My mates haven't invited me to a party

I'm quite (well very) pissed off. I hang about with a group of about 10 at 6th form and i've always been sort of on the edge of the group. No-one really tells me much or makes a huge effort to talk to me about anything personal. But alas, we still get on just fine. Plus, they're the only friends I've got.

I've never found it easy to talk to people, I'm not confident whatsoever. I was always the geeky weird ginger girl in my group at school (different group to now), my mates were the ones who were popular and had all the boys after them. I was the one who got asked out when someone wanted a joke. It's sort of meant i've had no self confidence throughout almost my entire life, I was also verging on being anorexic when i was 14/15, and i don't think that's ever fully left me.

I've discovered that probably my closest friend in the group is having a get-together at her house tonight. There's about 15 people going, including some she doesn't really know. I'm the only one in the group who hasn't been asked.

But what's worse is how they've all gone about it. This party's not been mentioned in front of me, and i've only sussed that its happening from little snippets of almost coded conversation I've overheard. They all shut up about it when i'm around. Even to the point of saying 'I'll tell you later' then nodding at me. This pissed me off even more. It's like there's some big conspiracy, where everyone going tonight knows not to tell me. Especially when they're all acting normal around me. I'm pretty insulted too that they all think I'm stupid enough not to find out. I don't know what I've done to be excluded like this.

I really don't know what to do about it. I can stand up for myself for sure (growing up as a redhead does that to you). But they're my only friends and i don't want to risk being a loner again. It's more depressing because i feel like i have no close friends and this just hurts. I was sort of beginning to realise who i was too, in terms of my on style and identity and mind, but this just makes me feel like 'what's the point in bothering?'. I can't seem to make friends whatsoever.

But the point is, should i say something? After all, it's her house and she can invite who she likes. So do i say something and look needy and pathetic or do i leave it and let them treat me like an idiot?

Love, Anonymous Me xxx

The Mookychick answer to your problem

Ashley says...

relationship advice Oh, dear, how I've been there. And how I love telling people about how I told those kids to go fuck themselves.

The Christmas picture at the 15-kid gathering you weren't invited to? Been there. The make-out party where the unattached guys were DARED to ask me on a date? Been there. The lunches where the jerks gather together a pool of money to try and pay you not to sit with them? (Wish I'd taken the money).

Fuck em. Leave them be.

Strike out on your own and find the other unpopular kids. The ones who eat lunch in the library and draw out elaborate Dungeons and Dragons maps and listen to obscure stuff that's not obscure in the cool way. Like, I dunno. Jethro Tull or something.

Find the ones who enjoy writing parody songs for fun. The boys in the advanced math class and the girls who don't wear makeup. Make friends with them. In the meantime, you can do something guaranteed to work to burn your bridges with your jerk group that worked for me - write a spectacular (12 single-spaced pages was enough for my purpose) epic mocking them all in grand form, and publish it in the school magazine. They'll find another punching bag - but it won't be someone smart as you who knows what's up.

And you? You'll find people you'll actually remain friends with. If all else fails, and this sounds sappy but it is true - I met my husband on the quote unquote blogosphere, and how the hell do you think a New Mexico girl ends up giving advice to girls in a country she knows mostly from Monty Python and from the fact that their imperialist predecessors enslaved her whiskey-drinking carousing Irish fore-fathers - you *do* have us, and really the whole of the electronically connected world at your service.

And if there's just me writing to you, who feels the urge to spit in the faces of these twats, then guaranteed there are hundreds more who feel it too. We're kicking in their balls in solidarity - if only in thought.

I hate for my advice to sound like an endless repetition of "fuck 'em," but really. Fuck 'em.

Magda says...

relationship advice Yikes! You poor little otter! We've all been there... me, I just kept my mouth shut until I hit university.

My ridiculously shallow advice for a happier life in the meantime is this: look fit and talk to geeks, rather than looking like a geek and talking to fitties. Although if you like dressing indie/goth/whatever, the people you like best may not trust you if you look too mainstream. So that might be advice you want to disregard. Which is always my favourite kind of advice.

Just to find some people you really like the company of. Even if you go to a village school in the Tundra with only 30 pupils and they all hate you because you refuse to eat seal puppies, there'll always be someone hidden in the shadows who you genuinely get on with. And it'll be easier in uni...

PPS Gingers are way cool. Irish renaissance stylee, doncha know. Big up the ginger!

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