Growing up, I was one of those girls that said I get along with boys better than girls. Because it was true! But I never really understood why that was. It’s not like I never made an effort trying to be friends with girls and it’s certainly not because ‘boys are less drama’. Boys can have drama too! It’s just that boys were much easier to read than girls. If a boy didn’t like me, they’d tell me! Which most of the boys in school did…

…Girls were different. I just couldn’t help but notice that girls were either really… off with me straight after meeting me or they kind of viewed me as their little token ‘cute friend’ to have around. When I started seniors, I was so desperate to make friends that I kind of followed around anyone who was nice to me. I was quite small compared to my peers and I guess they liked treating me as a small child, but I was just happy to be included. I wasn’t valued in those friendships at all. I was just there as an accessory really.

It never really dawned on me how much effort I was putting into these ‘friendships’ or how miserable I really was until something had to happen for me to see what those girls really thought of me. Turns out that the few times I had spoken had gotten me from ‘cute’ Abby to ‘annoying’ or ‘weird’ Abby.

By the time I was 13, it was pretty apparent that most people thought I was weird, despite me not knowing why, so I played the role of The Weird Girl brilliantly. It was my armour. I didn’t want mean kids calling me weird behind my back so I called myself weird. I may have taken the tiniest bit of inspiration from Fat Amy from Pitch Perfect. I didn’t want to let other people’s words affect me so I lied to myself and said they didn’t! I had already made a small group of friends at this point and we weren’t the ‘popular girls’ but we were happy with that. I thought these girls were going to be my friends for life. I was unfortunately very wrong.

Year 10 rolled around and I was coming to terms with my sexuality! After a lot of internal battling and even more research, I had realised I am Bisexual. I wanted to tell my friends on my own terms but, like anything in school, you tell one person and the whole school knows within half an hour. I remember sitting down for lunch with them in the canteen like usual but the air just felt different this time. They asked me if the rumours were true and that I’m Bi and I confirmed. I don’t think air has ever felt more stale before. I honestly thought that they would say that they support me but they kind of… shrugged it off? Like it was nothing. That alone wouldn’t have bothered me but I just had this odd feeling.

As months went on, I noticed that I was being excluded more and more. My friends would make plans right in front of me or openly talk about something they all did together without me. It was like a punch in the gut every time. So many questions went through my head as to why they were excluding me, was it because I didn’t have the money to go places? Was it because I’m Bi? Or maybe they thought I was weird too? Whatever it was, they were trying to distance themselves from me and it was working.

Eventually, I started hanging out with a new group of friends one of whom I had confided in about what happened with my last group of friends. But I couldn’t help but let things get to me. I stopped eating in the canteen, stopped trying so hard in school, started some bad habits, and stopped feeling like myself. My new friends were fun but I wasn’t close with any of them and the friend I had confided in couldn’t be trusted with anything too personal.

Safe to say, I left school really unsure of myself and not knowing who to trust. What a great set up for the next chapter in my life. Luckily I had rekindled my friendship with two of the girls from the older group as they were just too nervous to speak up. I knew I didn’t need loads of friends. Just a few good friends.