We’ve all experienced situations in which someone walks in through the door at a party, and the collective feeling in the room is an inward groan. Immediately, everyone braces for inevitable irritation, energy vamping, and a need to feign interest in whatever it is that person is going to drone on about.
But what happens when you feel that others are reacting that way to you when you walk through the door? Have you become the one people avoid at parties? Check out the following signs to see if any of them ring true.
1. People suddenly have something Very Important To Do as soon as you arrive.
You might be looking forward to attending a get-together you’ve been invited to, but as soon as you show up and start chatting to people, they suddenly remember all the important things they need to take care of. They can’t talk just now — they have to check in on their kids, see if they left something in their car, and so on. This only seems to be important when they’re talking to you, however: you’ll see them socializing with others just a few moments later.
This is an awful thing to experience, and according to recent studies, exclusion and social rejection cause an effect similar to physical pain in our bodies. Of course, if this keeps happening, and you keep finding yourself in the kitchen, hanging out with the cat, then yeah, it’s a sign you’ve become That Person.
2. Nobody sits beside you on the couch.
I’ve been to countless house parties and festival gatherings in which everyone is chilling and having a great time, and then someone with negative energy disrupts the entire group by coming to sit down uninvited. Without fail, the group has gotten up from where they were sitting and meandered off elsewhere, leaving the interloper alone on the couch or beanbag pile. Furthermore, nobody else goes to sit beside them afterwards — almost like they’re emitting a powerful pong that keeps others at bay.
Psych Central tells us that this often happens when someone seems to exude negativity. If you find that others keep avoiding you at social gatherings, you might want to try doing some sincere self-analysis to determine whether your behavior pushes them away.
Do you have aggressive body language (or body odor)? When you’re in a group, do you focus on negative topics or put others down? If so, that’s likely a key reason why you’re being shunned.
3. Any time you bring up a topic of conversation (or try to join), they change the subject.
This type of thing can sometimes happen to those who find social situations awkward, such as those who are autistic or AuDHD (whether they have realised it yet or not), or those who have social anxiety. For these people, it can be particularly hard to negotiate cues and figure out the best way to join an established conversation. That said, if others change the subject every time you try to bring one up, or simply ignore you if you attempt to add your two cents to the discussion, that’s a really un-subtle way of telling you that they aren’t interested in what you have to say.
This can be terribly disheartening and can even lead to anxiety and depression over time. While this kind of behavior tells you that you have indeed become someone to be avoided at parties, the key to undoing this issue is to understand why.
Examine your actions in comparison to those who are treated with more warmth and enthusiasm, and try to determine where you’re going “wrong” with your own interaction attempts. Alternatively, it may not be that you’re doing anything wrong at all. It’s quite possible that the people you are trying to engage with are simply not your people, and that you just haven’t found your tribe yet.
4. They keep asking you to go get more supplies.
The party hosts who invited you are super excited to see you and could really use your help getting more drinks from the garage, ice from the gas station, or some hard-to-source ingredients from overseas that only you can be entrusted to find. In fact, it was a huge relief when you showed up because they desperately need help, and you’re the only one they can truly count on.
If this keeps happening to you, chances are you’ve only been invited to these shindigs to be a “go-fer” (as in, they need you to go for this and that). Other party attendees might not even view you as a fellow guest, but rather some “help” that doesn’t need to be interacted with, thankfully.
5. All the fun and exciting stuff keeps happening wherever you are not.
In a similar vein to nobody sitting next to you on the couch, whenever something cool or interesting happens, it always seems to be occurring in the opposite direction of where you’re currently located. You might hear cheering in the distance, but discover that whatever had occurred was over and done with by the time you’ve headed over there.
If we lived in a Sci-Fi simulation, it would almost seem as though you exuded a dampening field that neutralized anything fun or exciting within a 20-foot radius of your present coordinates.
6. Conversation stops when you approach.
You might be drawn towards a group of people because they’re being bubbly and enthusiastic, and you’d love to be part of whatever they’re discussing, but everyone falls silent the moment you draw near. If you ask what they were talking about, they might mention something banal like a popular TV show or a current event, and then they’ll simply wait for you to mosey on elsewhere before picking the conversation back up again.
This kind of behavior occasionally implies that you were the topic of conversation, and they fell silent because they didn’t want you to overhear that they were gossiping about you. It could also be a case of them simply not welcoming your company, but either way, it sucks.
7. The only people willing to socialize with you are other outcasts.
Most of us remember the cafeteria table at school where social outcasts retreated to eat lunch in guarded silence. The adult version of this is usually a dark corner or table at a party where the socially awkward, “weird”, or otherwise shunned people gather together for safety in numbers.
While hanging out with them, you might feel annoyed because they’re discussing topics you don’t care about, or they’re making you feel uncomfortable with various behaviors like making inappropriate jokes or repeating catch phrases from 90s TV series. Then suddenly, the realization sets in that how you feel about this group is how others might feel about you…
8. You feel awkward because you’ve misread social cues (or been fed misinformation for others’ amusement).
If you’ve ever watched the film Legally Blonde, you might remember when Elle Woods shows up to a Harvard Law School party in a bunny outfit, only to discover that she’s the only one in costume. In that film, she was intentionally misled about the party’s theme in an attempt to humiliate her, but if you’ve ever found yourself uncomfortable or out of place, it’s possible that you sometimes misread or misinterpret cues that others pick up on.
That said, it’s also possible that the people in your life don’t actually like you that much, and are using you as the butt of their jokes for the sake of personal entertainment. If this is the case, you might want to ask yourself why you’re subjecting yourself to these people if all they do is mistreat you.
9. You only find out about the party afterwards.
You might think you have a tight social circle full of people who care about you, but you consistently find out about parties, weddings, and other functions well after the fact, and never directly.
You’ll be scrolling through social media and see photos of your supposed best friends having the time of their lives at someone’s cottage, or a group chat someone had forgotten you were in starts discussing all the fun that was had at so-and-so’s stag do the previous weekend.
If you’re looking for one crystal-clear sign that you’ve become that person everyone avoids at parties, this is it. Not being invited at all is the clearest sign you could possibly be given. Should it keep happening, that’s a cue to reassess your social groups to determine whom you can actually trust. It may be that it’s time to try to cultivate bonds with a new group that likes and respects you more, rather than stick with those who are fake friends at best.
Final thoughts…
There are many reasons why you might be avoided at parties, and they don’t necessarily all have to do with you. Sometimes people grow apart, and while those in your life still like you, their extended social groups don’t know how to interact with you. They might be intimidated or may not understand you, particularly if aspects of your life or behavior are alien to them.
Of course, you might also have become kind of a downer over the years, so while you’re still invited to gatherings, you unintentionally push others away. Do some soul-searching here, and you’ll undoubtedly find the best way forward.
