Dear Carolyn: I am friends with a few members of a pretty tight clique. Over the years, I have had fluctuating levels of closeness with some of these women, and also fluctuating levels of hurt from feeling excluded from their clique. Independently of the clique, I do genuinely value my friendship with one of them and have reached out to a second with whom I want to reconnect.
My question is: How can I feel okay when being friends with any of them is a constant reminder of my exclusion? I have noticed the friend I am close to does not share anything personal about the other women when their names come up in our conversations, so I try to avoid talking about them. So far, I have mostly avoided talking about how hurt and confused I am to be excluded from the clique. But feeling as if I can’t talk about these things when they are so immediate has become a source of pain when I am with her — as if, through her, the clique has one more way to hurt me.
Meanwhile, it is painfully obvious they have not been as circumspect about talking about me.
I want to protect my friendships, but I also want to feel okay. I have never been part of a clique, so I don’t know how they operate and what it feels like to be in one. It’s clear to me from afar that cliques also create suffering for their members. Can you help me navigate this painful situation and find joy in the friendships I do have? — Left Out
Left Out: Apologies in advance for the unsatisfying answer.
The way to manage a clique is to put yourself out of its reach.
Two ways to do this: Stay away, or stop caring what it thinks of you (even if you’re in it).
I’m using “it,” but a clique is not its own organism; it’s several distinct one-on-one relationships. Interconnected people, gravitating toward each other out of affection, shared interests and maybe some proximity, habit, security.
People in groups often aren’t turning their backs out to you so much as turning their faces in toward each other. Meanwhile, a friend group is only harmful if the connections within it aren’t healthy.
So, this clique you’re not in: Either they’re just comfortable as they are, with their dynamic as it is, for a million reasons, no hard feelings, or there’s a cruel or predatory element.
If it’s the former, then a choice to maintain your individual, independent friendships with clique members is available to you, if you want it and if those friends make the effort with you. If you can decide not being “in” is just fine and the “million reasons” are not meaningfully about you, then your peace of mind is out of the group’s reach.
I’m saying this as someone as accustomed to being out as in, by the way. I have friends still who are much closer with each other than they are with me, so it’s not as callous or clueless a suggestion as it may seem.
If it’s the latter and the group is predatory — or if you try but can’t shake off your exclusion — then stop pursuing friendships that cause you collateral pain, as a kindness to yourself.
Like I said, unsatisfying advice. The most protective path, really, is toward your own circle of friends — enough grounding, satisfying connections to push these frustrating women aside. The easiest way to stop hurtful thoughts is to have something better in mind.
