(Sorry, not sure if this should go here or in Relationships or somewhere else entirely...)

I don't know if I've posted that much about this, but I didn't have much luck with friendships when I was at school. Most of the friends I had either moved away or found other groups. Ok, so it could have been so much worse - I was never bullied or physically hurt - but I was left out of things, and some years (final year of primary school and final year of high school being the main ones) I didn't really have anyone at school I could call a friend at all.

Looking back at things now, I don't know if my poor self-esteem was the cause or result of all this. All I know is that there were plenty of breaks and lunchtimes I spent by myself, and I dreaded teachers saying "get yourselves into groups" for a project because I'd always be the one who couldn't find a group. I didn't rely on anyone to be there for me - if someone said they'd meet me somewhere, I'd always have a back-up plan for if they didn't.

Maybe I wasn't being entirely paranoid - when I was in my second year of high school, the group of friends I was in would quite often leave me out of things. When we went to the shops for lunch, if I was the last one out of class chances were they'd have already left - same thing happened on the way back if I was the last one to pay. When we went skiing with the school, there were five of us and four to a room, so I was the one who had to find other people to share with...and there was also one evening where after I'd asked them if they wanted to have a look round the town we were staying in and they said that one of them wasn't feeling well so they were going to stay put, but when I went out anyway with my room-mates I ran into them in one of the shops and they barely even acknowledged me. Towards the end of that year, I remember being in the queue for lunch behind them, hoping to be able to sit with them, and they literally ran away when I approached. I have no idea why I didn't give up on them sooner...

Anyway, in my final year of high school it had got to the point where I was spending my lunch breaks at home, my morning breaks and free periods in the library, and in class I was sitting by myself at the back...I didn't want to inflict myself on anyone, because I didn't think they wanted me around. I went into therapy, though - not for this reason, but it became the main focus - and I did eventually manage to spend free periods actually talking to people without getting ignored, and started to wonder if my fears about people not wanting me around had all just been in my head all this time.

I've tried so hard not to let myself slip back into my school way of thinking since coming to uni (I'm in second year now), but it's not easy. I made some great friends last year - one of whom is now my flatmate - but every time something happens like they walk to the next lecture with someone else or I can't find them when I leave the lecture theatre I start to get worried (and I still find myself making back-up plans just in case they don't want to spend lunch with me, for example, despite the fact that this has never actually happened). I don't want to get possessive, and they have other friends as well, but I don't want to get left by myself again. I couldn't find them today after I got out of the lecture theatre, and I ended up phoning them asking where they were...a step up from just assuming they'd gone home without me, I guess, but I still wish I hadn't felt the need to do that.

Is there anyway I can convince myself that my friends actually do care about me and aren't just putting up with me?

(Hope this post isn't too disjointed...if anything I've said doesn't make sense, let me know.)