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I Have This Urge to Get People to Like Me
I blame it on my lack of friends as a child.
I didn’t have very many friends growing up. I know many people had a shortage of friends when they were young.
So, woe is me, woe, woe is me.
Research shows that not having many friends as a child can affect your self-esteem as an adult, and I believe that wholeheartedly.
When I was young, my parents let my siblings and me have a party at the end of sixth grade. The party celebrated the beginning of summer and the end of elementary school.
I was allowed to invite all my friends from school, and I was thrilled. My two older sisters had many friends show up to their parties which made me even more excited for mine.
Even though I didn’t have many friends, I decided to send out a ton of invitations to my classmates. Including the kids who weren’t nice to me throughout the years.
I even had a friend of mine give an invitation to my crush. Later that day, I found out that he tore up his invitation and threw it away.
My heart sank to my stomach, and I fought off the urge to cry right then and there.
I gave invitations to 30 of the kids in my grade, and when my party came around, only four kids showed up.
Was I that unlikeable that no one wanted to go to my party?
That whole experience as a child has profoundly affected my self-esteem to this very day, as someone in their mid-30s.
Somedays, I find myself wondering why I lacked friendships growing up and why only four people showed up to my party when a ton of people showed up to all three of my sister’s parties.
As an adult, I have this weakness to go out of my way to get people to like me. I wish I didn’t feel that big of a desire, but I believe if it weren’t for an absence of friends as a child, I wouldn’t try so hard to get other people to like me.
Even now, I still feel like the awkward girl in Resource class who is not well-liked by other people. That baffles me because I think that I make a great friend.
