straw poll

[rising_moon]

If friends of yours issue an open invitation to some event or activity that they think is fun, and you choose not to participate because you're not interested, do you feel left out anyway?

If so: Is it worse, the feeling of being left out, if you can still see them, right over there, having fun doing something that you don't enjoy?

EDIT (for slyppi, who asked, but also for anyone who's curious): I'm unscientifically gathering some data to help me solidify an opinion about a recent discussion. One corner of the discussion dealt with inclusion. It's really, really helpful to see what folks are writing about feelings of inclusion. Thank you for answering!

Comments

[siderea]

I'm like this too. Though I'll observe it's so unlikely for me to feel left out, it rarely happens that I need to factor that in. But if I think there's a chance of that, well, maybe I do something I don't think I'm interested in to be with the people I am interested in. And I have to say, tagging along with interesting people doing questionably interesting things has been pleasantly broadening.

That said, while I don't feel left out, but I might be a bit bummed if a group of my friends get really involved in doing something which I find boring (and which made them boring to be around) all the time, and as such aren't as available to do things I think are fun too. As a hypothetical, if a bunch of my friends went off to do hard drugs together regularly, I wouldn't feel left out, but I'd feel quite disappointed at their concomitant lack of availability, and maybe even a bit abandoned.