Subtitles section Play video
-
Have you ever had this happen?
-
Where one night:
-
Oh my god, everyone is hanging out without me. Why wasn't I invited?!
-
And then the next:
-
Oh my god, why did I agree to hang out with everybody?
-
Ugh. Why did they invite me?
-
The struggle is real and completely contradictory.
-
But lately I have been painfully self-aware that I am being excluded from things.
-
Like, the other day I opened my FOMO app and noticed that some friends went bowling and didn't invite me,
-
[gasp]
-
and I immediately went into a spiral of inferiority and shame and felt like I was 8 years old again.
-
[laughter]
-
But the thing is, I don't even like bowling.
-
If they had invited me, I probably wouldn't even have wanted to go!
-
But did that stop me from crying and convincing myself that I'm a worthless heap of trash?
-
No.
-
And then last week, I was talking to a friend, when she asked,
-
- Hey, are you going to Melissa's party?
-
- Oh I didn't know she was having a party.
-
- Yeah, you didn't get the invite? - No.
-
- Check your spam, I'm sure it went into your spam.
-
- Nothing.
-
- Facebook?
-
- Nada.
-
- Insta DM? - Zilch.
-
- Text? - Nope.
-
- Smoke signal? - Nothing.
-
- Huh.
-
Well, I'm sure you could come. She probably just forgot to invite you. It happens.
-
- Yeah.
-
There are a few things you can do when you feel left out.
-
I mean, if you feel like a friend is intentionally excluding you,
-
yes, that probably warrants a conversation to find out what's wrong.
-
- Why didn't you put out the smoke signal for me?
-
- Because it's an archaic way to communicate. I can't build an entire fire every time you wanna hang out.
-
I mean, invest in string and a can.
-
But sometimes, friends just hang out without you.
-
And in my case, I have to accept that when I feel left out,
-
this has way more to do with my own insecurity than my friends actually trying to hurt my feelings.
-
And I have been asking myself,
-
"Why, when I see my friends hanging out without me, is my first thought:
-
They hate me.
-
They've hated me this entire time.
-
So a few days ago, when friends made plans to go to a movie in front of me,
-
without an extended invite,
-
I took a deep breath, and I thought to myself,
-
I'm happy for them. You know what?
-
They're gonna have a good time. And if I'm really being honest with myself,
-
I don't even wanna go to a movie!
-
I want to go home and spend some time with a book.
-
Wait, did I say that out loud?
-
I'm Anna Akana, and you're coming to Becca's party, right?
-
I wanna say thank you to Sun Basket for sponsoring today's episode.
-
Sun Basket is a meal delivery service committed to healthy food,
-
with easy to follow instructions that can be prepped in 30 minutes.
-
Your meals are delivered to your door weekly on a day of your choosing
-
which is perfect because I hate leaving my house!
-
Sun Basket only includes organic non-GMO ingredients for their recipes,
-
and they cater to numerous specialty diets
-
including paleo, gluten-free, diabetes friendly, vegetarian, vegan, and pescatarian.
-
As someone who is a very novice cook who loves time hacks and has a Los Angeles level intense diet,
-
it's perfect for me.
-
Not to mention, I only get the amount of ingredients I need,
-
so I'm not wasting produce when my schedule gets too busy.
-
You can go to getsunbasket.com/anna to sign up today,
-
and get 60% off automatically applied to your purchase,
-
meaning you'll pay as low as $28 for your first box.
-
That's getsunbasket.com/anna.