Every so often I fear that my friends are trying to slowly phase me out. 

I know that drifting apart commonly happens, especially as you get older and everybody starts choosing different things in life, but sometimes I really fear that my friends are consciously trying to phase me out of their lives. I fear that, slowly but surely, they’re working toward quietly walking away from me. They’re all kind, rather non-confrontational people who would rather not say “hey, you kind of suck—goodbye,” so slowly fading out is a much gentler approach to terminating a friendship.

It’s within their rights to do this, of course, but it just kind of sucks, especially since my pool of friends has gotten smaller and smaller since graduating from high school and failing to make new/additional friends in college. All of the friends I have now are from high school, and all of them have found new friends, connections, and significant others in college. I only have myself to blame for failing to do this too, I freely admit…but I also have reasons for why I’ve failed to make friends in college.

I feel really close to my friends—because they’re all I have—but I’m finally realizing that the feeling isn’t really mutual. They no longer feel as close to me because they have more people in their various different circles. I am now starting to feel like the back-up friend: somebody they call when they’re bored and have nothing else going on. In the case of my friends who left town for college, I’m the back-up friend for when they’re back in town. I’m not faulting them for leaving for school at all—that’s not the point. I just feel inferior when they’re back in town…like they’d rather not be here with me, that they’d rather be back at school with their newer and cooler friends, but instead they’re stuck here with me. 

I don’t know. I have no ‘proof’ of this. It’s just a feeling I get every now and then. Obviously no one here on tumblr can know, so I’m not asking for advice or anything…I’m just sort of venting since I don’t have anyone to talk to. It probably doesn’t help that I’m an extremely self-conscious and self-loathing person who can’t begin to fathom how anyone could tolerate being around me.

I should probably just go to bed.