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Hi Adam,
I've given some thought to your questions. I don't have all the answers to shyness and social problems, but since I've been out of my teens for a while I have some reflections on things that have become clearer since then.
First, there is nothing unusual in your friendships and the social scene changing a lot since your pre-teen days. People's sense of who they are changes so much at puberty and it really takes several years for them to sort out their sense of identity. My two closest friendships before my teens were totally transformed, and I couldn't understand why, other than that suddenly everything about us seemed different and nothing fit together the way it used to. Now I know that people that age are struggling with a new sense of identity and a lack of self-assurance, and this inevitably impacts their friendships and their ways of making friends. Relations with the opposite sex have a new meaning which they don't yet know how to deal with, and it seems to spill over into same-sex friendships as well.
I found the teen years the hardest to make friends. Things got better only after I went to college, when we had those first years behind us. The friendships I made since that time had more depth, and more generosity, than we were capable of in high school.
Because of all this, people tend to be very self-preoccupied. That might be one reason why people seem to come across as hostile. It's true that the social scene is often competitive and backbiting, but I think a lot of this comes not from a deliberate attempt to put others down but an attempt by people who are at a particularly insecure stage of their lives to bolster their own confidence. They are thinking so much about making themselves feel okay that they aren't very aware of how that affects other people's feelings.
I have never lived outside the U.S., but since you mention being foreign-born there may be cultural differences between your native country and the U.S. that could also make it harder to get on the same wavelength with other people here. That will get better with experience.
I hope being aware of these things will help you to take them less personally. I can say that things do get better in a couple of years. What has also helped me is to try to focus on the other person so that I am not so preoccupied with myself. That helps me to be less shy and to take others' less-than-friendly behavior less personally.
As an extroverted person with a history of making lots of friends, you clearly have the skills to succeed socially (which is more of an art than a science), so I have no doubt that these skills will work for you again in the future.
Best wishes,
Annette
----- Original Message -----From: adammutuliSent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 11:16 PMSubject: [SocialFitnessForum] Being Ignored By FriendsHello, i'm 16 and i'm a shy extroverted kind of guy. I love being
with people but when i moved here to the US and went to high school,
all my knowledge of talking to people seem to be irrelevant. I dunno
if i was unconscious about this but when i was in 4th grade i had
many friends. i didn't talk to about 50% of my class cause there was
only about 25 kids, and i thought i was pretty much fine as long as i
know half the class and had at least 15 friends. One thing that i've
noticed that is different from then till now is that people used to
talk to me then and now i'm ignored. what stuns me is that i'm using
the same social techniques i did when i was ten as i am now. Nowadays
when i talk to people they seem aloof to me. I feel like i'm in a
dictatorship and they're the ones in control. I don't have a choice
to pick from people i like because everybody is like this to me. I
can understand aquaintances and strangers being this way but i can't
understand my friends being this way. I now only have two friends and
about 8 aquaintances who lost patience with my shyness a loooooong
time ago. It's like my friends can make comments at things and i'm
supposed to laugh (and somehow i always laugh at their command, and i
hate it, then i feel stupid for letting my guard down), but when i
make my own comments they don't say a thing. they don't even listen
to what i say, like as if i never said anything at all. like i'm a
ghost. one of my friends is a girl (the only girl i've ever known,
ever!) and she's a natural social butterfly. when we first met i
thought she was like me, we're both foreighn. i thought that she
didn't make friends with american people because americans seem more
ummm...how do say...evil and intrepid? because of their emotional
problems and skill at dealing with the worst depressing situations in
the world. for me i can always tell an american by the evil
look "social wisdom" in their face. she didn't seem this way, so i
thought i could talk to her. it surprised me that this law in my head
turned out to be dead wrong as i soon learned that she can talk to
anybody she wants to despite her below average english and still be
accepted. i've been thinking it for years, how can these people, so
different, coexist in the same room so peacefully and gracefully that
it seems like rocket science to me. Back then we had 50 - 50
relationship where we were equals and now it's like she has all the
control. it's obvious to me now that respect is earned and not
automaticaly given. and i have no idea how to earn this social
respect from even my own "friends." a friend is a person whom you can
share your secrets and opinions with and be respected and honored for
who you are. i don't feel that with any of my friends. i feel
vulnerable, like i'm being controled and even though they don't show
it, somewhere deep inside them i know they're loving every second of
watching me be so pathetic. you know how when if somebody is mad or
something people know and they're automatically given respect and
sympathy. well, when i have a bad day and show it, i even tell them,
it's like they don't care. and if they're happy they'll just try to
make me laugh in a controlling manner and try to get me to become
pathetic looking again so they can laugh inside at me. if they're
having a bad time, and i try to talk to them or cheer them up, they
don't laugh at all, they don't even acknowledge me, they just tell me
to shut up and go away. what the heck is this world coming to? i feel
like this is a war and people have ranks. my rank would be the ensign
and they're the commanders and chiefs. I'm sort of attracted to this
girl, but i also hate her and pretty much everybody for ignoring me.
i don't want to hate people for such a silly thing but it's very hard
not to. i try so hard and yet i'm still rejected. Comments?...anyone?
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