Rejection Anxiety

So, last year, my long term relationship ended. I thought I would be ok, in time; but I’ve found that I’ve become increasingly sensitive to rejections and it’s really starting to impact me.

So, earlier this week, a group of people I would have considered my friends booked to go to an outdoor event and didn’t invite me. I found out accidentally from overhearing some of them talk about it. A few days later, one of them sheepishly mentioned it to me, but only after all of the tickets had been sold out, on the premise that ‘I might be able to ask if there were cancellations’.

It stung, but I made peace with it. Later that day, I’d found out that a group event later in the month had been moved from a date which I could attend to one which I couldn’t. Again, it stung, but it was a coincidence and there were good reasons.

The third rejection really floored me though. I had volunteered to look after a separate friend’s dog for the weekend as they needed emergency cover. I refrained from making plans so that I could do this for them. They seemed grateful at the time, but they got in touch with me yesterday night to say that my help would no longer be needed. They had decided instead that they’d be leaving their dog with the people organising the outdoor event.

I felt so dejected and worthless. I can’t really talk to anyone about it, and I can’t call any of them out because I know it’s my problem to bear but I just feel like none of them actually value me as anything other than the fat friend, the comic relief whose the first to be cut off the list, as a placeholder until something better comes along.