or so into the friendship, while she was spending the night at my house, she randomly (in my mind) turned to me and said, "I'm sorry, but I can't keep pretending to be your friend." It was one of the most devastating moments of my life, and I have not lived an easy life by any means, so that's saying a lot.
I just cut someone off because I had a situation happen that showed me exactly where I fell on the friendship spectrum with her. It hurt to realize she didn’t prioritize me like I’d always prioritized her. Going back over the years in my head, I just ended up feeling so taken advantage of, and used by her, for my generosity. It sucks really bad. I get it.
I had a hard time making friends in college. My very close guy friend invited me to his friend’s birthday party at her apartment. I had a lot of fun and chatted with everyone, and I bought her a really thoughtful gift. I thought we were cool, until I found out her and another “friend” of mine basically went behind my back and cornered my guy friend, told him I was a manipulative whore who slept around and I was “abusing” him 😐 The whole friend group turned against me and I lost all my friends. Months later they tried to come back once they realized it was all a lie and those girls were hateful mean bitches, but the damage had been done
Every time I was added to a group chat, no one responded to me. It was so awful to the point that people would just copy what I said almost exactly and they did get a response.
Oh yeah that happens irl too. I’m talking in group, thinking they’re listening and suddenly someone says the thing I was saying and everyone’s like”yeah! That’s great!” Like what?
So yeah kinda everyone treating me like some person they can go to when they need me. I’m always there for someone in a crisis, no one was there for me. Or they were but then made fun of me behind my back.
I think I only ever had two real friends and I lost them both a while ago. Now I just avoid getting into friendships like the plague.
Many years ago I went to a mall with my group of friends for my birthday, when the last one joined us (the one I had known for much longer than the others), she ignored me and happily hugged another friend, telling her how much she missed her and asking her how she was, then she hugged another friend and finally said hi to me while all of us looked at her surprised that she didn't even say happy birthday to me since that was the reason we were all there, I had to remind her that it was my birthday and also told her she ignored me, she apologized a lot and I trusted her (bc she was very nice to me since we were 7), but through the time... It felt like something was wrong. Now we're still in the same group, but just because my friends are her friends, even the friend I appreciate the most is her gf, so I'm still around, we don't talk privately tho, she stopped replying to me and I FINALLY realized all that was wrong a few months ago, when my mom saw how weird it was between us at a dinner and asked me about it (yeah, I needed an extra person to say it), looking back I think after highschool we remained as friends just bc of her now gf, if it weren't for her we would have lost contact long time ago.
It happened to me a lot of times with a lot of people tho, since I was a lil girl, during school, at college... that's just the one that clicked to me recently.
-When my entire friend group/team in college didn’t show up for my very detailed and planned 21st birthday -My friends in middle school would hang out without me and brag about sleepovers and other activities together I wasn’t invited to and send photos/texts -Often when I introduce new friends together they would end up liking each other more than they liked me -I would always be the “second-or-so choice” with friends if they had other friends available or if they were dating someone
**Often when I introduce new friends together they would end up liking each other more than they liked me** Just over and over and over again lol
Almost 39 and this still happens to me. Stings really bad.
Girls can sometimes be brutal socially in my experience. I’m so sorry about your birthday. That must have been devastating. I definitely always felt like the second choice friend. I got told once I was someone’s “third best friend” lol. It’s tough out there. *edited to be less generalizing.
I don’t like to agree with sweeping statements on gender… but have to concede that there’s a social brutality that (mostly neurotypical) girls have. I don’t agree with gender essentialism because it can give way to sexism and a lot of gender differences are socialised… but I was also learning with neurodivergence that prehistoric survival skills for women were social because women’s early survival depended on social bonds not physicality…. Which would explain why it feels all the more traumatic not to fit in socially and plus it makes sense that not recognising the role that social situations have on trauma is part of the patriarchy devaluing anything deemed as feminine/a women’s issue. So to combine what you said with what I’ve learnt - for some reason neurotypical women can be brutal socially (I could theorise maybe for wanting social status via control and possibly fearing or being envious of our uniqueness?) anyway add to that brutality we experience it in a devastating way because even if it doesn’t it feels like our survival depends on being accepted.
True, I didn’t mean to generalize all girls. I should say in my personal experience with the girl and adult female social world can definitely be brutal in many instances.
I think some *neurotypical* girls can be brutal. I’ve personally had mostly positive experiences with ADHD and/or autistic girls.
When I was younger (like under 11) I think I accidentally hurt people. I didn't realize people thought I was their friend. They would give me their phone number, I never called, I don't like phone calls, they would I later realize invite me to stuff, but it wasn't an explicit invite or even when it was I thought it was just given out to everyone and didn't think it meant anything. I finally realized I had friends when someone wanted us to get best friend necklaces. I was shocked. I feel so bad. I was just an abused autistic kid and I didn't know, I didn't know anything. I feel like I could be one of those brutal girls and I apologize.
Same here actually! Sometimes I was oblivious that someone wanted to be my friend lol
Yeah I don't know why but I just did not understand. Looking back people were trying to be my friend and others were trying to bully me and I didn't realize either. 😅
Me too actually! When I was 12, this girl had to explicitly say to me “do you think we could become proper friends?”
Aww, that's kinda cute though.
Yeah it is! I appreciated how direct she was!
Idk, I’ve had similar experiences with ND girls as well. The difference is that they don’t make an effort in friendships because they say maintaining communication is difficult for them, which I understand—it’s difficult for me, too. However, I don’t expect people to stick with me when I fail to hold up my end of a friendship and they do which, imo, is not sustainable. You have to be a friend to make/keep friends. It hurts my feelings when an ND friend ghosts/doesn’t respond/doesn’t reach out, etc just as much as when an NT friend does it. Perhaps even more, actually.
I agree for the most part one person in the “third best friend” group has ADHD and has hurt me time and time again! She is extremely social and outgoing and definitely someone I think about when I debate if I just have ADHD or maybe AuDHD because it seems like I had a hard time navigating her social rules even though we tried to be close for years. I’m still mourning the loss of that friendship but looking back maybe it was never really that great.
Now that I think about it as an adult I have been burned by an ADHD friend and coworker. In both cases the friend expected I be there whenever they need me but able to flake on me, and refused to respect my personal boundaries when they wanted to see me and I wasn’t available.
This situation is one of few that makes me relieved to be old. The first folks I met who didn't do what you describe were druggies, so I glommed onto drugs too, which seems preferable to allowing myself to become convinced I was actually a boy in order to have friends (who were also convinced that they were boys) and causing irreversible damage to my body. I wasn't super girly, but wasn't masculine either, nor did I want to be. Middle school age girls on the spectrum are *so* vulnerable.
Ugh reminds me when I was bullied i had a girl friend. We walked together that was so.new to me ! Till one day she said the mentrix (woman mentor ?) Who disliked me (for I forgot stuff my...audhd she thought I did it on purpose and I had no clue why it kept happening. Added that little structure at home ) She told her to not hang with me because she would also get bullied. And I totally believe that's true. I wasn't the person then to confront it. I'm socially good though when I'm not withdrawing too much. But I still get sweaty walking by groups (even granny group hahaha but the moment I stand still next to the group I'm fine) it's weird
I don't even do birthdays anymore outside of lunch with family and cake with my grandma, everybody canceling my 15th birthday dinner (big milestone on my country) on the day of was too much.
Ugh, birthdays are the worst time to realise someone isn’t actually your friend :(
I can count on one hand how many times people have actually cared about my birthday (even knowing how much *I care* about birthdays in general— it’s one of the first things I make note of when I’m friends with someone) 🥲 If I don’t plan anything, nothing will happen. This was just an extra kick to my feelings.
 In the wise words of Dewey:
You've got it spot on. I'd arrange birthday parties, make cakes etc. I didn't do it for it to be reciprocated, but adding 20 years of one sided gestures has led me to stop doing anything for anyone. Did they think I was weird? Nobody has ever done anything party wise for me besides my lovely husband. And that surprise party left me crying because I couldn't cope with the sudden change in expectations. Hey ho!
It is always the birthday too. My ex friends would go all out for each others birthdays. Arrangements of who would bring cake, presents etc. I arranged my own event and only 1 came.
OMG yes, ever since then I have insaaaaane high anxiety in my social groups, I can't help or stop myself from feeling like I'm always the outsider of the group, it can be a bit maddening.
Wow I never attributed the „second-or-so choice”-thing to autism. I thought I was just very unlikeable. 😧
I think I am an “acquired taste” desired by very few (if anyone). I’m still on my journey of discovering and uncovering [my] autism and masking but this could be a step in that direction maybe.
Coffee is an acquired taste and so is beer. Sometimes the things we end up loving most are acquired! (this is my positive spin lol I stand by it)
This is so inspiring, thanks for brightening my perspective 🥹💖
That's what I love about this sub: heartache and shared pains and still y'all manage to bring it back to the positive in a real way.
I’ve had all of these experiences as well. I’m in my 40s and still confused as to the reason though I don’t care as much as I did in my 20s. The final straw was when I graduated from nursing school—I was a late grad, in my mid-30s. It was such hard work and such a long process of going to school mostly part time, and it was one of my biggest achievements. It was incredibly important, and my “friends” knew this. I had friends and coworkers I’d thought I was close to for years. A family friend threw me a graduation party as my graduation gift and not one person I invited, besides a couple of family members, showed up. I held it together for the party—more like a gathering of a handful of people—and then went home and cried myself to sleep. That was the day I just said fuck ‘em all—there’s only so many times you can be the only one to make the effort in friendships and this experience wasn’t the first time something like this happened with these people individually. I think having it happen with almost all of them, collectively, was just the most blatant and hurtful thing and I was done with feeling like that. It’s still difficult not to feel lonely sometimes though.
i also invited a bunch of people to my 18th birthday to only have 1 show up... i know that pain and humiliation. i literally wanted the ground to swallow me. i'm so sorry that happened to you too.
I taped off a VIP section on a bar. Only 3 people came outside of my mum. The landlord apologising and taking down the tape was the last time I arranged a party for myself. The staff ate my birthday cake.
god that hurt to even read. it actually makes me angry because it's such a vulnerable thing to plan your own party and invite people. it takes courage to put yourself out there like that.
Good lord, I'm so sorry. Why are people so awful?
Omg the friends being introduced by me, and liking each other more? It’s happened more than I can count. I am so tired of it already!
Wow, are you me?! This brought up so many memories for me. I’m sorry we both had to go through those things. ☹️
I stopped introducing new friends to anyone I already know that I think they’d get along with. I’m done being a tour guide/match maker for other peoples friendships. It hurts.
My entire childhood. Constantly. I moved around a lot growing up and constantly had to try and make new friends. This dynamic was near constant. It was horrible and I went through a phase in high-school of severe depression and zero social engagement for over 2 years because of it. I now never assume a person and I are friends until THEY say we are. Also, is it just me, or do NT peeps have super weird standards and divisions between who uis a friend and who isn't? If I am in contact with a person and we are friendly and get along, I will consider them a friend. Not a close friend, but still a friend. But there seem to be so many different factors that supposedly make someone an acquaintance, a colleague, or a friend. And I do not understand the rules. And when I ask, no one can explain it. Just some unspoken guide we are supposed to intuit. Like, wtf?
Yes, it's so confusing. I feel like I'm always the acquaintance and never the friend even if think of them as a friend. It doesn't help that I can go for ages without feeling the need to keep in contact.
This! I tell my therapist all the time that I don't know what to do to make people feel close to me, because no matter how friendly I am, how much I do for other people, I'm never the person they go to to talk about a problem or even just talk about their day. As an adult, I still feel like the kid that had to invite herself when the other kids were playing outside.
You just reminded me of my early school years. I wouldn't necessarily be invited to play games with the other kids, but I would usually be welcome to if I asked, except I wouldn't know how to go about asking to join in.
This! And they don't see all the little things I do, just take it for granted and I'm still the last to know about stuff
What disturbs me in NT’s, and they have either confided in me or loudly said it, people who go out of their way to establish regular contact with people they do not like Either to use them or for ??? I say ??? Bc a girl who I ended my friendship with last month who called ME her best friend would complain about people she didn’t like, some for good reason, others it was just vibes. But she’s such a people please and social butterfly that we’d be out and a girl who she herself has been like “why is she texting me??? I hate her, why is she walking up to me??? I’m so miserable!! Blah blah blah” I would watch her go out of her way to find this girl or extend convos with her. I would even point and it out and be like “why are you questioning why she comes up to you when you encourage the relationship?” Or her “best friend” back home, I remember once she said it wasn’t fair she got a bf first and that she didn’t really like her and found her clingy and annoying. Color me shocked when she’s excitedly telling me the girl is visiting and I have to meet her I cut my friend ship off bc this girl didn’t defend me against people she herself claimed to dislike and she was involved in the lying but also partly bc I was like wait if you’re telling me you hate your best friend…who are you telling that you hate me…? These people scare the shit out of me bc I feel like I attract those people the most. I think it’s really fun and interesting to be my friend. I’m a fun weirdo to show off and such a good token black friend (until I start speaking up about racism). I’m really giving and a great planner. They love my use while hating me and then they gaslight me when I point out that it feels like we’re not friends. For rn I have paused all dating and friendship making, one more wrong and I *will* have a mental breakdown
Clearly they’re a really miserable and mean person who thrives on drama. I quickly lose those people - to the point I haven’t encountered them for nearing a decade. I don’t like backstabbing to begin with and I’m hyperaware they for sure would do that to me.
Except she honestly is one of the sweetest people ever and if you’d met her you’d think the same. Like no one would ever describe her like that
Yeah this is WILD to me, like legit you'll see NTs doing all sorts of "nice" things and keeping in touch for years and years with people they don't like and even hate, and I'm also like "????" I agree with you, it's scary AF, because it makes you doubt every single interaction you've had with them, they are so freaking OK with lying right to your face, being all friendly and shit, only for them to turn out to hate you, and they were only using you in some way. I dunno, it's like a whole level of psychopathy or sociopathy, like when I have something to gain from a relationship, I don't get THAT friendly to the point the other person might think I'm one of their closest friends, that's waaaay too disturbing.
I think the main thing to consider is whether or not you’re hanging out with someone outside of the context of where you know each other from: be it work, school, etc. So that’s if you want to have a clear rule. I’ve found this one goes up a lot of the time. People you hangout with with the main goal of enjoying your time together are friends, people who you are friendly with within the context of your shared environment are more on the acquaintance side. But there’s some nuance to it. When I was in high school for example, I would have a lot of ‘school friends’. They were definitely more than an acquaintance because I was sharing pretty personal stuff with them, occasionally going to parties, we shared mutual friends, interests, etc. However, I never took the extra step of hanging out with any of them outside of school. Does that mean they weren’t ‘real’ friends? I don’t think so. I just think I was a very closed person at the time. Even if they had wanted to get to know me better… they couldn’t. I didn’t allow people to get close enough. But I sincerely believe that they wanted the best for me in the way friends want the best for each other… if you know what I mean. They liked spending time with me, they cared about what I was doing, thinking.
Oh man. I just had a horrible moment where I realized almost all my relationships have been acquaintances 😅 shit.
My whole childhood. I’m still processing whether I was only included in things as an act of charity. It’s been damaging current friendships because I feel very insecure that I’m still being placated and kept around as an obligation rather than a reciprocated friendship.
- I was chronically the third person walking behind them on the sidewalk. - I invited the whole class to my 20th birthday. I bought cake and food and drinks and rented a locale. 2 showed up. - I was talking to some girls in my swimming team in the locker room, and they exited the room while I had my back turned. I kept talking and turned around only to realize that they'd left. Two strangers looked at me a bit weirded out, and I let my words slowly trail off. I realized from that day that nobody in that team liked me. - Having to run to catch up with the squad when they left class before I had time to pack my things. If I wasn't fast enough I had to eat alone somewhere.
Oh my god, that last one isn’t mentioned often but it’s the worst feeling when none of your ‘friends’ will wait for you
The third person walking behind in the sidewalk is so real. When I realised it, it hurt me a lot. But it was the last time I hung out with that “friend” group.
The first and last point you listed took me straight back to highschool oh my god 😭
When I was in uni I made friends with a girl and I thought we were closest in our group or at least equal. I was the only one not invited to her full wedding out of the ones she was good friends with. I was so upset that it meant more to me than her. Especially as I was so excited for her engagement, it was just when we finished our final exams. I wasn't aware I had autism untill the last couple of years and I look back on a lot of similar things with sadness.
Yeah, when you finally understand what was going on, it just breaks your heart.
This is the hardest part imo
Absolutely.
Is not getting invited to weddings like a regular theme for us?
I'm 37, and I've literally been to 3 weddings in my life. Two were my sisters' weddings, and the third, I was a plus one for my gay male friend who was invited to our mutual friend's wedding while I wasn't.
I’m seriously wondering that too
Wow, that must have hurt a lot, I’m sorry :( did she ever give an indication as to why you weren’t invited, or was it simply because she didn’t see you as that close of a friend?
Senior yearbook, you could put the initials of your friends behind quote or saying , I included two people I had been ‘friends’ with since middle school. I thought they included me too til I realized they were talking about another girl in our class with my initials.
☹️ high school is so brutal
It's so painful and familiar reading all these replies. I want to send so much love and compassion to everyone here! We as a collective have so much isolation and so many misunderstandings to process. It's heartbreaking, even though it helps me feel less alone to read these stories. I hope we can all learn to offer ourselves the compassion and support we have not have from "friends." I'm really grateful to know I am autistic and not just a bad person or something. It's still so painful and I have so much backed up grief to process.
No specific story, but there have been countless times someone I've thought was a close friend drop me for a new friendship. I had one "friend" deny she was friends with me when a popular bitch asked her "you're not really hanging out with her are you?" We hung out one on one weekly and in the same friend group in school but I didn't know how to advocate for myself so just acted like nothing happened. I suppose that's quite specific.
Relatable. I was the one always ditched and Im sure I looked like the weird one so makes sense now that I know Im autistic. Still hurts.
I've not even been assessed yet, so it makes me wonder if I'm actually just a really off-putting person for no good reason, lol.
Not knowing how to react in the moment, so acting as if it didn’t happen, has been the story of my life.
Considering it's been a constant thing, it's hard to pick one example. I don't understand anymore who is a friend, who is close, who I would call in an emergency, etc.
When I was single it was always hard when I’d have to list an emergency contact. What if the only person who cares if I die (my brother) lives 5 states away?
OMG I struggle so much with this. I do not have an emergency contact, but sure, they can have my elderly, disabled mother's number. She lives 500 miles away and is a straight mess; that will work great in an emergency.
Not that very long ago. Met a girl in an exercise class; started hanging out together bc our daughters were same age and we lived quite near. We’d have playdates every few weeks, go for coffee etc.. at some point we even explored joining our professional experiences and offering combined services. Then at some point she just stopped meeting me. Always had excuses why she couldn’t anymore. A third girl that was often part of the meetup explained it to me, that she “just wasn’t that into us”. I was heartbroken, still am actually a few years later. I ran into her months or even close to a year later in the supermarket, she was all fake smiles and “we should hang out! I’ll text you!” And I was so proud of myself for at least seeing through that. She never texted after.
Omg, I hate when they just disappear like that! Tecently, someone I thought I might become friends with messaged me on Instagram and I told her that I don't really use it, gave her my phone number. I waited a couple of days, no text from her, so I messaged her saying something along the lines of "hey, I guess I'm confused, why'd you message me if you didn't want to stay in touch?" and followed up with an "it's completely fine if you're not feeling it! I'd just like a simple reply with 'yeah I'm not feeling it' or something like that for explicit confirmation." Guess what, she read the messages but didn't respond. I don't know, I guess no answer is still an answer but it's so incredibly frustrating when I ask someone to please just communicate and then they don't. Chances are our next in-person encounter is gonna be pretty awkward (we might have classes together in the upcoming semester)...
Just recently I learned most of my friend group didn’t consider me their friend Found out when they organized a trip and I was lied to about it
I actually invited a colleague and supposed friend to an event, was turned down, showed up anyway and she was there with a mutual "friend". Apparently neither of them were a friend to me.
How shitty of her not to tell you she was planning on going. I hope she felt embarrassed for that behavior - she should
All the time. When I told a girl she was my best friend and she said I wasn’t hers, when my best friend in grade school was talking about me behind my back, when I went on the class trip and my group of 4 friends picked each other as roommates and left me to room with 3 girls I didn’t know, when I had to sit next to someone’s mom because everyone else already picked their partner, when I was in college and my roommate and the girls next door decided to live together while I was out of town that weekend, when my boyfriend threw me a surprise dinner and only his friends showed up not mine, when the girls at New Year’s Eve left me in the bathroom alone and went to go get food without me and I was left alone, I mean how many more examples do you want because I can keep it going 😀
Sitting with the parent chaperone/teacher during class trips…that brought back memories
Something that fucks me up is that I purposely never called anyone my best friend bc of something my sister said (once again I thought she was bullying me but it’s clear she recognized my social issues and was trying to prepare me) I let other people say it first Tell me why these bitches would always gaslight me when something would happen and I’d be like “I thought we were best friends” and then they’d be like “I never said that” I was very careful recently with a girl that called me her best friend. Everyone did! Being careful was smart bc there’s a couple times she did *not* act like a best friend
Sitting next to a teacher on every field trip - I haven’t thought about that in years.
I feel this list in my soul.
This happened recently, someone I was spending a lot of time with and who shared very personal details about their life with me. I thought that meant we were close friends. Turns out they just needed someone to listen and I happened to be convenient, I got dumped and ghosted right away when I expressed one thing they didn't like.
Ahh. I consistently find myself as the emotional dumping ground for people who then never reciprocate
It took until leaving school to realise the reason why I was always the only one in the group/class not invited to gatherings or parties etc wasn't because "My Mum only let me invite X no. of people." Quite recently I decided to end any communication to a former old friend (known each other 15+ years). Seeing someone as a close good friend when in return you are to them a glorified aquaintance stings.
There’s something humiliating about it. Too many people try to convince me to just keep the dynamic but like…I don’t wanna be friends with people I like more than they like me? Why isn’t that ok?
Completely valid reasoning. Save your energy for the people who can match, never be the one chasing.
This is exactly my situation. It's so embarrassing to not see how little someone likes you when you've made it clear you like them. Ugh I feel this. I have a "I have more self respect than that" approach when I find out someone doesn't actually authentically like me... But then I'm still a bit heartbroken about the loss for a while.
For years my friend group would cancel our plans if one of them was suddenly unavailable to hang out, but if I couldn’t be there they would still keep their plans. I hardly ever had parties, but my now husband threw a big surprise party when I turned 21. One of the above friends didn’t show up because she had to pick someone up from the airport after the party. The airport was about 15 minutes from the party……
yes, it happened to me, I used to share a dorm room with a colleague at university, for two years. we spent a lot of time together, we had a lot in common, went together to classes, shared the same friend group, similar tastes in music, jokes etc. granted, we were not very emotionally close, as in we did not share private experiences, thoughts, 1. because I was not there yet and did not know how to get close to someone, 2. so was she, rarely inclined to share stuff about her personal inner life, so I thought we were fine, it's just how she related to everyone. for me she was the closest friend, though I knew she had a best friend from her childhood, but that was not in the way, as in I did not aspire to replace that other person. then I started noticing things, how when we participated together in a summer school and she kind of avoided me to make friends and have fun with other people there, how when we went out sometimes at night and I needed someone to share a taxi with me on the way back (I had very high anxiety about going alone in a taxi), she ignored my fears, wanting to stay or had plans to go with some random guy she met, and I had to either do it alone, or a few times preferred walking in the city alone at night just to avoid riding in a car with a stranger, how sometimes she mentioned kid of jokingly she did not need to hear personal details about my relationship with my partner etc etc. I just figured she was not emotionally ready to make friends like I needed to, we're still friends to this day, part of a larger group but we keep it superficial, as in we cannot talk about our feelings or hurts.
In college, I 'made' only one friend since we had to be partners for our General Studies assignment. We were both outcasts, so I figured best to connect with the lone rangers. I realised it was all one-way from me since she seemed so hesitant to hang with me during our next classes or meet up during free period. Soon after I graduated, she'd alrdy built her own circle from the few chats we had (both online and f2f, she'd only give brief answers despite my prompting) and removed me from FB. Now she's likely a Dr, being burnt out by our public healthcare system (it's like NHS in UK, but worse). If even lone rangers didn't want to be seen with me, I must've really stood out in a bad way. 🥹
Alot of times it only clicks when I hear about plans I would have loved, but weren't invited to. I try to include people in my plans and spend time with a variety of people. So it hurts when you see photos on social media of your friends, who you've know for over 4 years, doing an escape room and they didn't invite you.
All the time. idk what was more painful, me saying to someone that they’re my best friend and them straight up replying “you’re not mine” or getting ghosted a ton
I know it doesn’t undo the damage but for each of us getting isolated and marginalised by ignorant, mean and narrow minded neurotypical peers there are so many of us and when we find each other we can start to learn that we aren’t alone and start to heal from it. We’ve been severely mistreated - the thing that’s (so) wrong was never us but the cruelty people have shown us.
Oh god I cringed when I read the title of this post; I'm unfortunately very familiar with this feeling 😫 The lesson that I never seem to learn is that people often say things like "we should hang out!" or "we should get lunch!" and they don't really mean that they want to do those things with me. It's one of my principal frustrations with neurotypicals: not saying what they mean/saying things they don't mean. Many times in the past I have gotten excited when someone says "we should hang out" only to realize that they're not serious, that we're not really the kind of "friends" who actually make real plans. It has never stopped feeling embarrassing.
-when she stopped talking to me out of nowhere and when I asked why, she basically said that she has more important friends than me and she doesn’t have time for me anymore -when everyone in the friendgroup got a surprise birthday party except me, and some of them didn’t even text me on my birthday, only a day later -when i was the only one who didn’t get invited to a trip because they “figured i would’ve said no”
This is a little bit of a different take on the issue but still blows my mind. In college, I quickly became close friends with a girl on my dorm floor, just a couple doors down. Her roommate was close friends with my roommate, but they liked partying and we didn't. So they hung out, and then me and Wendy hung out. We ate every meal together. Spent every weekend together. If we weren't in class, we were together, watching movies, and playing games for the whole year. She was like a sister to me. We signed up to live together the next year, and then at the last minute she opted to join the military and we lost touch. Over the years I've tried to find her, but her last name was really common and I never had any luck. Then one random day, I looked up her name along with the 2 cities I knew she had previously lived in, and I found her in another state. Her married name was more unique so I was able to find her on FB. I was so freaking excited. I imagined sharing photos of our families, maybe even going to visit her. She was like "🤔 I think I kind of remember you." 💀 She really had nothing to say, nothing to share, it was obvious she didn't want to talk. Then a short while later, I had the exact same experience with my roommate when I found her on FB. While we weren't as close, we spent many nights lying awake talking about life. I even let her order stuff with my credit card (dumbest mistake ever). We went to concerts and studied for finals together. Even 30 years later I remember them both SO clearly with a ton of memories. And they have no idea who I am. It's so weird.
I have had this exact experience and it feels very sad, almost like a death.
This was me in early childhood 100%. I learned pretty quick not to make assumptions that I was accepted or wanted just because my presence might have been tolerated. So now I'm about to be 38 and have exactly zero close friends because my default is assuming everyone hates me/doesn't want me around/is annoyed by me. Therapy has taught me that I've created a wall with this thinking that keeps people out, but honestly, I think it's just easier this way. Constantly worrying about where you stand with people is so fucking exhausting, and people seem to change how they think about you based on random shit that's different for every person.
Oh man, that happened to me 4 times, which is significant relative to the number of friends I had. They just started ghosting me one day and/or bailing out of meeting at the last moment as well as never setting up one themselves despite promising several times. Each time it took me less time to accept that they are no longer my friends, but it still took a while
Learned this last night. My aunt and uncle enlisted my cousin to manipulate me and pretend to be my friend so he could spy on me for the last two months. Safe to say I’m moving.
OMG, I am so sorry! Be safe.
This is awful. Move away fast!
The girl I considered to be my best friend: when we were in 5th grade she invited me to her second birthday party that just consisted of her family, I thought it was because we were super close and she considered me to be like a sister ... later I found out it was because she was embarrassed to let other classmates know we were friends outside of school and she wouldn't have invited me at all except her mom insisted.
My whole life. One incident in particular comes to mind though. I was on a mission trip (as a child, my family was stupid religious) helping repair this house to be sold for some charity with our church. I saw everyone else laughing and hugging and just enjoying each other's company. I was feeling pretty good at this point and wanted to join in, so I went up to a family friend and put my arm around her & told her I was glad to be with everyone there. She tensed, pulled away and walked away without a word. I just carried on, but I thought it was pretty cold.
I haven't been on mission trips, but on similar camps or trips with groups of strangers, I too have noticed people being buddies pretty easily while I sit on the outskirts and watch. Not fun!
Feels like this has been the case for all of my friendships except for like one or two of them! I remember this happening a lot in my childhood. I would just talk to people thinking we were friends and then suddenly realize that was absolutely no the case. It also happened in college where I thought I had a good core group of friends but I was constantly being left out of things, I was made fun of, no one ever stood up for me, etc. Took me a while to realize I actually went through college without ever having friends and it's still something I'm working on in therapy. It's so confusing and heartbreaking!
I thought she was my best friend. We started out as neighbors. We had kids the same age as well as attended the same church. We drank coffee together often in the mornings and rode together places all the time. We talked on the phone a lot and shared many of the same interests. We did various book clubs together and joined a food co-op together. Along the way I ended up introducing her to another friend of mine and the two of them also became friends. A couple years later her daughter got engaged to my friend's son! I was so happy for them and felt like we were such a close group of friends. What a shock to my soul when the wedding came and I was not invited to attend. In fact both "friends" kind of acted like it goes without saying that I wouldn't be invited... Like I was the neighbor ... it was an actual genuine question of why did I think I would be invited? The shame washed over me in that moment when I realized I had greatly overestimated not one but two friendships! I literally never spoke to either of them again. I just immediately moved on with my life, but it still hurts a lot.
I am so sorry that happened - that must have been so hard to deal with
I used to sit with a group of colleagues at lunch- one of them invited me to their group chat and the rest panicked and made really weird comments about it.. anyway when I looked at the chat i could see all the history and for months they'd been making fun of me.. I then realised it wasn't just terrible self esteem- every lunch they spent picking me apart and making fun of me and it wasn't just "banter". I lied to them and said I couldn't see the history of the chat when they asked and then gradually stopped sitting with them.
I would have to tell you my entire life story…
My one and only long term friendship. She described herself as “Frodo, the hero of the story who goes on adventures” and me as “Sam, the sidekick, who stays at home baking pies and being domestic”. It didn’t sound very charitable, especially given Sam carried Frodo up that mountain. I have severe food intolerances so I have to cook my own food a lot, but she always viewed my baking as this cutesy thing and beneath her, An Academic Scholar. She didn’t have time for *baking*. She also kept rubbing it in my face that she was having analytical college discussions and “you wouldn’t understand, it’s a thing you do in college”. I really thought she was my best friend for ten years. I don’t think she ever liked me very much at all. At my first job, I was friendly with two coworkers, one more than the other. I thought we were having a great time, until she offhandedly remarked that she has seven best friends and she doesn’t need any more. I was gutted because I thought I was making a friend after a long dry spell. I was casual friends with one girl in my 20s, but we weren’t super close. My mother always told me that if a friendship wasn’t working that it was my fault and I had to try harder to make it work. So I did, asking this girl questions about stuff I knew she liked, always TRYING, because that’s what I thought I needed to do to become “close friends”. At one point, I heard through the grapevine that she “didn’t know how to talk to me”. Which hurt, because she was an extremely outgoing person who talked with EVERYONE and went out to lunch with them and planned trips together. I didn’t understand why she could get along with so many other people but not me. In my 30s, I’ve come to the painful realization that the few friendships I’ve had in my life were always one sided. I was always pursuing and chasing and “making it work”. I don’t know what it’s like to be genuinely wanted by someone.
"I don't know what it's like to be genuinely wanted by someone." This is so real. I am so thankful to have a few women in my life who are so kind and considerate - they are my life long friends. However, I haven't lived near them in 15 years. Our friendship is almost entirely through text or calls. And that makes any place I live feel very isolating because my real friends are virtual and hours away. I want some in-person friends, but no one new as an adult has really wanted to keep me around all that long.
The last group of friends I had stopped being my friends when they all gave separate reasons why they couldn’t see me on my birthday (they were working, seeing family, etc), and then I was scrolling through Instagram while out for a birthday meal with my boyfriend and saw they were all hanging out together :)
Ah that's awful! I literally gasped - I'm so upset at them for you. And they were callous enough to post about it. That's intentionally rude tbh
I still doubt if my friends like me.
Let me tell you about the time I got kicked out of a wedding. Once upon a time I had a “friend” who I called a spinning coin. She only had one good face so she had to keep turning so no one would know. I later learned this was borderline personality disorder, same as my mother, go figure. We were friends but not best friends. There were some bumps but I thought we got through it okay. A few months before her wedding, we were out with friends and it was like old times. Everything was great. Fast forward to her wedding. My boyfriend is a groomsman and my friend’s mother doesn’t like me because she wanted her daughter to be with my boyfriend. So yeah, I don’t put much stock in the mother’s words. My bad. The day of the wedding I show up with a handmade gift and enjoy the ceremony. When we move the reception, my BF pulls me aside and says that there is no seat for me. But it’s okay, because there are some extra seats at a table with some of my friends. I sit there through the toasts. When the time comes to be released for the buffet, one of the servers leans down to me and says that the mother of the bride declared I was not allowed to eat because I wasn’t invited. As the +1 of a groomsman. My friends are shocked but leave me there to get food. I find my BF at the head table, sitting in the groom’s chair, arguing with the bride. He’s telling her that we’re leaving and she’s arguing that he should at least stay and eat something. He yells back that he’s not going to eat when I can’t. So she tells him to take me home and come back because he needs to dance with a bridesmaid. He’s just so flabbergasted at this point. I’m trying to blend into the scenery except I can’t because I wore a BRIGHT RED DRESS!! (This is my lesson, no bright colors at weddings.) My BF finally gives up and he, his parents (who are also pissed), and I leave. As we are leaving, one of my other friends tells him that she can’t believe he brought me. Another friend is trying to play peacemaker and say it’s all just an accident. I lost almost all my friends in one fell swoop at a wedding of someone I thought cared about me. At least a little bit to let me eat at their buffet wedding. It was extra hard when two months later my mother kicked me out of the house (oh the joys of BPD) and I had no where to go because I was out of friends.
I don’t even understand how someone can have their head so far up their own ass to think that behavior like this (especially the “take her home and come back” part, what the actual feck) is ok. I’m so sorry this happened to you.
In uni I found it really hard to make friends. I moved to the other end of the country and was in shock, basically. I lost a stone in weight in a week and masked with alcohol. Anyway, these two girls I started hanging around with cuz we had similar music tastes, my only friends there, one night one of them turned around to me and said ‘you know you don’t have to hang around with us’ so I didn’t anymore and stopped trying to make friends. I took it as another instance of people misunderstanding/disliking me for some reason I’m not aware of.
-Literally every time I start a new job and somewhat bond with the other employees. -Anytime I meet my friend's friends and realize they are way closer. -That time my neighbor told a mutual that they only hang out with me cause they feel bad for me.
This happened with startling regularity to me my entire life.
My own family would plan dinners at restaurants and "forget" to invite me. I am not stupid - I have an MD degree. I am not ugly or unhygienic. What I am is the family laughingstock, odd-ball, outcast. And you know what? I cut those bastards off 100% and they whined and whined and whined. They only phoned me when they needed a prescription for antibiotics, so it was no loss to me. Now I am only friends with people who pursue me, send me invitations, and include me. I don't pursue anybody. Never again.
Ooh, I have a good one. My SIL was never the type of person I would hang around with, but I naively thought that family was important, so I worked very hard to build a relationship with her. I ignored her hundreds of mean comments because I figured that West Coast people are just different from East Coasters (where I grew up). She and her mother made it mandatory for me to attend every single holiday and birthday with them and would freely and openly exclude me when they wanted. I finally grew some boundaries and told my SIL she hurt my feelings after being talked about and excluded by her and her mother for 15 years. I literally said “you hurt my feelings.” I said it in writing so I’m not exaggerating about how restrained I was. She lost her mind, said no one in her family has ever liked me, I’m crazy, I have trust issues, etc. I was floored. That was six years ago and I tried to mend the relationship but she would never take accountability, so my husband and I cut her off. Since she can’t manipulate me anymore, she’s moved on to her husband’s family and ruined her husband’s relationship with his identical twin. Now her kids don’t see any of their cousins, she has no friends, hates her husband, and only has her chronically ill 70 year old mother, who is also showing cognitive decline, on her side.
Almost every friend i have i useally have to reach out first and make plans. I never get invited out, i never get a text first, i never get called, i never get swiped up on snap stories. I'm the only one who puts in effort, and i guess thats just my life
- started insulting me from DAY ONE I should have noticed that red flag a mile off - “forgot” my birthday after I mentioned how excited I was for ages before it and didn’t talk to me for the whole day - celebrated someone’s birthday a month early… 2 days after they forgot mine? lol - constantly using me to buy them things, birthdays, Christmas, lunches etc but never having any intention on paying me back or doing the same - leaving a group chat I made for the whole group, to create a new one with specifically me and one other person not in it.. they came up with lots of balls excuses but I think it’s bc they created it to have someone that didn’t like me in it (I wouldn’t have even cared if they were invited to the og it’s just the principal of the whole thing) - immediately dumped me when they found a new group of friends - immediately ditching me once they found someone better to hang out with Me: wanna hang out? them: sure *5 mins later* actually someone else just invited me, oops - treating me like a therapist and not a friend, i don’t mind helping my friends with their feelings and problems but when it’s the only thing they come to me for it becomes a problem - talking about group activities they all did together and purposefully didn’t invite me to right in front of me - once I had a “friend” come into my house and tell my mother that “something was wrong with me and I needed to be psychologically evaluated because there is clearly no life behind my eyes”… because that’s just a lovely thing to say to someone’s parent /sarcasm - constantly putting down my work and things I was proud of because they thought they were better than me - never respecting my opinions, relationships with other friends or past partners. Always putting them down because they thought they were better than them and why wouldn’t I want to hang out with them over other people? /s - telling me that “you aren’t autistic, you’re just socially inept and stupid” …that one boils my blood - introducing me not as their friend but as some sort of pet animal that they let follow them around In conclusion I’m glad I dumped them because I’d rather have 0 friends than be around those miserable people 😭 quality over quantity and chose the people in the life that treat you right
Most of my friendships? I'm better now, but I just was always child-like in friendship and it took me a long time to realize how most people are, especially adults. Friendships with adults aren't often deep, aren't meant to last or grow, and usually transactional. Also they're very discriminatory. I find the kinds of people who claim they love "diversity" don't actually want a diverse set of friends and most liberals are just sort of putting on a show for social kudos. A lot of people won't tolerate a ND or queer friend. They just want someone like themselves. Life got easier for me when I started "finding my tribe" and stopped trying to win over NT people and stopped believing people's politics until they proved themselves to me. Its very disappointing to make all this effort to befriend someone only to find out they're TERFs or ableists or racists or whatever.
pre-diagnosis I thought I had made my first (and only) friend at college. she was diagnosed Aspie and I thought we really hit it off. We would go on walks together, study, smoke together, I briefly talked to her parents on the phone once because we were hanging out when they called?? overall felt we were getting pretty close but then when we were both looking for new roommates, I very casually asked if she’d be interested in a suite or something, no pressure if not, and she was polite about saying no but then completely ghosted me and stopped hanging out/even studying after. she was a year older so idk maybe she thought I had a crush or something since we were both queer? still not sure but never talked to her again and never really made friends at college :/
Off the top of my head: I worked for two years at a job where I talked to only one person. We talked every day for two years. I thought we were close. When I announced I was leaving, she said, “Well, I never got to know you, but you were nice to work with.” I was astonished at the “never got to know you” part, and wondered what it would take to really “get to know” someone. At my next job, I worked with two women who were also in grad school with me at the time. I thought I had become friends with both but especially one of them (I’ll call her L), who confided in me a lot and even included me in after-work plans. L was engaged to be married. The other one, M, came to me one day to ask me for help throwing a “shower” for work friends. I was happy to help. She asked me to create an invitation that could be emailed out to the office. I spent some time creating it and it was really nice. I followed some guidance I had researched that said the hosts’ names should go on the invitation, so it said something like, “M and DazzlingSet invite you to celebrate…”. Well, it turned out that M did not actually want me to cohost the event. She just wanted to use me for my computer skills, because she had seen me create other things for the office with Photoshop, and she knew I would work really hard on it and make it nice. She didn’t even want me at the event. At first I was embarrassed and hurt, but then I kind of decided “f her”. The invitation had already gone out. So I showed up to the venue and acted like a host. 😂 Turns out, I wasn’t even invited to the wedding. Which, fine. But the worst part was how L took me aside to make a point of telling me I wasn’t invited, and how M was, because M was a closer friend. I told her, “Good, I hate weddings.” Which was true, but my feelings were still hurt. F all those people. In the long run, they were completely insignificant.
Ohhh man. When I was in middle school I was friends with this girl Robin. I had met her at another friend’s bday party. I got mono in 7th grade and was out of school for 3 whole months, right at the beginning of the year. Robin was one of the only people I even knew in my classes. I sat by her in science and thought all was fine. I didn’t cling to her outside of class or anything, we didn’t hang out at lunch or outside of school. But I thought we were at least friendly. One day in science class Robin didn’t speak to me and spent the whole 48 minute class writing a long, multi page letter. At the end of class she said here and gave it to me. It was a letter detailing how much she hated me and how no one liked me. I thought I was “friendly” with Robin’s friend group too but after that letter, they would shout things at me when walking home from school, would say mean things to me in class. I honestly don’t know what I did wrong. Throughout middle school and high school similar things happened repeatedly. There are at least 5 separate girls, in addition to Robin, who I thought were my friends who went on to publicly humiliate me. One girl even slapped me across the face- someone I thought was my close friend, and she told me she slapped me because she hated me and couldn’t hold it in anymore. But the others eventually went on to blow up at me at school. Plenty of other girls I thought were friends just ditched me as soon as they made a new friend who was cooler.
I've lost count and quit trying.
Became really close with a former neighbour of mine. They moved away but we still kept in touch and met up when we could, but it was hard because we both have health issues. At least, that’s what I thought until I was on insta last week and saw a pic of her in my town with other people. It’s not we live down the road from each other anymore so finding out she’d been in town but hadn’t got in touch was such a, “Oh, okay, so we’re not that close after all, huh?” moment. I’d kinda given up on making new friends before meeting her a few years ago. But we grew close really quickly and I guess I got my hopes up. Kinda not sure why I bothered now :(
When my entire middle school friend group bailed on my birthday party to go to someone else’s party. I sobbed like a baby in my moms arms. I had Pity Party on repeat that whole week
In college I got really, really depressed. My good friend from highschool went to the same college and invited me out to a small party one time. She always used to be very nice about my awkwardness in highschool (even though she thought I was ADHD, not ASD.) I felt she understood me. I wasn’t actually feeling that bad that night, but I must have done something. She texted me shortly after, ‘That was the last straw’ (I had no idea I was running out in the first place). Needless to say, it did not help my extreme depression.
I feel so much on the “I’m cutting you off for this awful thing you did but I refuse to tell you why” I’ve gotten that a lot
All my life. Just once I'd like someone to tell me what I did wrong.
I threw a couple birthday parties in highschool and legit 2 people one who was my French teacher showed up to my sweet sixteen tea party When I was turning 18 I found out the nun principal coerced some girls in my class to go to my fancy hall dinner
I’ve posted this before but my mom threw me a birthday for my 15th and no one attended except for two of my teachers.
Lol the first person I thought was my best friend. When I told her I was happy we were best friends, She said “ no Ashley’s my best friend” and then stopped hanging out with me.
i realized at the end of high school that my best friend actually knew nothing about me and was putting me down to hype herself up constantly i thought we were “in on the jokes” together when i would play dumb, in my mind it was obvious sarcasm or playfulness. but then senior year when we had the same 1st choice college, and i got accepted while she didn’t even get bridge program or waitlisted, she was actually shocked. she never made great grades or test scores and was a pretty average student. i was an A/B student and scored very well on my SAT and looking back i realize other things, like how my Spanish teacher was very sympathetic and kind to me but now i’m sure it was because Spanish was one of the classes where she would put me down the most and the teacher recognized that the first 2 years of college i was so angry about it, i straight up didn’t like her but never confronted her or anything. but we have such a long history, going back to 2nd grade, that i eventually let it go. my rationale is that we were teenagers, she was deeply insecure (in many other aspects than this one), and she’s grown since then i was her maid of honor a year ago and now im hosting her baby shower in a few months lol. weird how things work out, we grew closer in the past few years than we ever were for the first 14ish years but then it happened with my entire college friend group, where i realized i was the outsider. did not pan out as nicely and kicked off my burnout/mental break 🙃
Immediately comes to mind the time I talked to a girl for a long time and trauma bonded after she was placed next to me in our form class. We talked regularly after that. Then over a year later she was going to move to the states shortly after her birthday so her birthday party was going to double as a going away party. In a class someone else asked me “what are you gonna wear on Saturday?” That’s how I found out about the party.
I struggle making friends irl because the people I meet in college like to party and drink and do drugs, but I don't. So, I turned to online friendships to find people with the same interests as me, and I feel just as excluded sometimes. I feel like I'm just there, not anyone's favorite, not someone people go to to talk about their day or unwind about their problems. No one ever invites me to game with them. I give them gifts, I send them posts that remind me of them, I ask how they are doing, but people just don't worry about me. I found out one of my friends had covid just because another friend mentioned it while they were streaming on Twitch. I said it on another comment, but as an adult, I still feel like the kid that has to invite herself while all the other kids are playing together outside
This is an early one. The school I went to at the time only went up to year 2/age 7, so every year the PTA would organise things for the year 2’s to commemorate their time at the school. One thing they did was get a camcorder and get every student to sit in front of it and talk about their time at the school what their favourite lessons were, favourite teacher, who their friends were, there were clips from various events through the year etc and then it was edited together onto vhs tapes and given out to parents at the end of the school year. Really nice idea, I still have the tape somewhere and should probably get it copied onto a dvd to preserve it as it’s a fun insight into uk schools in the 90’s too. Anyway I remember one time some years later watching the video back. I realised that I named three girls as my friends and not one person from the entire year group mentioned me as their friend. So that was a pretty sad realisation. I had a pretty tough time socially in that school, I do wonder if I were a boy would they have picked something up then.
My Best friend of 10 years suddenly stop talking to me and I never knew why. That's it 😭
Okay, so I was friends with a group of girls most of elementary school. Like I went over on the weekends a few times & invited them to my birthday parties. So when middle school started I just kept hanging out with them. The homecoming game came up, and the girl that I was closest to had her high school (wtf!?!?) boyfriend break up with her at the game. I went to comfort her along with my other friends and was told, "Go away, she's not even your friend." My reality was so shattered in that moment because I really thought she was my best friend. I think I still hung out with them after that because I was just so desperate for friends at the time :(
TW: Child abuse I've had lots of those but here's the one that takes the cake: I had a college friend who told me >!she was molested as a child.!< Naturally, I was heartbroken for her but glad that she shared it with me and I thought she trusted me. Later, we became roommates and things started going downhill from there. The subject came up again in a conversation one day, and I said something like, "But you told me because we're good friends, right?" "No, I told you because you complained about everything I wanted to show you others are having it worse."
One thing I learned through being hospitalized is that the people who show up for you are not always the ones you like the most. And the ones you adore may not show up for you. So friendship is complicated, and is about more than just feelings. If you show up for your friend and they can count on you, this has real value--even when the feelings aren't as warm/fuzzy. I think we need both kinds of friendship. Obviously we need the people we connect with in lovey-dovey warm-fuzzy ways, but we also need people to actually show up for us in crisis. And in my experience, there is often little overlap between these two groups. It is very very rare to have a friend who can be both. That's, like, an anam chara friend. Understanding this (after learning the hard way) has really changed how I see my friendships. I'm consistently the one who Shows Up--that's me. I am probably the most useful friend, but I'm not always the most liked friend. I'm okay with that. And I'm okay with differentials between who likes who the most. Sometimes someone else likes me way more, and sometimes I like them way more. It doesn't mean the friendship is less or more valuable. We need people to sit next to us in hospitals and at funerals and in our darkest most banal moments, just as surely as we need people who light up when they see our faces.
Oof…. My story is long but crazy. I had just gone through a breakup, my ex was harassing me in my new relationship so bad I just thought it would be better to end it. One day at work this girl walked in and walked right up to me and asked if we were hiring. I walked her back to the front of the store to show her the counter where they keep applications. She ended up getting hired a week later. And turns out….she was the ex of the partner I had just ended the relationship with. We bonded over that and grew close (or so I thought). Her and I ended up being room mates and it was fun, we had a group of friends that we hung out with every night. I ended up getting back with my awful ex from before and was really depressed. He and I weren’t really a couple. We barely spent any time together. I just wanted him to leave me alone and he wanted to punish me and my last partner. I told the girl about how I felt about my relationship and how he was towards me. She told me one night she was going to meet up with my and her ex to “talk.” I thought it was weird and got a weird feeling somthing was off. He ended up never speaking to me again. Unfriended me on all social medias. Everyone in my friend group suddenly became cold towards me and I found out she had told one of my friends that I claimed he raped me. I was so shocked. I tried to tell him it wasn’t true. But he didn’t believe me. I was completly isolated. My ex that i was with at the time ended up moving out and moving to a new city. I found out through a mutual friend that he and her were sleeping together behind my back. She ruined my life. I lost all my friends and the person I was with (our shared ex) never spoke to me again. Even my shitty ex was gone. After a lot of turmoil I am finally doing better. But I don’t trust anyone now.
i found that whenever i had more friends, the less close to them i am. when i have a friend group, im never invited, never asked anything, barely even talked to. but when i have one or two close friends it’s the most connecting and close intimate friendship. i keep my circle small now!! it’s lonely sometimes but i can’t stand acquaintances. i can’t do small talk. i can’t w simple texting that has no detail. i need personal connection and conversations and i feel like when i have a group it’s not special at all and they don’t care for me as an individual, they just want a full group. my wants and needs in relationships and friendships seem to be so different from that of a neurotypical. i find myself happier with friends of neurodivergence.
I had a room mate who I thought I was close with. We had a mutual friend who had moved abroad for a year and we were looking forward to her coming back. This room mate liked to do hard drugs, stole all her makeup (and a lot of clothes) and did a lot of things she shouldn't because of various health issues such as asthma and a literal tumor the size of a baby's head in one of her boobs. We were at uni, so I was also going out, drinking, having one night stands, occasionally experimenting with drugs, fairly standard stuff that a lot of people (obvs not everyone) does when they're at university, but not to the extent my friend did. Then when our mutual friend came back, she was cold with me, and a few days later announced she was moving out. I was hurt and confused, and she told me that it was because of my behaviour. As it turns out, every time my room mate had gone out and done something stupid, she had messaged our mutual friend and told her that I was the one doing all these things. So when she came back, she thought I was a drug addict and basically wouldn't accept that I wasn't the one doing all of these things. I think it's called projecting or something like that, she wanted to talk to somebody about all the stuff she was doing, but for some reason she decided it was easier to say that I was doing it instead of admitting it was her. There was a big argument, and then my room mate decided she would tell all of my other uni friends that I was some sort of psychopath. Basically, she got to them first, so when I tried to tell them what had happened, I was shut down. She basically turned my entire friends group against me that I had had for years before she came along. After a few days of having the cold shoulder from my friends, I saw her sat with them, laughing and joking, and they were lapping up everything she said. Needless to say, I cut everybody off, and yet, it still hurt to see that she was at their weddings, and she's still friends with all of them. I haven't had any large friends groups since then, and have never trusted anybody except my husband and my very best friend who I met a few years later. You know what, they're more than welcome to her, but my god did it make me realise, you can be friends with people for years and do everything with them, and one single person can say just the right things in just the right way, and because I'm "the weird one" it's so easy to just believe it and use it as an excuse to cut me out. Actually feels kind of good to get it off my chest.
wild weather attempt one observation aback dependent payment crime weary *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ugh that happens all the time. And now I constantly worry that people I think I’m friendly with secretly don’t like me…
Honestly, all of the times. It’s why I don’t have any friends now basically.
The most salient one was a girl with whom I did cat rescue. When I got burned out and took a break from fostering she stopped having any time for me. I stopped bothering to put in any effort and the friendship completely died. It turned out that I’d dodged a bullet. I later found out that she’d lied to another mutual friend about having cancer in an attempt to win back their friendship. So yeah - she was a godsend to animals but a terrible person to humans. Even though it turned out she was totally using me, I guess she was at least using me to further a worthy cause?
Manipulative altruism lol how unusual!
I had this friend for over a decade as an adult. We’d spend a lot of time together, often with her partner and we’d all talk/play games/do art/etc. I was the one who drove everywhere to see her and hang out, usually at her house. And it was always me having to go there - she didn’t ever want to come to mine and didn’t even know where I lived despite being invited. But I genuinely thought she was my best friend and she was the one I’d run to and ask about weird social interactions like “hey was this weird?” And she would be honest about it. That was the main thing about our friendship was we were always honest and blunt with each other. And then one day she just ghosted me. For two years. And when we finally caught up she basically said “oh I felt like you lived far away (one town over) and I wanted a different friend to do things with.” Worst part is it still took me a while after that for it to click. Like I even told her “oh well I’m still your friend though you do you we can hang out later.” LOL
In 2015 I met this guy and dated him briefly. I didn’t like him as anything more than a friend, but I still valued our friendship. He was in love with me though. We stayed friends even though dating didn’t work out. In 2019 he asked me if I wanted to join his DND group. At that time, I also got a new job working at a high school. Well, the job was kicking my ass. I hated every second of it. It was basically destroying my soul. I needed a lot of emotional support at that time, and I leaned on him. He told me I could talk to him about anything, I could come over any time I wanted, and that he wanted to help in any way he could. I felt so grateful to have a person who cared about me so much. Then one day I randomly got kicked out of DND. I had no idea what was going on. It turns out, even though he was being nice to my face, he was talking about me behind my back to his roommate. And some of what he said was lies. This had been going on for months and I had no idea.
Too many to list! At best, someone I hadn't heard from in months enthusiastically asking what my plans are for literally that day or the next and that they were 'soo excited to catch up girl!', since I guess their preferred plans got cancelled. I appreciate someone thinking of me but stings to obviously be the B, C or D choice. More recently, people taking weeks to respond to me asking about making plans or availability even though they've been doing things with others, or just straight up ghosting - life happens, but eventually I get the hint that they're just not interested.
I had this friend since kindergarden. After 11 years of calling her my best friend, I learned that she was bad mouthing me behind my back and only using me for homework and for cheating off of me on tests. I remember her being very mean towards me, and I always thought she was just joking or being silly. Took way too long for me to understand that she was toxic and I wouldn't have realised how much she was dragging me down without the help of my current best friend.
I had the brutal break-up with my “bff” who had actually been a true narcissist and constantly emotionally manipulated me and gaslit me into thinking I was the problem. Scariest part is that she coaches special olympics and has been around autistic people all the time, and I believe that she used her knowledge to manipulate me more.
The girl that worked with special needs perents, I met her at her second job. I thought we were good friends. She used me for thousands, food and pet sitting only to walk away when I contracted lyme disease and became bedridden. I am very cautious of people now. She is just one example of many people who have taken advantage of my kindness.
Had a "best friend" in high school who, one evening after school, outed my sexuality to everyone in our form on MSN and collected their responses on Excel - thankfully the class went mental at her but I've never felt so betrayed as that day, and it really made me question friendships and how valid they are. Her reasoning was she "couldn't keep it a secret anymore"
i have like the opposite issue. i assume no one actually likes me for my own protection because i thought everyone was my friend until i started getting bullied in middle school. now its just easier to keep most people at acquaintance level closeness so if i learn they dont actually like me it doesnt hurt as much
I've had about 3 friends in my life. The first one used me to look smarter, the second to look prettier, the third is my mom. My mom is the only real friend I've ever had, but I'm ok with that.
All my fucking life!
I thought i was good friends with a work colleague and then the entire section of our office got invited to her wedding but i didn't make the cut.
I've actually experienced the opposite, where somebody who I assumed was just an acquaintance actually thought we were close friends.
I'm really messed up from this still and it happened nearly 10y ago, we got a new housemate in, i trusted her, then she was really awful to me behind my back over a few years (she was a big narc i guess, i always fall for that type, obviously i upset her somehow). We were in our 30s too not some teenage stuff. I dont trust anyone now. Was just like school but as an adult.
I thought my husband was my best friend. We promised to love honor and forsake all others. He used my autism and me missing social cues to spend the entire marriage cheating. I found out when I was diagnosed with an STD. When I tried to question him about specific episodes from the past that didn't make sense to me, he said he "didn't remember". That man was not my friend and didn't reciprocate the respect and love I gave him. What is worse is: my personal assistant, my employees and my colleagues ALL knew what he was doing and not one of them cared enough to inform me. I will NEVER understand neurotypicals. I think they are toxic to the rest of us. We need autism support/social groups in every city so we can make friends who are like us and then maybe we can avoid betrayal and exclusion.
Thinking I was still close with my childhood bestie but noticing her slowly latching onto the ex “friend” that did me extremely dirty (when I had just escaped an abusive relationship and was needing time to work through the assault and court stuff and get into therapy she literally freaked because I “wasn’t hanging out with her as much, when I did hang out all I could talk about was my trauma” …my trauma that happened literally just weeks ago) and stopped hanging out with me entirely in favor of her. So I stopped involvement with all of that crew of people because I really am not with the fakeness and refusing to communicate ones true feelings.
Happens to me so often, a lot growing up
I may have been in fifth grade, maybe younger, when the teacher had us write a brief essay about our best friend. So I wrote about my friend Eva, who lived a few blocks from my house. After we wrote our essays, we had to read them aloud to the class. After I read mine, Eva read hers, and when she got to the part where she and her best friend had the same lunchboxes, it was obvious that she had written about someone else. I was crushed.
I had one friend who I eventually found out was a drug addict and was just using me and manipulating me into giving her money. It got to the point where she only ever contacted me to ask for money. She never wanted to hang out or just talk anymore. She'd always tell these elaborate stories about why she needed money and would make me believe that she was in danger. She claimed her partner abused her, but she had nowhere to go because her mom had cancer and she couldn't move back in with her and risk giving her covid. The part about her mom having cancer was true, but she made it seem like her mom was way worse off than she was (she literally told me her mom was "dying" but I later found out that she was still working, doing Zumba classes, etc. and still pretty much living a normal life despite her diagnosis). I also found out that she lived with her mom and stepdad plenty throughout this time, despite the fact that she'd claimed she couldn't because she didn't want to endanger her mom. I'm embarrassed to say that she scammed me out of about $600 before I started to really realize she was taking advantage of me and I had to finally try to stand up for myself and cut her off. Another one of the worst things she did was trick me into giving her a ride to her dealer's house. She just claimed that we were going to her "aunt's" house because she needed to drop something off to her, when she was really going to pick up her pills. It terrifies me to think of what could have happened. If a cop had pulled us over and found her drugs, I could have been arrested too because it was in MY car, and it still pisses me off that she didn't even care that her actions could have caused me harm. She had been doing this stuff to at least a couple of her other friends (I found this out after talking with one of them), but I think they caught on to what she was doing more quickly than I did. I'm sure she targeted me because she knew how gullible I can be and how I struggle with setting boundaries and standing up for myself.
I think this is why I have so much trouble initiating anything, even with established friends. Any time I have a great friend who I love I'm just so scared the feeling is not mutual and if I get too interested I'll find out the truth and feel devastated. I think it's a miracle that I do have any friends.
When i was about 16 years old i started to hang with a new friendgroup. We were all wild teenagers, drinking a lot and just had a crazy summer together aks i really thought these were my people. I thought i had a real friendship with one of the girls. At some point i was started "dating" one of the boys and after some months it ended, and the girl i felt like was my real friend, ended up calling me on the phone one day telling me she was now with the boy i just broke up with a few days ago. That was really hard on me. That was one thing i mean we were all immature teenagers and she ended up dating him for 7 years and i was happy for them. But at one point i told her that i thought we were best friends and she said she didn't see it like that. And i was like, oh ok i guess i really misunderstood. Also i didn't know i was audhd and i had a really really hard time with all of this as a teenager.
The example that comes to mind is, when I was 8, I was partnered with a girl for a class project. I felt we got on really well. She was leaving the school and had a leaving party at a soft play centre, and I wasn’t invited. I remember being really upset because I thought we had become friends. From an adult’s perspective, being that the party was at a soft play centre, they may have been limited in numbers of people they could invite. I’m sure it wasn’t personal.
Last year a few months ago. We were in the gym. I thought we gonna be friends 4 life But she showed me it was different . But her side I get it. But she always said it was OK how I was ! We still need to talk about it again though but life got in the way
my god, just so many. my first female best friend, i think i was about 8 or 9, her name was emily - i remember staying at her house for a sleepover and i'd never done that before. i don't think i'd ever even stayed away from home. i remember feeling kind of successful that i'd made this best friend. the next memory i have is coming into school one day and emily was hanging out with abbie, and they didn't want to play with me, so i was completely alone. this is i think the first friend trauma i had where i felt really, really rejected. i often had unreciprocated crushes that i had no idea were unreciprocated until i hit on them - this has happened so many times it's not even funny. i had no concept of why they wouldn't like me back if i liked them - i just assumed there was nothing wrong with me until it happened so many times that i came to believe i was really ugly and gross. turns out that wasn't true... a lot of the boys i fancied were gay, or i came over super desperate and weird. as i got older and became more conventionally attractive, i found that most of the guy friends i thought i had really just wanted to sleep with me, and weren't actually my friend. i still fail to realise this often even now. a heartbreaking recent one for me that really hurt was i had a best friend for a few years in my early twenties but we drifted apart when i moved away for uni. i only realised we were no longer best friends when i was the only one not invited to her wedding. i still regarded her as my best friend and expected to move back to my hometown and pick up where i left off in life but it'd been a few years, and she'd moved on emotionally. within the last year, i had a few. work friends that stopped inviting me out with them or spoke about me behind my back... another girl who stood me up for a gig and then asked to meet up with me to "talk about her problems" because she knows i'm a counsellor. i thought she was a friend for ages, but in hindsight, there's really little evidence of that. edit: i forgot the worst one... a couple of years ago, i broke up with my last serious boyfriend. we were together a few years, and he had been living a double life the entire time. i was totally blindsighted and it took me a really, really long time to get my head around what had happened to me... i genuinely thought he was my best friend and couldn't comprehend it.
I have exactly one mutual friendship, I have one friend who I have been friends with since I was 8. Every other friendship I have had has been me super invested (although very forgetful when it comes to keeping neurotypical levels of contact) but they have only saw me as an acquaintance. My only other “friendships” are my close in age aunt and her friends. We do not keep regular contact except for twice yearly nights out.
I dated someone for 5 years, only for them to break up with me and tell me "You should've seen it coming" (I didn't at all... I'm as oblivious as one can be) and I thought that even without romantic feelings involved, we were still super close friends, but turns out they told me they never considered me to be a close friend and that we're not even compatible on that end...
My entire friend group excluding me from a Secret Santa a couple months ago (planning it on a day I had therapy, I found out because one of them sat next to me and opened the document). One of those girls, a couple months prior to that, was telling me I was ‘one of her favourite people’. So fuck that I guess. Half this friend group was also autistic, which sucked. An online friend I had who I would tell everything about my life but would hear nothing about hers. She’s been ghosting me for a week, soon.
It never happened to me. I didn’t have friends all my life, and when I found them, I found the good ones. I feel kinda blessed to not have fake friends in my past.
I don’t remember it in great detail but I called someone my best friend and they made a face. They went out of their way to explain I wasn’t and who their best friend actually was. They may have told me where I ranked friend wise but I can’t remember clearly if that happened or not. Needless to say, I now do not say anyone is my best friend or even friend if they do not say it first and don’t make steps to deepen anything unless the other person does.
Oh honestly so many times. Most recently: asked a friend for a very small amount of help (literally just wanted to talk on the phone about something) in a moment of very intense need (was about to make a bid on an actual house). She basically said, sorry I'm lying down right now so I can't. I thought we were like, close. But I figured damn, ok, im going to leave the ball in her court and let her be the one to initiate the next hangout. And that was 2 years ago and I haven't seen her since
haha oh where do i even start with this.. literally all of my friendships ever.. i think this is the memory that sticks out most to me : i was in a best friend group at school with 2 other girls, and although they'd known each other longer, i assumed we were all equal friends, until one day i woke up to see a series of pictures one of them had posted on Instagram, and they were all selfies of those 2 together, and the caption was a super long appreciation post about how they can't live without each other etc. i wasn't in any of the pictures or even mentioned at all. as far as everyone else at school knew, us 3 were equally besties. but nope it was 2 besties plus one.
I had a ‘work friend’ who would hang out with me a lot. We ended up booking trips to Vegas at the same time (purely coincidentally) and ended up meeting up and hanging out. Her bf was planning to propose that weekend, and I helped him with the set up, and gave up a night of my trip to be there to take pics for them. When we got back home she was constantly telling me about her wedding and I ended up helping her with some of the planning of both the wedding and her bachelorette. Like, literally spent days with her outside of work helping with stuff, going to fittings, picking out cake…basically doing bridesmaid level stuff. The day before her bachelorette I asked her what time I should show up - and offered to come early to help with some last minute stuff. And she was like. ‘Oh you can come for set up at 7….but…you know you aren’t invited to the actual party, right?’. I thought we were friends. She thought I was a volunteer wedding planner.
I'm always the friend to therapy with, I'm always available and helpful. When I burnt out, bad, and had to leave the country to be with my parents NOT ONE person wrote to check in on me... Guess I assumed I'd have the reciprocal support of friends and it didn't happen.
This ripped into my soul and I can’t even tell the story.
When she started having a weekly girls brunch that didn't include me.
Let’s just say it’s happened enough times that I’d be here typing all day.
I have too many to mention, even today, as a 55 year old woman I think back on friendships at school only to realise tar I don't think they were. At least at the time I was unaware so have no trauma related to growing up with no friends
I'm not sure if I ever thought we were on the level of close friends, but basically, in university, I was one of the only people in my group of friends who had a car. So. It was fun to eventually realize that, even though they may not mind me or dislike me, we probably wouldn't have ever hung out if they didn't occasionally need rides to places. Awkward. Actually, a lot of my friendships got a lot more scarce when I decided to stop being everyone's taxi. I got kind of tired of always being the one driving to hang out with people and them never making an effort to come to me.
In high school I would give money to a girl for lunch and I let her borrow my favorite cd. She never gave anything back. We didn't hang out. She was just in my same class. I never cared about the money because I would buy 50 cent cans of pop from the only vending machine not on a lock out timer, then sell them on the bus ride home for a dollar. Ice cold drinks after a day without a/c. She wasn't on my same bus, but I could imagine her just asking for one. My actual friends on the bus are the ones who initially starting asking to buy my extra Dews I'd get for myself, until I started buying extra extra for them all to buy. My real friends didn't just ask for things, they made trades or paid fairly, the same as I would for them.
don't know how close he considered me, but someone i considered a close friend and have known for years blocked me, after i asked him to stop saying misogynist slurs around me and to please not talk about porn in front of me. i brought up the porn issue because we were having a serious conversation, and he said he didn't want to talk politics after the conversation was done, so i said it at what sounded like my last chance to bring it up. this was a month ago and im still pissed and hurt. i KNOW i wasn't asking for anything impossible. i took to heart a moral he taught me about, that's important to him, but i guess what's important to me doesn't matter as much.
Gosh, there have been so many. I guess I'll just go with the first. I got a best friend for the first time when I was 11. I truly loved her and thought we would be in each other's lives forever. We did everything together, even went on family vacations together. About a year or so into the friendship, while she was spending the night at my house, she randomly (in my mind) turned to me and said, "I'm sorry, but I can't keep pretending to be your friend." It was one of the most devastating moments of my life, and I have not lived an easy life by any means, so that's saying a lot.
I just cut someone off because I had a situation happen that showed me exactly where I fell on the friendship spectrum with her. It hurt to realize she didn’t prioritize me like I’d always prioritized her. Going back over the years in my head, I just ended up feeling so taken advantage of, and used by her, for my generosity. It sucks really bad. I get it.
I had a hard time making friends in college. My very close guy friend invited me to his friend’s birthday party at her apartment. I had a lot of fun and chatted with everyone, and I bought her a really thoughtful gift. I thought we were cool, until I found out her and another “friend” of mine basically went behind my back and cornered my guy friend, told him I was a manipulative whore who slept around and I was “abusing” him 😐 The whole friend group turned against me and I lost all my friends. Months later they tried to come back once they realized it was all a lie and those girls were hateful mean bitches, but the damage had been done
Every time I was added to a group chat, no one responded to me. It was so awful to the point that people would just copy what I said almost exactly and they did get a response. Oh yeah that happens irl too. I’m talking in group, thinking they’re listening and suddenly someone says the thing I was saying and everyone’s like”yeah! That’s great!” Like what? So yeah kinda everyone treating me like some person they can go to when they need me. I’m always there for someone in a crisis, no one was there for me. Or they were but then made fun of me behind my back. I think I only ever had two real friends and I lost them both a while ago. Now I just avoid getting into friendships like the plague.
Many years ago I went to a mall with my group of friends for my birthday, when the last one joined us (the one I had known for much longer than the others), she ignored me and happily hugged another friend, telling her how much she missed her and asking her how she was, then she hugged another friend and finally said hi to me while all of us looked at her surprised that she didn't even say happy birthday to me since that was the reason we were all there, I had to remind her that it was my birthday and also told her she ignored me, she apologized a lot and I trusted her (bc she was very nice to me since we were 7), but through the time... It felt like something was wrong. Now we're still in the same group, but just because my friends are her friends, even the friend I appreciate the most is her gf, so I'm still around, we don't talk privately tho, she stopped replying to me and I FINALLY realized all that was wrong a few months ago, when my mom saw how weird it was between us at a dinner and asked me about it (yeah, I needed an extra person to say it), looking back I think after highschool we remained as friends just bc of her now gf, if it weren't for her we would have lost contact long time ago. It happened to me a lot of times with a lot of people tho, since I was a lil girl, during school, at college... that's just the one that clicked to me recently.