Dear Dr. Respler,
I am a teenage fan and I love reading your column. You really seem to understand relationships. I am a 16-year-old girl in my junior year in high school. I am an excellent student, quiet, well-behaved and ambitious. The problem is that I really have no friends. I am in a cliquey school where all the girls are in cliques and I belong to no clique. I study during recess and lunch and I feel basically ignored by my fellow classmates. They call me when they need help in school. However, I am never invited to any parties, gatherings or outings.
I am miserable in school and the teachers like me, but since I am a “goody two-shoes,” they tell my parents that I am a great girl with good middos. My parents are also quiet people, who do not socialize much.
I only have one brother and he is also a good student who is very quiet. However, he finds solace in his learning and in his rebbes. He loves learning and he doesn’t care so much about friends. He does have a great chevrusa and he is his only true friend. Our home is a quiet house. My parents are nice, unassuming people. However, they lack social skills.
I feel basically ignored by my classmates, who are polite but rather cold to me. My mother is very simple and we are rather poor. We live in a simple apartment and I am embarrassed to bring friends to my house. My mother is a poor housekeeper and the place is generally a mess. I gave up trying to clean the apartment, since my mother is so messy. My father doesn’t seem to care and he is messy as well. I feel so stuck and alone. I have no one to talk to and I wish I even had one friend in school.
Sometimes I want to go speak to the mechanechet who is a wonderful person, but I am scared. I wonder why she never tries to speak to me. I guess since I am so well-behaved the school loves me and they don’t realize how much I am suffering. My classmates are polite, but they basically ignore me. Please help me!
A Teenage Fan of Your Column
Dear A.T.F.O.Y.C.,
My heart breaks as I read your letter. Your story is not uncommon. In my practice I have both boys and girls who suffer the way you do. I help them by teaching them social skills in therapy. Apparently our yeshiva system is not fostering enough middos to help counteract these problems. Sometimes these “popular” people are not always those that have middos. Although generally in high school there is more of an emphasis on middos than in elementary school. Your problem is compounded with the reality that your parents are not role models to teach you proper social skills. Sometimes friendships develop between children whose parents are friends. Since your parents appear to lack friends as well, this does not help your situation.
However, you cannot blame your parents who probably suffer silently with the same situation. Please speak to your mechanechet who probably is not aware of your situation. Perhaps she can set up some kind of activity (even a chesed activity) that will foster friendships. My own high school had a gemach program wherein we were required to fulfill a certain amount of hours of gemilus chesed a week. It was actually my chesed activities that led me into the field of psychology. I used to visit a senior citizen home every Sunday with a group of friends and we would speak to the seniors to give them chizuk.
The chesed programs also fostered friendships between the girls. You are still in the beginning of the eleventh grade. If you can turn your situation around this year, you have two more years to develop new friendships. Perhaps you can speak to a guidance counselor in your school or seek outside therapy to increase your own social skills. Are you friendly to others? Do you compliment your classmates? Do you initiate conversations and try to be positive? Perhaps you become so anxious that you freeze. Counseling can be helpful to ameliorate this situation.
I usually help my clients learn social skills by reenacting scenes and role-playing with them ways to communicate with potential friends. I use these techniques in my dating therapy as well. Some people freeze on dates and become tongue-tied. Social skills training therefore helps them as well.
Please try to seek help in school and perhaps outside school to overcome this problem. You sound like a special girl with so much depth. Perhaps people just don’t know you and therefore ignore you. Your quiet personality may actually shut others out of your life. Please try to reach out for help. Many of my adult clients are those quiet, nice people who went through life never making any trouble. “The squeaky wheel gets more grease.” The troublemakers often get more help in school than the quiet well behaved students. They often go through school without getting much attention since they don’t give much trouble.
Please reach out for help. You are suffering in silence. The friends that you make in high school can last you a lifetime. Try to break out of this problem now. You still have two more years to rectify your situation! Seminary is also a place where lifetime friendships develop. Hatzlacha!
