Have you ever had this happen?
Where one night:
Oh my god, everyone is hanging out without me. Why wasn't I invited?!
And then the next:
Oh my god, why did I agree to hang out with everybody?
Ugh. Why did they invite me?
The struggle is real and completely contradictory.
But lately I have been painfully self-aware that I am being excluded from things.
Like, the other day I opened my FOMO app and noticed that some friends went bowling and didn't invite me,
[gasp]
and I immediately went into a spiral of inferiority and shame and felt like I was 8 years old again.
[laughter]
But the thing is, I don't even like bowling.
If they had invited me, I probably wouldn't even have wanted to go!
But did that stop me from crying and convincing myself that I'm a worthless heap of trash?
No.
And then last week, I was talking to a friend, when she asked,
- Hey, are you going to Melissa's party?
- Oh I didn't know she was having a party.
- Yeah, you didn't get the invite? - No.
- Check your spam, I'm sure it went into your spam.
- Nothing.
- Facebook?
- Nada.
- Insta DM? - Zilch.
- Text? - Nope.
- Smoke signal? - Nothing.
- Huh.
Well, I'm sure you could come. She probably just forgot to invite you. It happens.
- Yeah.
There are a few things you can do when you feel left out.
I mean, if you feel like a friend is intentionally excluding you,
yes, that probably warrants a conversation to find out what's wrong.
- Why didn't you put out the smoke signal for me?
- Because it's an archaic way to communicate. I can't build an entire fire every time you wanna hang out.
I mean, invest in string and a can.
But sometimes, friends just hang out without you.
And in my case, I have to accept that when I feel left out,
this has way more to do with my own insecurity than my friends actually trying to hurt my feelings.
And I have been asking myself,
"Why, when I see my friends hanging out without me, is my first thought:
They hate me.
They've hated me this entire time.
So a few days ago, when friends made plans to go to a movie in front of me,
without an extended invite,
I took a deep breath, and I thought to myself,
I'm happy for them. You know what?
They're gonna have a good time. And if I'm really being honest with myself,
I don't even wanna go to a movie!
I want to go home and spend some time with a book.
Wait, did I say that out loud?
I'm Anna Akana, and you're coming to Becca's party, right?
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