Kassandra's Notes

So… I’m a social person. I hate being on my own and love spending time with other people. But there’s one little problem. I hate planning things. I’m the person who organises most of the meetings in my friend groups. I invite people and ask if they have time. But I’m also the person who never gets invited to anything.

Okay, ‘never’ might be a slight exaggeration. In general, of course, I’m invited to birthday parties and other events like that. It’s just the outings with friends that I’m never invited to. Or, in general, friends expect me to ask them in some way. In some groups, it’s absolutely a group effort. For instance, I am a member of three book clubs. Yes, three! As I mentioned before: I’m a social person. In two of these, it’s definitely a group effort to plan the next book and meet-up. One of the book clubs met last weekend, and at no point did I feel like an afterthought or as though I was expected to plan the whole thing. One of us found a restaurant to meet at. Another person asked around and planned the date. And so on. The only things I did were create a poll and start a buddy read on Storygraph. It was a team effort, and I could feel that at every stage.

Two friends of mine are in both of these book clubs: V&B. For future reference: V&B are practically always a take-one-get-one-free kind of deal, and it’s bloody amazing. Outside of the book clubs, V&B are two of the only people who regularly invite me, and I love it. They invited me to join their book club, and they also ask me if I want to meet up with their friends. It makes me feel included. It always gives me a warm feeling because, to tell the truth, it seldom happens.

Another friend who tries her best is HM, one of my closest friends. She’s not as outgoing as me, but she often asks me when she wants to do something. I don’t expect an invitation every time, but it’s nice to be asked, even if I can’t make it. She knows I’m busy, yet she still thinks of me. I’m so happy to have her as a friend.

I’m really happy to have friends like HM and V&B. Because seriously, nobody else does. I don’t think they do it maliciously; most of the time, people just don’t think to invite me. I once asked HM why that might be. She said that most of the time she thinks I’ve got something to do. She’s right — my calendar is packed — but I still like being asked once in a while.

So that was a lot of crying for a little FOMO (damn, I never thought I would use this word seriously). But I’m not really sure it’s FOMO. I’m not afraid of missing out on anything; it’s just a really awful feeling when you realise that people never invite you to anything. There were instances where a whole group of people I knew invited each other to a game night and didn’t think to invite me. I asked my friends about it. One of them, NF, said I was being unreasonable and dramatic. We’re not friends anymore, so I’m not hung up about it. Seriously, this is not an answer to give. I also asked one of my best friends, LC. She was really shocked that I was upset and apologised profusely. She said she thought I wouldn’t be able to make it, and she didn’t really make the connection to invite me, even though I was friends with everyone in the group at the time. LC and I talked it through, though, and we’re fine now. But you know, after that, you notice these things.

Whenever someone mentions that they’re doing something with a group of people that I know, I feel a little hurt. I know this is unreasonable, since everyone has the right to do their own thing without me. But once you start to notice things like that, you just can’t stop. I notice it whenever I plan a meeting with a group, whenever I invite a person, whenever I spend time with other people because the more, the merrier, and whenever I ask a person if they have time. And every time, it hurts a little bit. I fucking hate it. I thought the time with social anxiety was over after school, but no, it’s not; it’s just more subtle.

As mentioned, I’m no longer friends with NF. There were many instances where I realised that I was the only reason the friendship existed at all. But the reason why I yeeted myself out of this friendship was a simple movie. There was a film I really wanted to see, so I asked many friends to join me as I didn’t want to go alone. Almost all of them didn’t want to see it, which is fine; one of them was NF. He said he doesn’t watch this type of film anymore, which is absolutely fine. In the end, I went with another friend. But before the film, I had a quick chat with NF. I asked him what he was doing that day. He said he was going to the cinema. Can you guess the film? Yes, the film I asked him to see. I asked if he meant the film I had asked him about. He said, “Yes, exactly.” He changed his mind after watching the trailer. OK, fine, but what audacity! He went with other friends, and I don’t think I can be angry with him for going to the cinema without me. But I can be angry about his complete disregard for me. I deserve better than this.

Looking back at all this now, I don’t think I hate planning things. What I hate is planning things for people who won’t do the same for me. But, to tell the truth, I don’t think I’ll stop anytime soon. I’m a bit of a people pleaser, and that’s one of my worst character traits. I’ll continue to organise outings with my friends because otherwise nobody else will. My week will still be full without me ever being asked to hang out. I will still be hurt when I hear that friends are meeting up without me. For now, there’s nothing I can do because I’m not willing to change.

One last thing: I know it seems like my friends are awful, but they’re not. In every other area of my life, I have the most amazing friends. I think the problem lies more with me than with them, but I needed to get this off my chest.