Anonymous wrote:Until about a year ago, I was part of a big group of friends. Probably 40 or so people total, though obviously I was closer with some people and more acquaintances with others. We socialized together a lot -- I would say I went out with one or more people from the group at least twice a week. We almost always celebrated birthdays together, went to each others weddings, etc.

There were two people in the group I did not get along with, but because of the size of the group, it didn't seem like a huge deal. I just avoided them but otherwise had plenty of mutual friends with them. And we'd go to lots of the same big parties and just wouldn't hang out. Again, since I was close to some people but not others, some people knew about this issue and some didn't. I never got the impression (over several years) that it was a big deal to anyone really. Not everyone gets along, it's fine.

About a year ago, I learned in a very upsetting way (via an email chain that I got added to late, that included previous emails about me that I was not supposed to see), that several of the people I was close to in the group had been talking about me A LOT regarding these two people I didn't get along with. I learned that it was actually a hot topic of gossip among many people in the group, and also that a lot of people, who I had previously thought liked me fine and with whom I'd always gotten along, had been saying some very nasty things about me. It turns out that the two people I didn't get along with had been very vocally complaining about my presence in the group for over a year, and that many people, including several people I had thought were some of my closest friends (not just in the group but in the world) had come to agree that I didn't belong and had started to exclude me from a variety of things I didn't know about.


Is this a church group? Bc this is the same dynamics that happen in some church groups esp if you are not in the in crowd. Why are people so crazy.
Long story short, I stopped hanging out with any of these people and, over the course of about 6 months, slowly removed myself from any contact. I even quit Facebook because it had become too painful/upsetting to be on there after years of being part of this group, all of whom are very active on FB and not only post a lot themselves but interact with each other in a very public way. It seemed easier and healthier to just quit than to try and unfriend so many people.

I am not totally friendless now. I have a small group of old friends I've known for a long time, plus long-distance friendships with a handful of people I went to high school and college with. They are not the kind of people who socialize a ton, so even before Covid my social life had kind of died because of all this. In a way Covid has been better because it has made my small group of friend and I reinvest and we actually talk and message each other a lot more now.

I've been in therapy since this happened and it's going well. I've processed a lot of what happened and have definitely gotten past the immediate crisis, which was really bad. I was so overwhelmed by the rejection and loss of trust that I was in a pretty bad place, including contemplating suicide. I was also self-harming for a while. I've worked through those things and am in a much better place now.

However, I still struggle. I am not close to my family and never will be. When I met this group of friends over a decade ago, they became a kind of surrogate family for me and a central part of my life. Even though I have realized that they were not the supportive friend group I thought they were, I still feel overwhelmed by feelings of rejection. The memory of everything comes over me whenever I am struggling with anything else -- work, Covid, my family -- and I feel worthless and unloveable. I just want to put it behind me and stop feeling crushed by this feeling of rejection and ostracism. I feel like a leper and an outcast.

Has anyone else ever dealt with something like this? Do you have any advice for how to stop these feelings of rejection? It is so much bigger and more intense than any breakup I've ever experienced. And I'm in my 40s, which makes it feel lonelier and harder than it would have earlier in my life, when I had more opportunities for making friends and connections.

Advice and wisdom welcome. Please don't be mean -- I can take it (you are strangers so your approval is not essential to me) but it's just really not helpful. I'm just wondering if someone might have a suggestion, a book, an anecdote, etc. that might alleviate some of my anguish.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That sounds like a huge blow that would hurt anyone for years, and for years to come.

I know this will be unpopular advice, but if I were in your shoes, I would reply to the chain email, tell everyone how deeply hurt you were to read it to the point that you contemplated suicide, that you cherished their friendship and that you have moved on but you will never, ever forget their callous and hurtful behavior.

I would hit send and then forget about them. You will never really get over this, and it would be helpful to you and to them to let them have a bit of a souvenir of what they've done to another human being. (I usually advocate for taking the high road, but I think in this case hitting send on that email would be healing for you.)

Uh, no. I was giving OP the benefit of the doubt until I got to the suicidal part, and then I thought, ohhh...this person is a drama llama.

Anonymous wrote:That sounds like a huge blow that would hurt anyone for years, and for years to come.

I know this will be unpopular advice, but if I were in your shoes, I would reply to the chain email, tell everyone how deeply hurt you were to read it to the point that you contemplated suicide, that you cherished their friendship and that you have moved on but you will never, ever forget their callous and hurtful behavior.

I would hit send and then forget about them. You will never really get over this, and it would be helpful to you and to them to let them have a bit of a souvenir of what they've done to another human being. (I usually advocate for taking the high road, but I think in this case hitting send on that email would be healing for you.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry, OP. This happened to me in college freshman year - my roommate took one look at me on the first day and without even trying to get to know me, decided she didn't like me. Although I quickly made friends with 10 of our hallmates and we all hung out as a group from the beginning, over the next few months she gradually got them to exclude me from meals and make plans without me. Everyone else thought she was SO cool and fun, including the RA, so there was literally nobody on my side. I was despondent by November as things with the group deteriorated. I finally went out on a limb and started hanging with a couple of random people from other dorms and finally found my true friends. I had far more amazing and close friendships with them than I did with the hallmates, but it hurt. It especially hurt seeing my roommate become super popular, become a campus tour guide representing the college (I applied too but wasn't chosen), become class president twice, and, after coming out sophomore year, become an outspoken proponent of diversity and being kind to people who are different from you. All the while my friends and I knew what a sham she was, but couldn't say anything without looking petty. I still haven't forgiven her for not even giving me a chance on day one 30 years ago and I still fantasize about confronting her at reunion someday and asking her WTF her problem was, although my better self tells me her response probably wouldn't help me feel any better. The hallmates sucked too - like your friends, they stopped being friends and started pretending they were my friends, and went along with my roommate even though I hadn't done anything to her or them.

What helped was making new and better friends, and filling my life with other, better stuff. The rejection still hurts and it will always hurt, but I have the comfort of knowing 1. I didn't do anything that deserved such treatment, and 2., like you, I took the high road and I never trash talked these people or tried to have the final word with them. Think of the group as something you are choosing to leave behind, rather than the opposite. Please know that it's normal to feel humiliated and have a hard time wrapping your mind around how this all went down, and it will take some time to put it behind you. A year is not very long to heal from something this major, and now you have Covid keeping you from branching out socially. Eventually you will fill in your life with other friends and activities. Once this is possible, I highly recommend volunteer work, taking a personal or professional risk and kicking its ass, and living well in general. Success is the best revenge. I think you are doing an awesome job and your therapist is doing an awesome job too - keep at it. Big hugs, it DOES get better.

Did your sick, hateful and ugly (she has no shame being fake) ex-roommate ever get karma ? Gosh. I truly hope so.

Sadly, not that I am aware of. She's married, has a great job, seems to have a good life from what I've heard. But thank you!

Anonymous wrote:Cut them off like a cancer and move on with your life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry, OP. This happened to me in college freshman year - my roommate took one look at me on the first day and without even trying to get to know me, decided she didn't like me. Although I quickly made friends with 10 of our hallmates and we all hung out as a group from the beginning, over the next few months she gradually got them to exclude me from meals and make plans without me. Everyone else thought she was SO cool and fun, including the RA, so there was literally nobody on my side. I was despondent by November as things with the group deteriorated. I finally went out on a limb and started hanging with a couple of random people from other dorms and finally found my true friends. I had far more amazing and close friendships with them than I did with the hallmates, but it hurt. It especially hurt seeing my roommate become super popular, become a campus tour guide representing the college (I applied too but wasn't chosen), become class president twice, and, after coming out sophomore year, become an outspoken proponent of diversity and being kind to people who are different from you. All the while my friends and I knew what a sham she was, but couldn't say anything without looking petty. I still haven't forgiven her for not even giving me a chance on day one 30 years ago and I still fantasize about confronting her at reunion someday and asking her WTF her problem was, although my better self tells me her response probably wouldn't help me feel any better. The hallmates sucked too - like your friends, they stopped being friends and started pretending they were my friends, and went along with my roommate even though I hadn't done anything to her or them.

What helped was making new and better friends, and filling my life with other, better stuff. The rejection still hurts and it will always hurt, but I have the comfort of knowing 1. I didn't do anything that deserved such treatment, and 2., like you, I took the high road and I never trash talked these people or tried to have the final word with them. Think of the group as something you are choosing to leave behind, rather than the opposite. Please know that it's normal to feel humiliated and have a hard time wrapping your mind around how this all went down, and it will take some time to put it behind you. A year is not very long to heal from something this major, and now you have Covid keeping you from branching out socially. Eventually you will fill in your life with other friends and activities. Once this is possible, I highly recommend volunteer work, taking a personal or professional risk and kicking its ass, and living well in general. Success is the best revenge. I think you are doing an awesome job and your therapist is doing an awesome job too - keep at it. Big hugs, it DOES get better.

Did your sick, hateful and ugly (she has no shame being fake) ex-roommate ever get karma ? Gosh. I truly hope so.

Anonymous wrote:This happened to me!! It was huge, ugly, blindsiding, crushing.

Here is what I did OP:
- Therapy
- Remove/block on social media
- Throw myself into exercise. Good happy brain chemicals plus looking good is always a great revenge
- Threw myself into working on my career. Great reminder of how those people were just one part of my identity
- Threw myself into my hobbies. See above: Here's a whole other part of me that is another facet of my identity to build and strengthen
- Travel! Nothing like being several states away in the woods to put those people in perspective, ie, make them feel as small and irrelevant as they are

keep going, keep going, keep going.

I too was in an extremely dark place about it for a long time.
And then eventually: I wasn't

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I second the advice to try not seeing the group as a single entity and see if there are any friendships you can preserve. Groups like this are great for being invited to parties etc but true friendships are formed on the sidelines.
I am sorry this happened to you and I don’t know specifically what was said but it is possible that once the conversation got going some folks chimed in not meaning any harm. Everyone talks about people and I myself have said things about dear friends that I would not want them to hear. Maybe you have too. Definitely a mistake to put it in email.
On the other hand, i do find it odd that no one has reached out to you. If that’s the case it speaks to the superficiality of the group.

No way dude. Anyone from this POS group of people will take any info from OP directly back to them. Her existence should not be the meat that feeds these gossip hounds. Good riddance ALL OF THEM. If no one had the backbone to stand up for or alert OP to whet was happening before the email then she has absolutely no need to deal with any of them again. F__k all of them. The whole bunch is rotten.

Anonymous wrote:I second the advice to try not seeing the group as a single entity and see if there are any friendships you can preserve. Groups like this are great for being invited to parties etc but true friendships are formed on the sidelines.
I am sorry this happened to you and I don’t know specifically what was said but it is possible that once the conversation got going some folks chimed in not meaning any harm. Everyone talks about people and I myself have said things about dear friends that I would not want them to hear. Maybe you have too. Definitely a mistake to put it in email.
On the other hand, i do find it odd that no one has reached out to you. If that’s the case it speaks to the superficiality of the group.

Anonymous wrote:I have a question. Did any these "friends" know you were accidentally included in the chain email?