Help with social situation?
here’s a clearer picture of what’s going on:
1 — who i am
25, senior at X (engineering)
in ireland for a 10-week study-abroad that started last weekend
biggest comfort is my dog at home
2 — timeline of the roommate / exclusion situation
Day & time
What happened
How i felt
Sun (arrival)
welcome bbq; i ordered beef, a server mooed → nobody reacted but instant body-image shame.
humiliated, wanted to hide.
Mon–Wed
anxiety + jet-lag ⇒ i overslept & missed first 3 classes; now see myself as “the flaky one.”
guilt + fear classmates wrote me off.
Mon evening
all 5 roommates + me discussed doing two things together: • Thur night: a pub crawl in town. • Fri: day trip to Galway city (we booked bus tickets).
relieved—felt included.
Thur (yesterday)
• i attended class + lunch, no one posted final pub time.• ~9 pm: group-chat photo drops—roommates already downtown drinking. i’d heard nothing.• i reacted 💔; no one acknowledged.• realized they all follow each other on ***, not me.
shock → humiliation → obsessive replay (“why didn’t they think of me?”).
Thur 11 pm
i DM’d Riya (one roommate) only to get bus details for Fri: “we’re walking at 9:45ish.” tone = neutral.
grateful for info, but zero warmth.
Fri 12:30 am (now)
they’re still chatting happy/drunk updates in group. i’m in my room looping on the exclusion.
racing thoughts, chest tight, want to bail on whole program / go home.
3 — what’s stuck in my mind
WHY did they leave without me when i was literally in the same apartment?
did i give off “don’t invite me” vibes because i missed classes?
if i hadn’t DM’d, would they have ignored me for the bus too?
how do i ask for an explanation without seeming desperate or giving them gossip fodder?
should i still go on the 9 : 45 bus (ticket is paid) or skip to protect myself?
bigger fear: this repeats my last study-abroad, where i was openly kicked out of a group.
4 — how the thoughts feel in my body
constant “burn” in chest / stomach, racing heart
ruminating, can’t sleep
self-talk: “i’m fat, unlikable, pathetic at 25 for caring”
homesick, crying to my mom, but can’t tell her details
5 — what i’d like from therapy right now
a strategy to get closure (ask vs. observe) without amplifying shame
tools to stop the thought loop long enough to sleep and attend class
help deciding a boundary: how many times do i try with this group before pivoting?
ways to manage body-image triggers while abroad
contingency plan if i decide an early return is healthier
thanks for reading all this—i know it’s long, but i’m stuck in “why did they do this?” and can’t quiet it.
@quietAcai6634
It sounds like you’re surrounded by thoughtless and emotionally immature people, but within certain settings, like school, such people are hard to avoid. For them, it’s all about popularity, which means behaving as group expectations dictate. When their empathy quotient and emotional intelligence stopped growing at the junior high level, vanity often is far more important than integrity. Friendships are vanity based, rather than heartfelt. Things like fat-shaming is just provides clear evidence of character. Such people are obsessed with hollow friendships.
Some have a change of heart and become decent people. Others pretend to be happy or delude themselves into thinking they are. Their egos are fragile and they look for ways to feel superior, which often means shunning those who for any reason are “different.”
I was overweight from early childhood. We were also poor, so I ended up wearing ***, out of style clothes. I suffered from PTSD, and was both very sensitive and extremely withdrawn. I was either ignored, shunned or tormented by classmates. I spent as much time possible being alone. There’s a LOT more to my story, but I believe I’ve said enough to establish that I felt that I was very “different,” and a social outsider.
Being “different” offers a gift. From the outside looking in, the idiocy of people trying to “fit in” socially becomes really apparent. While such people waste immense amounts of time feeding their vanity, those who are “different” are free to advance intellectually in valuable ways, not to mention huge leaps in empathy and emotional intelligence.
I found myself to be extremely grateful for having been an outsider and a loner. I was glad I wasn’t vortex-ed into social posing and posturing. I didn’t take part in competitive consuming and materialistic conversations. I decided that those who would reject me are doing me a favor by filtering themselves out of my life.
Still, it doesn’t feel good to have someone ignore you or thoughtlessly disregard you. It might be worth considering that body image isn’t the problem. The problem is people who think that other people’s appearance is relevant to what’s inside them. They’re operating on a very shallow level and content to judge books by their cover and people by their exterior. I’d bet my life that their malignant judgment is hopelessly wrong virtually 100% of the time.
Rumination is a trap I think most of us fall into many times. It often involves negative self-talk, which produces detrimental programming of the subconscious. It dis-empowers us because of that. While the subconscious works to fulfill expectations produced by the negativity, positive change is really difficult.
So… be nice to yourself. Treat yourself as you would a friend in similar circumstances. I suspect you’d encourage them. You’d point out all their positive attributes and accomplishments. You might tell them they’re wonderful, just as they are. You might tell them that it’s okay to be in whatever physical condition they are, but if they want to change, it’s best to ease into a new lifestyle gently, and in manageable/sustainable steps.
If you become truly okay with who you are, right here and now, don’t be surprised if others become attracted to your confident and generous spirit.
