Karen

Hi...This year is my first year in college and i think that its been getting progressively worse the harder that i try to fix my problems. My best friend from high school goes to the same school as me and at first i was absolutely fanatic about it. Last year she was new and was extremely shy and sweet and me and her had an extremely equal relationship (we were both sort of shy and hesitant to meet new people so we both valued each other a lot). In the beginning of this year she was extremely nice still and she never did things that made me mad at her or anything. She had a lot more friends now from joining cross country but i wasn't ever mad or jealous about that. Sure it was nice when it was just the two of us but she still treated me like i was her best friend and that she was happy to be called my best friend. In the fall she convinced me to join tech crew for the play. Honestly I'm really thankful that she did that because I've met a lot of really cool people from it but there are a couple of people that... for the sake of this ill call my best friend Karen... Karen really took to and started hanging out with. It started out innocently enough. i hung out with the people that she hung out with because i wanted to hang out with Karen. These girls (lets call them Maddy and Alice) and i became friends too. After awhile though i started to notice Alice and Maddy being really rude to me "jokingly" by calling me dumb and stuff which i already have low self esteem about. It didn't take long for Karen to begin to make fun of me about mistakes that i would make and little things that i would say by calling me dumb even though i had told her about how insecure i am about that and how i thought that i was smart until i hung out with a girl in junior year who would always call me dumb which really lowered my self esteem. Karen knew about this yet she continued to make fun of me to seem cool in front of Alice. i noticed her starting to develop kind of an obsessive admiration for Alice and she started to treat me worse and worse when i would try to talk to her when me, her and Alice were hanging out she would act kind of annoyed by me and i think that its because Alice and Maddy don't really like me and only hang out with me because of her. I think that she started to become embarrassed of me. Another thing that she convinced me to do in fall was join the Lacrosse team with her. Shes amazing at Lacrosse and has been playing for a long time since lacrosse was a big sport where she moved from. She asked me to join because she was a little apprehensive about not having friends on the team i guess. that was all that me signing up was to her. i joined because i really wanted to hang out with her and the thought of being team mates really excited. Whenever i signed up i had the perfect vision of being team mates and always being supportive of each other and being awesome at it together i guess. They just started a league where i go to school and it started about two weeks ago after everything with Alice and Maddy was happening. On the first practice we walked in together and i was bustling with excitement. Karen simply looked around and found one of her friends and essentially ditched me. That was all that me signing up for it was to her. My medium income parents payed $400 for me to play and get my uniform and they essentially told me that if they're paying this much for me to do i have to stick with it for all four years. And all it was to Karen was just a little insurance that she would have a friend at the beginning. Once we started practicing it was plain to see that i was the worst on the team and the girls treated me as such. Nobody talks to me and everybody acts like theyre above me. Karen on the other hand is a star. Shes the best on the team and everyone treats her like shes their best friend. Once she saw how bad i was and how the other girls disliked me i noticed her getting really distant and acting like i was just some loser friend who was clingy and desperate (but hey maybe I am). Since this has been happening shes been a lot more rude to me and has been acting like its a burden to even be my friend while I'm just standing left behind wondering what I did wrong. Another thing is that i try really hard to become good at lacrosse in hopes that maybe the other girls will start to like me and Karen will not be embarassed of me anymore. But i just cant. I'm terrible and i have to stick with the sport that i suck at and the team that hates me for two more years because i wanted to spend time with the person that is burdened to even talk to me. She wont even be my partner during partner events and I'm stuck partnering up with my coach who hates me being on the team just as much as the girls do. Im afraid to tell Karen how i feel because shes my only friend anymore. I'm grasping desperately for some way to keep her but when do i stop trying to be friends with the girl that I've built my entire life around when she gives no effort in return. II know that this was alot to read but i really thank anybody that did and even if 1/10 people read this or give me advice i wont regret writing this long story of my sad little life

Hey there, Sorry to hear that life has been tough for you lately. I ran into similar problems in college. (Just graduated) It is really painful to be mistreated by the ones we love. And the feeling of being left out is horrible too. It sounds like your low self esteem is the number one problem here. It is super normal to feel insecure, in fact, I could guess that the way those girls treat you has to do with their insecurities and maybe it makes them "feel better" to make you feel worse. The best thing to do in this situation is to find things to do that you are good at, that make you happy and confident(You are a good writer btw). It sucks that you have to go through the whole 2 years left of lacrosse, but that is life... Try to make another friend on the team (other than Karen) and if you absolutely can not get along with any of them, that's ok.. life is a bitch sometimes.... on the bight side its really good you are getting all that exercise hahaha The other issue is the most obvious one here. Karen is not a good friend to you, and she certainly doesn't deserve how much you care for her. This "friendship" is harming your emotions too much. I know there is a part of you that feels like things will go back to how they used to be with her. But the truth is they wont... You have to accept that and move on. It is going to be okay!!!!!!!! Hope this helped Best, Romina