Open those windows!

I won't lie.

I'm upset.

I never thought things like this would bother me, especially since it's only one part of my life. They shouldn't bother me because they'd never bothered me in the past. Or maybe things were just simpler before. Regardless of why it didn't matter, it matters now.

Last night was Winter Ball. For the most part, I had a good time. But I had a better time last year. I had a great time last year, in fact.

Maybe I'm being selfish and bitchy just complaining about this, but I really need to vent.

In order to get where I'm coming from, I need to give a little backstory.

First of all, I'm friends with a couple of guys (no, this isn't a guy problem; it's a "friends" problem), who I'd been pretty close to up until a few months ago. Out of the two, there's one who's like a brother to me. The other one, I'm not as close with, but we were good friends. Or so I thought.

My surrogate brother's real brother is good friends with this other girl. (Yes, I'm aware this almost sounds like a catfight, but rest assured, it's more of a me-against-the-world thing.) He's a year older than me, so he went off to college this year, and guess who she started hanging out with? Mmhmm. I don't know how it happened, but over the last couple months, they've gotten super close - which I honestly don't have a problem with - but they just sorta left me behind.

I don't know... maybe I let them drift away?... but I remember up until maybe October we'd been same old, same old. Everything seemed fine over the summer. We were laughing, hanging out, having fun. And then it was like I just wasn't good enough for them anymore. Which is ironic, because those two guys aren't exactly the epitome of "cool" anyways.

Seriously, I just want to know what I ever did to make that happen. Did I do something or say something? So far as I know I've been the same as I have been. I never tried to comform, and everyone seemed fine with that.

My brother-friend (guess I'll just call him X and the other Y) still makes the effort to talk to me, but mostly only if the other guy's not around. I guess I'm supposed to be appreciative that he talks to me, but really, it's just kind of insulting. X is the kind of person who will friend the loner on Facebook because he feels bad for him. I know this because he's done it before. He freaking told me about it himself.

Y has just makes fun of me. He always teases, and it used to be good-natured, but it's turned into the mean kind of teasing. You know, the kind that sounds like they're just playing but you know they're making fun of you because they don't like you.

I'm pretty sure they talk about me behind my back - about what, I don't know, because according to them, I don't have a life. I don't know what their new friend (I'll stick with the lettering system and call her Z) has to do with it, if she has anything to do with it, but I do know that Y and Z do talk about me when I'm not around. I honestly have no idea why they do. I'm not particularly interesting, and I thought that I'd always been nice to them. I can't think of any time where I purposely was mean or rude of whatever.

Yet, I've seen them laughing at me from far away, because wearing a pair of contacts can do wonders. It almost makes me wish I weren't wearing them, so maybe I wouldn't know about it. You know what they say about ignorance being bliss.

Anyways, the day before, during free period, I was talking to X's older brother. They all came over and started talking to him, and then right in front of me, they decided that they all were going to Jamba Juice as a group and just walked off. Like, hello? I'm standing right beside you, and you don't even have the decency to ask if I wanted to go too?

I guess what bothers me is that three months ago, when the weather was still nice, I brought back smoothies for people who weren't able to leave campus and I didn't even ask them to pay me back. The week before this, I went shopping during free period and I asked if they wanted to come because I didn't want to leave them out. It's not feeling like they owe me something - I don't feel that; it's that I've been reaching out to them again and again, and I get it thrown back in my face. I'm not asking for much, just common courtesy.

So anyways, last night was the final straw. Y ambled over after one of the dances and said the DJ told him that I was dancing like a dork. I don't know if what he said was true because if it was, wow, double wammy, and I really should have been expecting that, since I am being talked up behind my back. For some reason, Y seems to have a tremendous influence over people. I don't know what he meant by telling me that. I don't know what the DJ meant by that; perhaps it was just an amused observation and was harmless. I tried to explain to him that I'd never done that dance before, and my shoes were making my feet hurt. He just started laughing because I was barefoot and went go tell his friends. Well, sorry for taking my shoes off because my feet were dying in those heels!

I didn't talk to them much last night because it was just pointless.

At the end, they all decided to go up to take a group shot up at the photo booth with the photographer. I didn't expect at all that they'd ask me to join, but what hurts is that they just don't... I don't know, seem to care. They were one of the last groups to have their pictures take, and since I'm a senior who was supposed to help clean up in the gym, I was called up to help wipe down tables. I could hear a couple people in particular up there snickering, but I didn't really mind that much; I was just glad to have something to do.

They made plans after, to go see a movie or something after, and one sweet girl who's in the group asked me if I was going. She's one of the only ones in that group who I actually feel genuinely likes me. Or at least, if she doesn't, she's damn good at faking it. I said no, of course, since I'd made other plans with a couple other friends to sleep over at their place, but they'd never told me about it, and truthfully, I don't know if I would have wanted to go.

Those people used to come over and talk to me on their own, now, if I don't go up to them and say hello, and even then, they'll act like I'm not really there. They pretty much won't give me the time of day unless I'm the only one around. I don't get it.

Oh, well...

I guess I can't expect much from a clique. One of my third grade teachers berated me once for having cliques, saying me (and a friend) were too old for them. Ever since then, I've tried to include people in things. I can't tell whether I've succeeded or not, but when there are other people who engage in cliques now, like ten years later...

What kind of kills me is that I can't do anything about it. Maybe it's just all one big misunderstanding, but I don't want to ask them about it because.....................

I know they'll never read this, so I can say it: thanks for making my senior year not as great as it could have been. Go do something very anatomically impossible to yourself. Once summer's here, I'm gone, which is probably just what you want, and that's fine with me. I don't want to be somewhere I'm not wanted.

Welcome to the real world, I guess.