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No Friends

I can't help thinking that no one cares about me.

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com.

Now do you remember back to your maybe grade school years, or very young early years, when you might have just felt like you didn't fit in, you didn't belong, a friend didn't like you, or a group of friends shunned you? Sometimes those experiences leave an indelible print on our minds, and we can draw wrong conclusions that can make us stay up at night and cry or make it so that we just feel like we're clueless. We don't know how to make friends or how to become a good friend.

Here is an email I received from a fairly young person, 14 years old, who's struggling with that type of situation that almost all of us go through at some point in our lives.

Hi, Dr. Kenner, my name is Carrie, and I'm 14 years old. Lately, I've been feeling really down and alone. I feel that my friends don't like me and that no one cares about me. Sometimes I cry at night just thinking about it. I used to be really self-conscious, and I had low self-confidence in primary school. I told my mom how I feel, but she didn't care at all, and things are still the same. I want some help, but I don't know where to go, so I went on the internet and came here. Can you give me some advice? Thanks, Carrie.

Carrie, you are doing something that is so great for yourself right now. You are being your own best friend. Instead of just sitting quietly and crying every night, you're thinking things have to be better, and you went on the internet, and you had the courage to reach out and know that about yourself. That is one of your strengths. Because with that strength itself, you are going to get over this. You are going to be able to make friends in the future, you will need some skills, so I'll help you with that.

So first, maybe it's possible that you could talk with a teacher that you feel a little close with at school, or a counselor. Maybe you have a counselor at school, and if you like the counselor, not everyone is the same. Not everyone has the chemistry that you feel is supportive. Maybe they can help you. Maybe they even offer cognitive therapy, or therapy. I mentioned cognitive therapy because it will teach you skills. I learned many skills that I never had on how to become a friend, how to make friends, and how to, number one, be your own best friend, which is going to be the strongest advice I can give you today.

Even if you go through a lull in friendships or someone betrays you or hurts you, if you're your own best friend, if you're like you want your mother to be towards you—supportive, loving, cherishing you—if you can do that for yourself, rather than beat up on yourself, which most of us do in those moments, you are so far ahead of the game.

Carrie, it is very sad when I hear situations where a mom doesn't seem to be plugged into her own kid's emotions; she doesn't seem to be there. There are times when all of us feel teary or down or lonely when our confidence is low or when we feel like something's gone wrong with friends. I certainly had a time like that when I was in fourth grade. I was a shy kid, and over the course of two days, my friends in the play yard, when we used to go out for recess, started turning against me, and they didn't say mean things to me; they just stopped talking.

That's weird, you know, you're playing jump rope, or in those days, we played jacks and jump ropes. We didn't have iPhones and computers and whatnot, but it was sudden to have them walk away from me—to shun me as if I looked like I was wearing a chicken costume or something. I don't know. They just walked away, and I found out later that the popular friend that I had who lived right on my block had told them that they had an option. They could be friends with her or me, but not both. Man, I would have liked to be friends with her rather than me because I was shy, so I didn't know how to be my own best friend.

So that resolved fairly quickly because I had a mom and dad who saw me crying or saw me sad and became concerned, and I told them what was happening. They spoke with the teacher. The teacher kept all the girls except me after class and told them, "Hey, cut it out. This type of behavior is never permitted." I think some of the girls felt trapped. They really wanted to talk with me, but they felt bullied. So had my parents not stepped in to support me, I could have drawn some really self-sabotaging conclusions, Carrie—that no one wants to be my friend, no one cares about me, or I'll never have friends; that my mom and dad don't care about me, or that I'm unlovable.

You know, I would have been in the situation you're feeling a bit now—just sad and alone and maybe that I wouldn't be able to trust friends or that I don't belong. So fast forward many years. Now I'm a clinical psychologist, and I know all of those types of thoughts are called, in my greatest Rhode Island accent, "stinking thinking," or "stinking thinking." You can change the way you feel by changing the way you think.

For example, Carrie, if you drew a different conclusion, maybe with regards to your mother, you thought, "You know, I didn't get the best of mothers. She's a bit clueless. Maybe she's on overload, or she doesn't know how to be a supportive parent. So I need to learn how to support myself." You would feel better about yourself if you look at your friends and say, "You know, they all don't think alike. Each person is an individual. I bet there are a few that I can befriend, or maybe I don't like this particular group, and it's time for me to look elsewhere." That's actually what I did. I found better friends. Kids who were not so much popular, but they were smart, and I went in a very different direction in life.

So let me give you some tips. Number one, it's important to take stock of your own strengths. If you say, "I don't have any," think a little deeper. You're 14 years old. Think of times when you had a good day with a friend—maybe you played a board game or had some good laughs. Look at your strengths. Then you want to become your own best friend. That's your one lifetime friend that you can always have. Learn to be good to yourself. What you say to yourself matters.

Then you can learn friendship skills. I'm sitting here with a little book, "10 Simple Solutions to Shyness," that goes through a lot of skills—becoming a good listener, sharing good times, funny stories with one another, and you want to avoid friendship turn-offs like hogging the conversation or envious gossip.

You can stop by being your own best friend. I know I've turned my life around, and I know you can do it too, Carrie.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this.

Here's an excerpt from "The Selfish Path to Romance," the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and Dr. Edwin Locke.

All romantic partners experience conflicts, no matter how strong their love, but there are more and less effective ways to resolve such conflicts. Above all, partners need good communication skills. If partners cannot communicate well when conflicts arise, a gulf will open between them that will widen if not properly addressed. The intimate, loving soulmate relationship that they started with will likely generate into a relationship plagued by feelings of anger, hurt, invisibility, and emotional separation. The end result may well be the destruction of the relationship, followed by bitterness, cynicism, and despair.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy "The Selfish Path to Romance" at Amazon.com.