Isolation and Loneliness in High School; no friends.

[Undergrad]

I have posted on here before, and I guess this post is in a similar vein to the last, but I feel as though it warrants its own thread anyway. Essentially, I am in high school in Sydney, and have just begun Year 11. (I am aware that my username could imply otherwise, not sure why i picked it just thought it sounded alright haha) I get that maybe many of you will disregard this owing to my age and obvious immaturity, and I wouldn't blame you. But, at the moment, I feel as though I don't really have anywhere else to turn to other than you strangers on the internet, so here I am. I guess the gist of it is, I am totally isolated at school. I don't think I have any friends, I mean sure there are some people that I talk to regularly, but they seem to have begun to distance themselves from me since school began, and to be honest I was expecting this. Please do not assume that I have no friends from a lack of trying, it is quite the opposite actually. Over the 6 years I've been in high school now, I can count at least 7 instances where my friends have moved on from me, cut me out, and I was on my own. Now, previously, I would have just moved on and found friends, but now I just can't. There are only so many people in a year group, and I have truly exhausted my supply of potential friends. At the moment, I spend my lunchtimes by myself playing games and reading the news on my phone, I feel extraordinarily depressed, because I am not an introvert, I want to have friends, but people don't want me. I guess aside from venting what I wanted to ask people was does it get better? I know high school is often referred to as a bubble, but thing about bubbles is that you can't tell when you're in one. I suppose I just want to know if there is anyone who had my experience in high school, and have things improved for you?

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Undergrad aka notactuallyUndergradyet 🙂

Thank you for your post and I'm glad that you reached out. For what it's worth, nothing about your post shows immaturity; quite the opposite really. I hope that others will reply who are in the same boat and have better experiences at high school - but my own experiences was that high school was really really hard. Friends are 'everything', and if you don't have them, then it's like you are forced to be isolated and shut out and lonely.

What I can tell you though, is that after high school things are so different. Unfortunately in high school there are only so many people you can be friends with, and then you run out of people - but afterwards, there's more people - so your circles can get bigger. This means that you can find people who will be there with you, and have more opportunities. You'll probably find too that other people are actually more mature, so whatever's going on now probably won't happen when people get older.

I hope this gives you some sort of comfort? Feel free to jump in some of the other posts here. There's lots of people just like you who are in exactly the same boat (and not old like me)

rt

[triggerhappy]

Hiya

I am in a similar boat as you at the moment and am year 12 doing distance-ed on the Central Coast.

It sucks, not going to lie. It is the worst at high school when you are lonely; you are surrounded by so many people, and are not 'alone' as such, but you are lonely. My friends live in Lake Macquarie and are a year older than I, so they graduated recently and have moved on with their life. I live two hours travel away from the train station and cannot really afford a lot of clubs. But here is my plan, and it might help you:

1- volunteer. I've been trying to join the RFS for some time (my mum misplaced my birth certificate, and so am awaiting another)

2- become a climate activist (or any type for that matter). Considering we are entering the sixth major extinction event where Australia is the largest exporter of coal, I am much inclined to this one out of preservation. But it is an amazing way to meet like minded people. Getting involved in the AYCC or school-strike for climate is probably the most suitable way, but there are definitely other worthy groups

3- join a sports club. I find that these are normally the cheapest club. Believe me, physical activity is not something you want to neglect during yr 11 and 12

4- join any other club if you can afford it. Develop a new hobby. You don't have to have friends like you do growing up, but they are still like minded (or not) people united by a common interest - the buzz is infectious

If none of these sound right for you, I am more than happy to generate a few other ideas.

Cheers

R