Why Do My Friends Ignore Me?
Why do your friends ignore you?
Unless you’re a perfect person that everyone loves, you’ve probably run into this at some point. Whether you’re hanging out with your friends or simply not hearing anything from them; you feel like they’re ignoring you. If you’re in a group setting, they’re talking amongst each other and when you try to get a word in, they simply not pay attention to you. Or when you’re trying to arrange a hangout together, they ignore your texts and do not respond.
While these things may seem hurtful (they definitely are), it’s not out of the ordinary. It can happen for so many reasons that may or may not be obvious to you. This is especially true if you’re more introverted and don’t usually pick up on social cues. I myself have been ignored with friends in the past, so I can totally relate to this (and how it feels). And today I wanted to clear things up for you!
In this post, I’ll give you the answers to the question, “Why do my friends ignore me?” I’ll give you some of the most common reasons why you may be ignored by your friends and how you can fix the issue. Some of these may surprise you. Let’s change the friendship around.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
You’re being too clingy.
Of all the reasons why your friends may be ignoring you, being too clingy may be the biggest reason why this is happening. This is especially true if you’re not self-aware of how you’re treating your friends.
If you’re always trying to get a hold of your friends through texting or hanging out all the time, your friends will get exhausted. They will need their space and inevitably, will ignore you to get that space. So if you’re the type of person who needs to stay in constant communication with your friends all the time, you need to dial back the clinginess. Otherwise, they will push you away (figuratively) and ignore you.
You talk too much about yourself.
If you’ve read my blog posts, you know that I repeatedly tell you to be a good listener. If you are the opposite and only talk but don’t listen, you will run into problems like this!
What prompted me to pick this reasoning first; I searched on Reddit and found a post about someone being ignored by their friends. They explained how one time, they wanted to share some exciting news and tried to immediately make plans to hangout JUST to talk about THEIR exciting news. As someone who is self-aware, reading that made me immediately scream in my head, “NO NO NO!” There are many things wrong with that. But to sum it up, if you did that, you’re being selfish to your friends for making them sacrifice THEIR time to hear YOU out. That’s not the mindset you want.
If you find yourself always talking about yourself with your friends and not letting your friends talk, then for sure you will be shunned out from your group. Friendship is about giving and taking, and not taking. That’s where being a good listener comes in; it allows you to give value to the friendship really easily.
The next time you hangout with your friends, try to do more listening and asking questions about them. People LOVE others who listen to them and acknowledge them. So if your friends are ignoring you, this may help change their perception of you.
They have other priorities.
Remember that while they’re your friends, they also have their own lives they got to take care of. This includes their family life, which is likely more prominent in their 30s. I’d say it’s pretty normal for a friend to not be available to hangout as often if they recently started a family and have to raise kids. Or if they have a career that’s demanding and time-consuming, being able to see you is going to be on their bottom priority (sorry to say).
In this scenario, this isn’t entirely your fault. There’s not much you can do. Your friends have lives they have to take care of. You may just have to find other friends to see if your current ones are too busy to be going out.
Oh this one I knew a lot about back then! If you’re not born like a cool, social butterfly, then you may not know you’re doing this. But when you hangout with your friends, you may be doing stuff that is off-putting to them.
Here are some examples of me when I was doing some socially awkward stuff when in a friend setting:
- Saying stuff that was weird in the conversation (e.g. random sexual jokes, making self-deprecating humor)
- Making my friends look bad in front of others (e.g. talking about friends and their negative traits, giving away secrets out openly)
- Trying to one-up them in the conversation (e.g. if they talked about their accomplishments, I’d start talking about mine immediately after)
This can be pretty difficult to detect, because it requires being socially savvy and knowing what you’re doing. But the problem is, you probably don’t know. I’d say the best way to get better at being socially competent is by having a trustworthy friend or family member come out with you and point out your mistakes. I did this myself and learned a lot on social cues. My socially savvy friends taught me so much and I learned so much from them.
What if you still don’t know why your friends are ignoring you?
If you’ve gone through all these reasons and you still don’t feel like they’re the reasons why they’re ignoring you, then the next best thing to do: simply ask them. You don’t need to be super confrontational about it and put them on the spot. You can simply say something like you:
“Hey, I was wondering if everything is okay? I feel like you’ve been ignoring me for quite some time, especially when we hangout. If I did something wrong, I am sorry and didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Please let me know if there is anything wrong.”
I personally didn’t need to do this because I already knew the reasons why I was being ignored (the reasons above). But I did say something like this to another friend because I felt I was being mistreated by them. I feel like if you do ask them, either they’ll tell you the truth or they’ll change their behaviour so they’ll stop ignoring you. For this friend, it was the latter. After I mentioned it, they treated me so much better!
Conclusion
I hope you found this post useful. Being ignored by your friends is not a pleasant experience at all. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Unless they’re busy with their lives, you can figure out what’s going on and change the way your friends treat you, and may ultimately stop ignoring you!
If you have any questions or feedback, leave them in the comments below!
