Afraid of being a loner in high school
A freshman worries about being a loner in high school without friends
QUESTION
Hello,
For the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing that my friends don’t seem to like me anymore. They stopped caring about me; they don’t tend to pay attention to what I want to tell them; and lastly, I feel as if they only use me. The problem is that this applies to ALL of my friends and if I lose all of them, I won’t have any friends at all.
Note: I am a freshman in high school. I don’t want to look for new friends because I have a distinct taste that no one really seems to like. Also, I already lost a friend and she’s been bothering me to be her friend again but I don’t want to because she’s a bad person in general.
This group of friends started to not care about me because my cousin and I started this club at school. We had some drama in our club because we have rivals, and the whole club started to get out of hand when we wanted to learn this one dance. No one seemed like they wanted to dance at all nor had the time to come and practice so it’s postponed and another dance practice started for a different song and one of the “dance officers” started to give me a negative attitude since she postponed hers and a new one is started without her.
Also, they tend to look like they are keeping many secrets away from me. They actually didn’t care about ever since I first met them (6th grade). I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be a loner in high school for four years. Please help.
Signed, Taylor
ANSWER
Hi Taylor,
You must feel very confused and hurt to think your friends stopped caring about you. I’m curious as to whether something happened, other than the club/dance drama, to change the way your friends are treating you.
If something upsetting happened in your life around that time or you’ve been feeling depressed, you might be ultra sensitive to what feels like rejection, and everything might be fine even though nothing feels fine. If you can’t identify anything, asking the friend with whom you feel most comfortable might be helpful.
Fortunately, dramas in high school don’t usually last very long. There are always new things to grab attention and gossip. When a plan such as the dance or club, turns out poorly, there are often lessons that can be learned. We can discover a lot about ourselves and learn more effective ways of relating to others by doing an “autopsy” of what happened. If you could redo the incident, what would you do differently? Would you get more input from others or maybe talk to others differently or possibly include others? Maybe none of these questions apply, but I bet you can find something to do better next time.
You say that you have “distinct taste” in friends, which tells me you are creative and unique. Those are qualities many people find appealing, especially in high school where some kids feel like they have to go along to get along. Being your own person shows strength and leadership qualities. As you get older, you’ll realize that different types of friendships exist to meet different needs. You’ll have close friends, acquaintance-friendships, relationships based on similar interests, those who are intellectual or athletic equals and people who are only friends because of location/convenience (like neighbors or people you sit next to in class).
Finding friends who meet all these qualifications is difficult, and even then, you might be so similar that you get on each other’s nerves. If you can expand your tastes a little and talk to different people who seem kind, you might form relationships you never expected. I’m not suggesting abandoning your current friends, just being open to others. Even if you don’t become friends, friendliness is an important asset you’ll use for the rest of your life.
I hope things work out with your friends. Good luck.
Signed, *Amy Feld
*Amy Feld, PhD, MSW has trained and worked as a child psychologist.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this or any other post is intended to substitute for medical, psychiatric or clinical diagnosis/treatment. Rather, all posts are written as the type of advice that one friend might give to another.
Category: Teen friendships
Hello amy,
Its interesting yet sad too that how all the freshies go through the same thing in their starting year.I,myself have dealt and still dealing with it even I am in the 2nd year of my studies.Sometimes,you literally feel like a loser and dumb among all.This kills and shatters one’s personality inside out.Its not that I am an introvert boy,who feels shy while meeting and talking with new people.Its just that I haven’t met with the right people who have same taste and interests as mine.I know that u will always not find the people of your choice and you ha e to cope with them,but my question is that it’s a matter of 5 years,one can’t afford To be with poor and bad company or atleast I can not.Because friends are proved to be very influential.But,still we need some good real friends or a friend to be our self infront of them.What to do?
Hello amy,
Its interesting yet sad too that how all the freshies go through the same thing in their starting year.I,myself have dealt and still dealing with it even I am in the 2nd year of my studies.Sometimes,you literally feel like a loser and dumb among all.This kills and shatters one’s personality inside out.Its not that I am an introvert boy,who feels shy while meeting and talking with new people.Its just that I haven’t met with the right people who have same taste and interests as mine.I know that u will always not find the people of your choice and you ha e to cope with them,but my question is that it’s a matter of 5 years,one can’t afford To be with poor and bad company or atleast I can not.Because friends are proved to be very influential.But,still we need some good real friends or friend to be our self infront of them.What to do?
Hi Taylor,
Having a “distinct taste” is not a good reason to not look for new friends. In fact, there are no good reasons – ever- to close yourself off to the world. A person of your age (14 or 15) has not met enough people in your life to conclude that “no one seems to like my distinct taste”. High school is your chance to find people who do appreciate your “distinct taste”. Or perhaps you’ll find that your “distinct taste” really isn’t that distinct and that more people share your taste than you realized. I guarantee you, your mom is not the only person who appreciates your distinct taste.
Sounds like you made some mistakes with the dance club and some people are mad at you. Also sounds like some of those kids were never all that nice to you in the first place. So I suggest that you cool it with this group of friends for a while — “cool it”, not get into a fight with them. Occupy yourself with other clubs, other causes, volunteer, etc. Throw yourself into your favorite subjects — go to the office hours of these subjects, see who are the kids there. Those are the kids who are also interested in those same subjects and potential friends to do a class project with or to study with for tests.
Expand your intellectual and social horizon — that’s what high school is for.
Good luck and have fun!