Logically, most of us know one missed dinner doesn’t erase your place in the group. And maybe you’ve already run through every reasonable explanation why you weren’t included. Better yet, perhaps you’ve imagined how your therapist might reassure you: You don’t have all the details. You were busy that day and the plan was last-minute, so maybe they knew. Did the activity make more sense for a smaller group? You’ve done the same, hanging out with a select few—and it wasn’t personal then, either.
And yet…here you are. Still annoyed, weirdly offended, and slightly spiraling.
That’s because logic doesn’t really stand a chance against the feeling of being socially excluded, whether it’s real or just perceived. There are a few neurological reasons for this, according to Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, a New York City-based clinical psychologist we tapped for this week’s column.
“When we feel threatened, we tend to overemphasize worst-case scenarios and personalize these moments,” Dr. Romanoff tells SELF. Suddenly, that one group photo without you confirms it: They’re closer without me. I’m being phased out. Nobody likes me.
“It also taps into our primitive fears of exclusion,” she adds, whether that traces back to middle school sleepovers you weren’t invited to (and if you were, only because your mom guilted the other parents into doing so), class projects where no one picked you first, or a family dynamic where you never felt like the favorite.
