[hvert]

Does anyone else find that they *sometimes* feel like an outsider in groups? I participate in a few activities that bring me into contact with the same people on a somewhat regular basis. I usually know some people and not others.

Sometimes I feel like I don't fit in and that I am somehow offensive to the other people there. I feel like I am unable to come up with appropriate small talk and that people don't like me. I feel like everyone else gets along with each other better than they get along with me.

Sometimes I can trace these feelings back to hormonal issues - but not all the time (like this week). Does anyone else have this happen where the outsider feeling is not all the time, just sometimes, and applies both to people you know and people you don't?

[gayleggg]

I often feel like that. I think sometimes with me it's caused by my depression, as I tend to get lower self-esteem when I'm depressed. I would think hormones would play a big issue as well. I don't have the hormone fluctuations anymore, so I can't blame that but I feel that in the past it has been a factor in my general mental well being.

[music junkie]

I sometimes feel like this, usually moreso when my anxiety is really high.

[hvert]

80% of the time when I feel this way, it's hormonal -- I wish I could identify what it is the rest of the time. I find it very helpful to be able to say to myself 'this is hormones talking, not reality.' If I can't say that, it sort of digresses into a vicious circle.

The impact hormones have on the way I think and act really creeps me out sometimes. It's bizarre to think that something we really have little control over has such an impact on the way we behave. I try to remember that when I'm reluctant to give someone the benefit of the doubt!

[StuckinRut]

I used to feel like that almost all of the time. Nowadays it happens less often, maybe that's because I go out socially a lot less often at the moment. Also I think it's helps that I've been lucky to find a working environment which is populated by people with whom I have quite a lot in common. I've hear several people say that they simple cannot engage in small talk, since they have no idea how to begin and that they prefer to talk about deeper topics. I have this characteristic too. Maybe it's a difference in the way we think. I don't think you're alone in feeling this way