I recently tried putting myself out there and started going to a weekly game night at a local game shop. I had been thinking about it for a long time, but one day after work I finally had the courage and went. I was super nervous that first night, felt very intimidated since by the time I got there the vast majority of people were already playing tabletop games I wasn’t familiar with. But I met a nice table of a few people playing a more casual card game. They welcomed me and we had a good time.
We met once a month for the next 2 months. both times fun, they invited me to a friend group discord to help coordinate when we’d hang out. I was hopeful maybe this was the start of a new beginning for me.
I find out today that I was kicked from said Discord without any warning or reason given.
Confused, old feelings of friend rejection surfacing, I message the admin/“leader” of the friend group, let’s call her X. To her credit, X actually responds and doesn’t just ghost me. She claims I was kicked because I @everyone’d too much and it quote “made people uncomfortable”.
I did it a total of 2 times, with a space of a month between, both times were literally “Hey, anyone wanna hang out this week? @everyone”.
No warnings, no indication that I had made some unspoken internet faux paus, just immediate punishment.
I tried to explain my side and that I meant no harm and annoyance, and that now that I was actually made aware of the problem, I could act on fixing it. I explained that I’m autistic and that I mess up social cues alot as a result, all but begging for a 2nd chance, just not to be alone again.
But nope, mind was made up. She said as much and then promptly blocked me.
What gets me the most is: All she had to do was talk to me. Just shoot me a message saying “Hey can you please not @everyone”, and it would’ve been resolved. That’s it.
Looking back, there were some flags with X that she was a control freak and a wannabe “Queen Bee” of this group, that she wanted a monopoly on when and where we all hung out, for no one else to ever initiate besides her, that she maybe never really liked me to begin with and was waiting for an excuse to do something like this. But I gave her the benefit of a doubt because I wanted so, so badly to belong
I won’t miss X, and would be fine never seeing her again, but I will miss the other people (I have no real way of contacting them now. I was still getting to know them while they’ve been friends with X significantly longer, so odds are they’d side with her regardless). I hope X and her group hang out elsewhere from now on, if for no other reason than to avoid me and the ensuing awkwardness.
All I’ve ever wanted, more than anything in the world, is a true-blue best friend group who I knew had my back 100% no matter what. No joke, I’d give up all my earthly possessions to have that, it would bring me that much joy and peace. But if there’s a god, I guess he’s just like “Fuck you, you don’t get to have that”.
This has been the latest in a line of recent failures to make new friends, something I’ve struggled with my whole life. And I get more and more discouraged every time. I feel so unwanted
There are a lot of people that do tinpot dictator stuff like this in various groups. I’ve been kicked out of online trans spaces before for getting people hrt, for finding people housing, hell even one time was ghosted by a friend I helped cause she learned I was a communist despite “changing her life completely” as she put it.
People are weird. I try to not be bothered by it. You’re in a vulnerable spot and frankly it’s my opinion that these tinpot dictator types love fucking with people that are vulnerable. I don’t think it’s much else. I’ve met countless autistic trans folks in my time and not a one did something so bad it warranted social shunning. Some people are just abusive freaks.
I feel so unwanted
I feel ya. I go through these motions. All my friends are far away or busy with shit. But I do keep up with them. In between I am mostly alone but I got better at being alone and keeping mind at ease.
I don’t know what to add here but I will try. You mentioned the game place where you go to. I mean it won’t be bad to go there again to meet up with them or others. Now I don’t know the group dynamics at play, if you know them personally try to talk directly maybe. Kicking out of a group for message spam seems too much. If you know others in the group talk to them.
Or there is the not so scorched earth option where you can try ignore them and play at game shop with a different group if you tried but give the other ones a cold shoulder.
I do wanna add that you shouldn’t take this too harshly as some gigantic failure on your part. The toxic people that treated you as such are at fault. Fuck feeling unwanted. I felt that all the time until I did meet friends who do want me around, who do want me be well, do keep up with me.
If you like the other people in the group make inroads with. Ignore it bein awkward. Remember you did not make this awkward.
That’s awful and a completely ridiculous behavior on her part. Either she is unfathomably unreasonable or this is just a flimsy pretext for some other reason. As you have relayed it, you did nothing wrong and were, if anything, surprisingly accommodating to such unreasonable treatment from her.
It might be worth trying to contact the others, though it would probably invite an unpleasant run-in with X (but that’s a one time thing and you might get some friends back). If they still go to the game store, you could ask the owner or whoever is usually there when you went to pass a message along to the group members who aren’t X, for example. As you relayed it, it’s unclear if anyone but X is against you even slightly, and I can tell you from being in a situation where I did a lot more to get kicked out of a server than you did that it is a realistic idea that there might still be people among them who would be happy to be your friend, even if the old social configuration is out of the question.
Some people are really dishonest and controlling, and they sometimes put themselves in positions of outsized control over social groups, and you shouldn’t blame yourself for running afoul of whatever arbitrary whims incurred their wrath (though it’s a good skill to learn how to spot such people when you can). You shouldn’t blame yourself when they mistreat you like this.
Thank you for the sympathy and advice. I think I’m just gonna cut my losses and try to move on. I’ll miss what could have been with those other people, but even with them I only saw them three times for a few hours, if even that. They were nice, but we weren’t the most compatible in terms of interests n stuff (Not the least either, just mediocre interest compatibility if I had to say). I have issues with anxiety, and knowing X is somewhere on the fringes would have me on edge if I tried pursuing those friends, the emotional toll just wouldn’t be worth it to me.
The only friends I’ve ever had that felt genuine are also neurodivergent. I moved away from everyone and don’t really have friends in person anymore, but I highly recommend trying to suss out some autistic and/or ADHD folks. Not that it always pans out, plenty of us suck too, but the odds seem way better because it’ll be easier for them to give you room to fuck up socially.
The person you’ve been dealing with probably is trying to control the group. They likely feel threatened by you, especially if there isn’t another woman in the group. Lots of people think everyone acts the same way they do, so if she’s controlling then she thinks you’re gonna try to take control from her because that’s what she would do.
Anyway, I hope you keep trying to find friends and have more luck in the future. You’re definitely not alone in these experiences, but there is still hope. I’m over 40 and have been through it over and over, but I found a couple of people along the way that made it worth the struggle.
aw this made me so sad to read and i relate entirely too well i genuinely feel like peoples approach/philosophies around friendship and community in the west is so poisoned and perversed. it feels hard to keep trying when you keep being willing to meet people beyond halfway and even that doesn’t get reciprocated in the way its deserved, and yet all the shittiest people i know are surrounded by many many friends and endorsed and accepted by the people around them. like it’s not your or my fault but it still fucking sucks
