Did anyone else here struggle to make friends as a kid?
I feel like this isn't very common, but I always had a tough time making friends as a kid. Growing up, I was always the "weird" girl who people didn't hate but also didn't particularly enjoy being around. I never bullied anyone or was intentionally mean, but I was pretty annoying and socially awkward, and I did a lot of things I thought were funny but in reality just irked other people. I had some friends, but I was always that one friend who got left out, and my other friends would often hang out and do fun things without me. I remember constantly feeling sad and alone because people rarely wanted to hang out with me, having no clue why (even though it's obvious now). I am not neurodivergent or have any conditions that could have affected my social skills, I just naturally didn't have as much social awareness as my peers for some reason. This became less and less of a problem as I got older, and now as an adult I have pretty much no problem making new friends and understanding social norms. It still feels kind of weird (and makes me cringe really hard) to think back on my childhood knowing how annoying and awkward I used to be, though, if that makes sense. And because of the way I used to struggle with making friends, I feel like now I'm constantly paranoid about whether my friends secretly hate me, and I'm always overanalyzing how many friends I currently have, how close we are, whether they might leave me later, etc. I guess I just never really grew out of my fear of getting rejected and being told I'm annoying, even though it's not even a problem for me anymore.
Can anyone else relate or have similar experiences?