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close friends yet not so close?
Hey, so I have a group of friends, I consider them my best friends, there are 8 people and we sit together at recess at school and organise things outside of school.
The problem is that I feel like they're not like me. Recently there have been so many arguments over such small things that personally I would just let go.
They avoid confrontation and when they have a problem with someone else in the group some of them just b**** about them.
I appreciate that I have them but I just don't feel like I have a proper friend like a best friend.
For example I am at home sick so I am not at school today and same with yesterday and no one asked me how I was feeling or why I was away or anything. When it's someone else I make sure I ask how they're feeling and wish them to feel better soon and no one really seems to care that I am sick. In fact often when I am sick, I hear that someone in the group says that I am being over dramatic and I am probably not that sick and I should come to school. My friend is also sick today and I asked them if they were sick because they were on social media when usually they would be in school and they said yes, so I said "get better :)" and then they just didn't reply. I hoped maybe they would ask how I was feeling too but they didn't really seem to care.
I know that I shouldn't depend on others for my own happiness, and I enjoy spending time with myself and things like that but it would be nice to have a best friend.
When it comes to gatherings people always seem to organise things in groups of say 2 or 3 and I don't seem to be involved with that, I always seem to be the one to invite people to things.
Reading through this it sounds worse than it is, I do appreciate them and they are good people, their intentions aren't bad.
I don't want to unfriend them or anything because I like having them as my friends. But I also want to make some new friends. I'm afraid if I make new friends then and also be friends with them then I'll just have 50 friends rather than 8 best friends. I know someone in my group has kind of branched out and made more friends, now she barely talks to us and has about 50 friends but it doesn't seem that she has any close friends, which may be fine with her but that isn't what I want to happen for me.
What should I do?
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Maybe give some free advice about: Friendship?
I feel like you are a lot like me when I was in high school. I actually got really bad depression, partly from my friends behaving similar to this. It really took a toll on my self-esteem. "Do they give a crap about me?"
Looking back on these times a few years later, I've realized I was very mature for my age. Sure I could goof around and have fun, but I was always concerned about the wellbeing of my friends. I was like you, I'd always ask my friends about their lives, listen to their problems, ask if they were okay, etc. It never felt reciprocated. That department always felt like a one-way street. Later I realized... it can be very normal for teenagers to be very self-absorbed! Not to insult anyone, but still being friends with a lot of my high school friends, as adults (ish) they've gotten so much better at listening. I can talk to them now! I would have never thought that possible when I was younger.
To sum it up, you have a beautiful gift of a sensitive, caring heart. You have a talent for listening and caring for people, but I've learned this doesn't come easily to everyone (working in customer service, I've talked to people who STILL haven't learned this! ;]) Your friends might grow to pay more attention to these things, and they may not. But I'm confident you'll find someone someday you can talk to, and ask about your day. Sometimes maturing before everyone else can be a great thing, sometimes it can be a real bummerrrr. But I'm here to tell you with patience, it gets better. I used to talk to my parents about stuff, it helped me a lot. Try to find someone you can talk to, or even a counselor, that helped me too.
It used to make me sad and angry, but in hindsight I understand. I used think I was an alien or something because no one cared as much as I did. But you have a beautiful gift. I hope I helped a tiny bit! School can be really rough. I wish you the best of luck <3
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