Do My Friends Think I’m Annoying?
“After all, without connection with other people, where would we be?”
One second you are enjoying your day, then the next, you are questioning the status of one or all of your friendships because you viewed one story. You see that everyone is currently at another person’s house, doing who knows—without you. Smiles are plastered all over your screen, but the joy doesn’t transfer over to you—instead, all you feel is doubt, loneliness, FOMO.
Hey everyone, my name’s Cameron King. I am 14 years old and an incoming freshman for the class of 2030. I will be mainly talking about my experience with—the very common—feeling of loneliness. More specifically, how I have felt it throughout my youth so far.
COVID’s Impact on Connection
I have always been a very talkative and extroverted person. Even back when I was 3 years old, I would always be trying to communicate with people my age, anywhere I could. I would even say that I relied on those connections for my own happiness. After all, without connection with other people, where would we be? However, once COVID-19 came around, that surrounding group of friends that I could spend my time with came apart. I was in third grade, so I had no idea how to use a computer. That meant I couldn’t log into anything or create any account to talk to anyone online. Sure, I had my family to talk to, but that underlying feeling of having no one to relate to would always crash into me. This led to me constantly throwing up under all of the stress. At first my parents thought I was sick because of COVID, of course, but I wasn’t—it all stemmed from a mental health issue. Since I was in third grade, I had zero idea how to articulate my feelings. I couldn’t tell myself, or my family, what was going on with me. At the time, I just blamed it on the extra testing they gave us, but I believe that my lack of connection at the time is what led to all of the sick feelings in my gut. At the time, I always felt scared, stressed, or like I was drowning. Later on, near the end of the year, I found a way to talk to my friends through Google Chat. ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) affect three in four high school students in the U.S. My experience is definitely not as intense as many others out there, but I still think it is important for me to talk to other people about it. I think that no matter how small anyone’s experience is, having someone to talk about it with is very important. You will always have someone out there who is willing to listen. No matter who or where you are.
Friend’s Reveal
After my experience during COVID, I had graduated from elementary school and went to middle school. This is where I discovered Instagram; most of my friends have been using it, so I decided to get it. Throughout the years that social media has been used, there have been high reports of young teens being negatively affected by it. My largest interaction with the negative side of social media was with my insecurities. As I said earlier, I relied on my connection with other people for my emotional security for the majority of my life. Those connections still play a major role in my mental health journey. However, that way of thinking backfired when I became too reliant on it. I was a part of a fairly large “friend network” at the time, and whenever I saw any of those other people go out together without me, I always felt like an outcast. I didn’t feel like this for very long, but the experience itself did change the way I viewed friendships and the people I interact with. Especially when I saw some of those people go out on Instagram. I had an unhealthy relationship with my phone at the time, which also led to this feeling of solitude. Funny enough, the way I managed to escape this feeling of isolation was to simply talk to someone. I spoke to one of my best friends about it, and when I told him that I felt as if I was being alienated by the people around me, he laughed a bit. He was part of the friend group that I believed had chosen to “get rid” of me. He told me that no one felt this way—no one felt as if I was annoying, nor anything of the sort. When he told me that, it was when I realized I didn’t show up to only two of the hangouts I saw. The large “friend network” I was a part of simply couldn’t invite everyone, every time. That large friend group eventually split into smaller sections for this exact reason. It was just the natural way of things. People will come and go, and the only way I could deal with other people not choosing me to be a part of their core friend group was to eventually find my own.
As a reader, I invite you to think about your own experiences regarding loneliness, FOMO, or isolation, alongside Cameron. How has that made you feel—mentally, and physically? Personally, loneliness has always made me feel more tense than usual, like a constant tugging that I’m unable to pull away from.
Loneliness and FOMO
When I used social media as frequently as I did back then, I always felt more insecure. This feeling is connected to FOMO (fear of missing out), but they aren’t exactly the same. Like many teens, I was a victim of the imaginary audience. The imaginary audience is a psychological state where you believe that there are always people listening or watching you in a public space. I believe that the imaginary audience I experienced came from my constant usage of social media. However, it is possible that it is just a point in my life where things like that happen. Even before social media existed, teens experienced this.
As I said earlier, I grew out of FOMO by talking to my most valued friends, and I continued to talk to those friends after I grew out of FOMO. Even though I had a lot of friends at the time, not many of them really ever talked to me in a deep or meaningful way. This is what led to me feeling isolated. That isolation eventually formed as a fear of missing out. I didn’t really cut anyone off; I just spent more time with the people that I knew and cherished most.
You remember how it was during COVID-19—face masks plastered everywhere, toilet paper quickly running out, Tiktokers following trendy dances, and overall isolation besides your classmate’s laggy screen. Personally, I felt quite lonely during COVID. Lunchtimes were spent staring at the wall in front of me instead of a noisy cafeteria. Let’s take a look at Cameron’s experience regarding loneliness during COVID!
Back when I was in third grade, it manifested as me constantly vomiting every couple of days, sometimes multiple times a day. In middle school, it was just a deep sadness that came and went at times. I have moved on from those experiences. Despite how it felt, I’d say that it was a good form of emotional growth for me.
Recalibration
These experiences have changed the way I view my interactions with other people. I don’t rely on other people for all of my gratification anymore. I feel like these experiences allowed me to grow and be more confident with myself. If I were to go back in time and tell my third-grade self something, I would tell him to just worry less. Take a deep breath. Go walk around the house (since you couldn’t really go outside during quarantine). That’s the best thing one can do during a hard time. As for my seventh-grade self, I would tell him to get off of his phone. I had a bad level of screen time back then, maybe even 6 to 8 hours during the weekends. Getting off of social media and physically going outside to see other people is great, and a lot better than rotting in bed.
Cameron’s experience is not only something that he can reflect on, but what we can also learn ourselves. Today I learned that sometimes, some solutions are truly simple. If you feel lonely—or left out, talk to someone! Because just like Cameron said, “After all, without connection with other people, where would we be?”
Experiencing something similar? Text HOME to 741741!
Written by Isabella Estrada
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