I've never liked it when people I am friends with are better friends with each other than they are with me. The earliest I can remember thinking this specific thought was in the fifth grade where I was arguably in a trio with friends A and B. I'll eventually decide if I want to post up their names on here. It could've been my paranoia, but I thought they were better friends with each other than they were with me, even in fourth grade maybe now that I think of it. They just had more in common and liked the same stuff. Watched the same stuff. And so when friend B's mom didn't want A and B to be friends anymore, a sick part of me what glad for it, since there was now no way for them to be better friends with each other than with me. But now, I don't think I can even consider myself really friends with either of them and they're following each other on Instagram. What a joke. After about seventh grade, I stopped maintaining friendships because I came to the horrible conclusion that no one really likes me and they've gotta talk to me first so I'll make sure I'm not bothering them. If you really liked me you would text first. Eighth grade I managed to step it up in life and have a friend-group. That was a thing. I only ever texted people in a group-chat. I feel like if no one DMs you it should be a warning sign. And it currently is for me. High school. Group is fractured, and I'm absolutely certain everyone was gladder for it. I chose one of two high schools specifically because it had more of my friends from the friend group in it. It's 'cause I can't make friends. what a fucking joke. The only reason I got in that friend-group was because of a terrible sequence of events. Early seventh grade. And I mean early. My dumb middle school had two lunch periods and of course I didn't have it with my supposed best friend at the time. So I begrudgingly and shamefully and definitely some other pitiful word I can't think of-ly forced myself upon a couple of my elementary school friends and their friends. I guess it was too soon for me to go back to my mid-sixth grade lifestyle of sitting alone in the cafeteria and then playing Minecraft in the library after I was done eating. Now, I say that I'm certain of a lot of things, but I actually was certain that these elementary friends and their friends did not want me around. And I remember the next part clear as a blindingly-bright, Klieg eye-inflicting summer's day. On some day at lunch where my former friends who at least acted like we were still cool were not around, their friend basically told me to buzz off and I was like... let me at least finish drinking this first. Then I'll leave you alone and go to the library. So I walked in the halls a bit until my actual friend's girlfriend descended down upon me like a saint casting her heavenly light down into the miserable depths of a canyon where I lay at the bottom bleeding out with all of my bones broken and some organs punctured. She said something about how she recognized me because of the formerly stated relation and she saw me wandering in the hallways sometimes(??) which I guess I did do a lot. She probably did something like invite me to eat lunch with her and that is what I did for the rest of the year. Although the later lore involving her is kind of crazy, she was exactly what I needed at the time. She was kind of a lot. But this was the first time in a long, long time where I felt like I knew for certain someone actually liked me