I'm unsure if anyone would recognise me but i'm an anonymous user, who has been asking for advice with making friends as I am struggling to make friends at my new school. Well today I found the reason but I NEED genuine advice so i'm essentially going to summarise what started everything to present time. Hopefully I will get good advice!!
In secondary skl I was friends with these group of girls. I had a bestfriend in that group who I though would stick with me forever, we'll call her B. B was really into spreading rumours and as her bff people had associated the rumours with me too. I didn't really care and life moved on till me and B broke up and year 11 came around.
The first few weeks were hell, no friends, no one to talk to and B had spread white lies about me everywhere. I say white lies as part of the rumours were true, for instance when I talked ab her house and called it ugly on the outside but pretty on the inside (apparently that's something to be offended by?), but she had twisted it and made it seem like I was making fun of her for her financial situation. Mind you B's parents owned many houses while my family struggled to make ends meet.
I couldn't really speak out or confront her because I am socially awkward and therefore didn't have many friends. After weeks of crying in the bathroom one of my friends (M) took me into her group which I was so grateful for. I wish i didn't.
This girl later on blamed every and any rumour which circulated her, on me. If she ever felt lonely and needed attention, she would spread something about me. This paired with previous rumours spread by B made everyone in my year be cautious of me which to me did not matter since I had my friends. However, I did not know she would spread things about me with my other 'friends' and thought G-d had given me a chance at life again. Ofc I was wrong and had found out towards the end of my exams for year 11.
I didn't really care at that point since I moved to another school. Another school, another chapter right? Wrong. M had a friend from my new school who wasn't exactly popular, in fact when i talked to others about her I had understood that she was just part of this friend group of people who no one really paid attention to. Well M had told her friend from my school some messed up lies about me and how i had called her friend group 'dumb and ugly' which doesn't make sense if you think about it. What new girl is coming to a school and is going to publicly judge people without even having a proper place in the school? Like I had no friends so idk with what guts they thought I declared they were dumb and ugly.
Anyways, M's friends ended up telling her whole group about it, and while luckily they aren't influential in any way rumours do spread like wildfire so I was essentially isolated from the entire school.
I started to talk to people later on and even people from M's friend's group so I'm sure people don't base me off of what the girl spread about me but it hurt to know that the girls who I so desperately wanted to get away from ended up chasing me and damning my life in my new school.
Even now, I have no friends who I can hang out with during lunch or break which idm since I can just go home. That doesn't mean I don't have friends in class, I have lots of friends in every class I take which i'm very fortunate about, thus being the reason why I haven't moved schools.
I only have 16 months left of school so under 2 years but I feel like i'm constantly judged, all because of my wrong decision making when it came to picking friends.
I don't know how to redeem myself (essentially make myself look better to everyone in my year - which my friend said is impossible) nor do I know how to make friends because no matter who I talk to I just end up feeling left out.
Is there anyone else who was in the same position as me? If so what did you do?
I don't have the option to leave my school even if I wanted to as its one of the few schools that allow me to do science and isn't over subscribed.
I can take chances if things turn for the worst and go to this school which is 1 hr away from where I live (most of my friends go there) but my school right now academically is really good as my year is full of high achievers whereas that school is known for bad students.
Any advice, tips or just stories that are similar will help me so much!