Can anyone relate to this: I'm a 14 year old high school freshman. All my "friends" are really just school friends. We don't hang out outside of school, and I don't even have their phone numbers. I always feel like the one on the outside whenever I'm hanging out with people in school, like I'm not part of the conversation or part of the group. Its worse, of course, when holidays and such come along especially now when every seems to be going to parties that I was not invited to, or even just trick-or-treating. I never get invited to stuff like that or going to movies or hanging out at someone's house. I'm not out, nor do I act stereotypically gay so its not anything to do with my orientation. I sometimes think its because I'm so much smarter than everyone in my classes, I know it makes me sound like a egotistical asshole, but its true by far, and everyone would agree. But people talk to me at school (somewhat). I don't know, I'm just kind of upset over this and the fact that it always happens to me I just need to rant and vent. And even if I was ever invited to something, between my 4 hours of homework daily, staying after school late, studying for tests, and then studying things for science competitions, I doubt I'd even have time or if I made time I would just get put really far behind in everything else. Can anyone give me advice on how to be more social, and have friends who actually want to hang out with me?
For me, the best way to make friends has always been through extracurricular activities. You meet people with similar personalities and interests and it makes it considerably easier to befriend people. For instance, I'm highly involved in the tennis team, and most of my friends are involved as well. I'm also involved in academic contests, where I've met quite a few people. If you do science academics like you've said, try interacting with people also competing in academics. Start there and the rest should follow.
I have already, the person I consider my best friend, although we get together only to study, I met in a science competition last year. I was good friends with the rest of the time and we were this nerdy little clique than when we won the regional competition and went to nationals we fell apart and never really recovered. I've met some other people in academics, but mainly everyone I meet in academics are either competition or idiots.
Nothing wrong with being friends with competition. One of my biggest rivals in tennis was a friend off court. But best of luck and I hope you manage to make friends.
Yeah, but these people are all obnoxious assholes. The worst was one kid, who was on the same team as me that won the competition I talked about earlier, got put on the B team for the competition this year and me and my "best" friend are on A as freshmen the rest of the A team is 2 11th graders and a 12th grader. So he was VERY pissed off which sucks because we were really good friends before that. I don't even know if I want platonic friends as much as I'd like to start dating. I really wish I could, but I don't know any people who are definitely gay, and the ones who act like a stereotypical gay person I don't find attractive, I'm not into really feminine guys.
I have similar problems. I'm not even bothering with coming out because there isn't anyone that's out that I'm interested in. Plus I'm a senior and close to college. Why bother coming out in small town Texas?
My first reaction to your post is: I can't believe I have a clone of myself somewhere!! lol Seriously, apart from our age difference and out status, EVERY word you said applies to my situation also. And really, EVERY word. I couldn't relate to any one being in my situation, it kind of reassures me that we are both going through the same thing. I was in your situation at 14, then it kind of improved when I was in CEGEP (that's an intermediate school between high school and university that students have to go to for 2 years in Quebec), then it went back as before when I started university... Good thing for you is that you have time to try and change the situation and not end up like me! I think you are right in saying that it might be related to you being smarter than most students, because I was also winning all the prizes at school so it must be really explaining why we are considered too serious to hang out and have fun... You can figure out that I'm not the best to give advice in this situation, but I will gladly read other people's advice which may be good for me too!
Good luck in college. I wish I was there, everyone seems to say thats when they became fully out or got in a good relationship. There are definitely jealous people, and I think people might think of me as an egotist sometimes which I try not to be. Good to hear others have had the same experience.
Haha stop obsessing over school. Also, join some clubs and become part of a music or art program. I love my choir Try to be friendly and start conversations with new people. If you appear to be more relaxed and less of a school nerd then other people might feel more comfortable going places with you.
Shots fired! :lol: I noticed though that you are out to your mom. Would going to an LGBT center be an option to you? A lot of them have youth groups and meetings which you can attend where you can meet other LGBT people and just make other friends in general. Even joining a GSA (if your school has one) might be something to do too. If you're worried about that though, know that these meeting have confidentiality agreements, so you can stay in the closet if you want.
My mom asked me if she wanted me to have her look for groups for "other kids like me" (I don't think she can say that I'm gay yet, but all is good ) I replied with "I guess so" so I might join one.
To some degree, what you're going through is 'the nature of the beast' that is high school. People are very concerned about stuff that most of them will (hopefully) come to see as rather immature and superficial when they get older. Some of that starts to happen in college, so you have a better chance of meeting people who will like you as a person, and be less concerned with whether or not you like the same things they do or dislike some of the things they enjoy. That said, and not to be unsupportive, but I'm noticing a couple things here in your posts that I find a bit...troubling in terms of you trying to be a more social person. a) You don't seem to have much nice to say about anyone. People are either 'idiots' or 'obnoxious assholes' or other derogatory things. If you spend all your time looking down on those around you, they are going to pick up on that and not feel very inclined to want to be around you. You may indeed be tremendously smart - but unless you are the worlds foremost living expert on every aspect of human endeavor, the reality is that there are probably lots of things that you aren't good at or don't know much about. So a certain amount of humility combined with recognizing and acknowledging that just because someone doesn't share your strengths in one area doesn't mean that they don't have knowledge, skills, or aspects in others that you should respect and appreciate. The ability to do that is one of those more mature aspects of people's personalities that (hopefully) starts to develop in college and so lead to people being more comfortable/respectful of diversity. Right now, it's possible your schoolmates are lacking in this area and not seeing the positive aspects of you that are there even though you are different from them. But it's also possible that you're doing the same thing where they are concerned. b) You sound like you are rather over-scheduled. While academics is certainly important, having no time to just have fun or work on developing social skills and intelligence is not doing you any favors. If you are the driving force behind this, then suggest you look into backing off on some things so that you have more time to just have fun. If it is your mom/parents who are driving this, suggest that you talk to them about backing off on some things so you have time to have fun and develop social skills and such. I suspect that you're not going to be thrilled by that suggestion, but if you need an incentive, I'll point out that when you get to college, and then go on to doing whatever you end up doing after - you are going to be dealing with people in all kinds of ways. Actually having some knowledge and experience in how to do that is a useful skill, whether when working to get research funding or trying to get a date with a guy you're attracted to. I'll also point out that lots of studies indicate that human beings need to relax from time to time to perform even better later - otherwise they burn out. Finally, I'll mention that in my time in college, I knew or knew of some extremely bright people, including a friend of mine who started college at 16 and averaged 25-30 credit hours per semester while working as a research assistant. He would stay awake studying for 36 hours at a time and was scary smart. But even he would go and do stuff for fun from time to time. All work and no play will come back to bite you eventually. My 2c worth, Todd
Sorry, I wrote that while pretty pissed off/sad/annoyed at people. I'm stopping two clubs that otherwise would take a lot of time, but my schedule is still really busy. I'm the driving force behind this all, and my parents think I'm overworking myself. I guess they're right. Thank you.
