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30 Pathetic Experiences In Adult Life That Are Actually As Painful As Being Picked Last In Gym Class
The last person selected in the NFL draft is traditionally called 'Mr. Irrelevant,' and over the decades of the league's existence, many players have been in this position — but none have become really great (Brock Purdy, we're still expecting...). Likewise, many of us have been in the 'Mr. Irrelevant' position in school, when we were picked last in the gym class.
But even as adults, this oppressive and offensive feeling doesn't leave us — because adulthood often brings up such situations, too. When you sincerely want friendship, love, or professional recognition — and only then realize that you were simply picked... well, on a residual basis.
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#1
Someone on my team at work had a huge, fun, fancy wedding. I was the only one not invited. Every day, I get to look at the picture that sits in my boss's office of the whole group dressed up in their finest, having a blast. I'd never say a word, but d**n, exclusion stings.
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#2
Applying for a job that you're well-qualified for, not hearing anything back for weeks, and then seeing the position being reposted without having even a follow-up email from them.
Rick Murray 1 week ago (edited)
That's normal these days. It amuses me when the people at the company I work for complain that people they offered a job to didn't show and didn't contact when, when I was looking for a job many years ago, of eighty six letters sent, I had *one* response to say "sorry, no". As for keeping staff, they tend to tell people at the very last moment that they are wanted to stay on, then seem surprised that the person assumed otherwise and found somewhere else. It's very likely that people apply and interview for multiple jobs and they'll go for whatever pays the best and has better hours (ours is shift work). It would be cordial and decent to let the other companies know that one has found work elsewhere, but having been on the receiving end I can understand why people don't bother.
#3
Being left out of the group chat. Bonus points for finding out when everyone else's phone in the room gets a text at once.
There are more than one or two threads on the Internet dedicated to such situations, and every time I read people's revelations about these seemingly ordinary — but no less offensive — cases, I feel uneasy. I just realize that something similar has happened to me. And, well, and by the way, to each of you, I think — regardless of how incredibly successful you actually are.
#4
"Hey we are all going to [Insert fun activity], and [Insert other friend] just said they can't make it. Do you want to come along?"
It's nice, but it's also hurtful.
Rick Murray 1 week ago
As an introvert it's nice to be asked even if everybody and their cat knows what the answer will be.
#5
Watching everyone's birthdays get celebrated at the office. Then when your big 30th comes, no one even bothers to tell you happy birthday. Husband even brought me balloons and flowers, so they knew it was my birthday.
#6
For me, it was when everyone went on the camping trip I initially planned. They made a separate group chat and went a week before we planned. They were too chicken s**t to tell me they invited someone else and replaced my ride to our destination. After that i stopped talking to my friends of the last 8 Years of my life. I feel a lot better. It made me realize how selfish they were
Small edit: Since i have a lot of people who think Im just a whiny a*****e. Let me clear this up. Im not saying my friends uninvited me with Malice. They just wanted room for someone else. So the easiest way was to drop me from the trip. Thats why I feel like the last to be picked. Because to them I was just a filler friend.
Nicole Weymann 1 week ago
I'd "whine", too, if I initiated activities with people who then explicitly went on with *my idea* for a fun outing and excluded me!
Some experience something similar in friendship, or at work with their bosses and colleagues — and some even understand that their relationships were actually formed using to this very sad principle. These realizations come in literally one unexpected moment, leaving us at a loss, and breaking through any emotional armor that many adults create for themselves.
In fact, despite long centuries of social improvement and development, people often remain very cynical and unceremoniously practical. And it's precisely the realization that, for example, they are friends with us not because we are so cool and interesting to talk to, but because they want something from us — that is incredibly painful.
#7
Being called last minute for a night out on the town just to find they need a designated driver.
#8
Group lunches at work.
Especially when the whole group is heading out to lunch and you're sitting at your desk and they're either totally unaware of you at all - or worse - someone makes eye contact by accident and then is like "Oh, uh, do you want to come?".
#9
Only getting attention from men in bars after they have learned that all of the women I'm there with are in happy, long-term relationships.
Take your consolatory offer to buy me a drink and shove it, Brad.
"Let's try to look at it from the other side," says Irina Matveeva, a psychologist and certified NLP specialist with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment here. "Yes, this feeling can be very offensive, but it means, however, that your eyes are opening to the real state of things. This veil of hypocrisy on the part of others is dispelled.
"In the end, being in the dark all your life about who you really are and how people around you treat you is also not very good. After all, unlike a school gym class, where you only have one option to change the situation - start training hard, here there are other options."
#10
Sitting at one of your stepsisters' house on Christmas day and listening to your stepsisters and stepsister-in-law and stepmother planning a fabulous Boxing Day outing that you're not invited to.
That happened to my wife. She's not usually hyper sensitive socially but she cried all the way home after that.
Mel in Georgia 1 week ago
It's just super rude to discuss doing stuff in a group when you don't plan to include someone there.
#11
When your friends all make plans together in front of you, and then only invite you because you just heard them make the plans.
#12
A few years ago, a group of "friends" from church and I were discussing starting a small Bible study group. We had a couple lengthy conversations about it after Sunday services, but then I never heard any more about it. A month or so later, I found out they started a group without me. When I asked someone about it, I was told that a woman (who was not even there when we talked) had a vision during her prayer time about a small group starting that included all the other women, but not me. So basically, Jesus told her to exclude me. o.O.
"You can change not only yourself, your soft skills, but also your environment. Find people who will appreciate you for the set of qualities that you have here and now — and not pretend. Yes, this is sometimes way more difficult than adapting to the surrounding world, but this is also an option. Available precisely in adulthood. Although, the older we get, the more difficult it's to do," Irina Matveeva ponders.
To what extent we are ready to change ourselves or our environment is another question. We are often just happy to deceive ourselves, or accept everything as it goes. Call it "worldly wisdom." Be that as it may, everyone chooses for themselves...
#13
Bartender ignoring you.
Rick Murray 1 week ago
I used to get this because I'd order stuff like lemonade or orange juice (which would be some Happy Shopper c**p at a vastly inflated price). Not everybody goes to a pub to get drunk. Some of us go because the nitwit we came with will need to be guided back home.
#14
Celebrating your birthday and no one shows up.
Rick Murray 1 week ago
My cat shows up. Granted she does that usually in order to be fed, but hey, take whatever small wins are on offer...
In fact, we sincerely believe that you will be interested in reading this selection of stories from netizens, comparing them with your own experience and, perhaps, sharing your personal tales in the comments below. Also, how you dealt with these feelings — and maybe, who knows, the sympathetic people in the comments will help you cope. In the end, hope is actually what stays with us until the very end.
#16
Joining a hot yoga class for the first time, being easily 50 lbs. heavier than the heaviest person there, and having the yoga instructor completely ignore you, but focus on / communicate with the only two others in the room. Humiliating experience.
Serena Myers 1 week ago
I know that's a stock photo, but unless there was a way of turning myself over and crawling to somewhere I could pull myself up, yoga is not for me! Chair yoga? I am trying it out!
#17
"I like you a lot and I could see us together, I'm just not emotionally available to commit to a relationship right now." or something along those lines.
The bonus is when they end up in a relationship with someone in 2 weeks after you parted ways.
#18
Working freelance and the only phone calls you get are, “can you work in 10 hours?” Never “can you work next week?” That’s when you know you’re plan Z.
#19
Getting added to a group chat and realize your friends/coworkers have been chatting long before you were added.
#20
Finding out your “friends” went out on the town. They never called or texted.
#21
No room for you in the car when everyone agrees to carpool so everyone does that awkward shifting about to make room when we all know its easier for you to go in another car.
#22
Someone in the office showing everyone a hilarious photo on their phone. They show everyone but you. You laugh anyways cos everyone else is laughing but inside you don't laugh.
#23
Coworkers intentionally keeping you in the dark about things. Like free meals your employer provides and similar policies. Yeah, I've had that happen to me. People are d***s.
Conan did a comedy expose`piece about this kind of thing. In his office they had a special group of employees who would contact each other if some free food came in so other employees didnt get any.
#24
Watching snapchat stories and seeing that everyone is hanging out together but you were never invited.& being the friend that people hang out with only because they have no one else.
#25
Being laid off first in corporate cuts.
#26
When new year's are approaching and you haven't been invited to anything.
#27
People around you getting raises when you asked for one before any of them did and know you're doing just as much if not more than they are. It is what it is, I've been in the "pipeline" for a raise since November. Just so happens to always be an inconvenience when I try to push for it.
Rick Murray 1 week ago
Time to start looking at other options, and prefix *any* additional duties or responsibilities with your expectations of appropriate remuneration. And don't be surprised if upon getting word of you looking to leave they'll make a paltry offer. The only reason there is an "inconvenience" when it's time to talk about pay is because you back down and accept the situation. Employers don't value people half as much as they value saving money for themselves.
#28
Being single and alone (not by choice)
Its not that nobody wants you on their baseball team, its that nobody wants to spend time with you, love you, or care about you...
Edit: While I appreciate all the love folks - actually in a pretty happy place and a loving relationship (and also don't think you *actually* need to be a in a relationship to be happy) but if this resonates a little bit too much with any of y'all feel free to PM me.
Doctor Strange 1 week ago
Yep. Its not that I don't put myself out there. I'm just never good enough.
#29
Last time I played softball I had to be moved around four different times to different positions until they found the one that I did the least amount of damage at.
Edit: You all are so nice to me. It was a fun team full of friends and other people who were also terrible to varying degrees. I'm so glad that so many of you empathize. :).
#30
Being picked last for a work team building exercise.
Serena Myers 1 week ago
I wouldn't go on one of those silly team building exercises if they paid me. Luckily, I never had to.
What do you think ?
Rika 1 week ago
I was always picked last in gym class, but I never saw it as a problem: I'm lazy and never had any interest in physical exercise. No one wanted me on their team because I was going to be a burden, they still got along fine with me outside of gym class.
Sarah 1 week ago (edited)
You were lucky, I wasn’t picked because I was the laughing stock of the class for some reason. So it wouldnt look cool to pick me. And no.. they weren’t nice outside of PE. Relentless 3 years of being slagged off to my face and making fun, I stood up to one girl once.. I said a remark back .. she walloped me across the face. The feelings stay with you for life - I’m 45 now
Load More Replies... Apatheist Account2 1 week ago (edited)
I used to get picked first for some things in primary school (not sports, more skill and brain stuff - quizzes, using a fountain pen, playing the violin). I would go so far as to say that I was headmaster's pet. Whilst it was largely justified - I was told unofficially that I came top in the 11plus exam - it made me an arrogant, horrible person, and I hated not being picked and made up excuses to make it sound like it was my choice not to take part. It was knocked out of me (mostly) when I went to secondary school and found that I was no longer the best at everything. It's not necessarily a good thing to be picked first - maturity is not about what happens, it's how one deals with it.
Mamie Van Boring 1 week ago
Almost always picked last in PE (even by my closest friends on the odd occasion!): very small, weedy, skinny, utterly no coordination with a tendency to run in the opposite direction then fall over.
Rika 1 week ago
I was always picked last in gym class, but I never saw it as a problem: I'm lazy and never had any interest in physical exercise. No one wanted me on their team because I was going to be a burden, they still got along fine with me outside of gym class.
Sarah 1 week ago (edited)
You were lucky, I wasn’t picked because I was the laughing stock of the class for some reason. So it wouldnt look cool to pick me. And no.. they weren’t nice outside of PE. Relentless 3 years of being slagged off to my face and making fun, I stood up to one girl once.. I said a remark back .. she walloped me across the face. The feelings stay with you for life - I’m 45 now
Load More Replies... Apatheist Account2 1 week ago (edited)
I used to get picked first for some things in primary school (not sports, more skill and brain stuff - quizzes, using a fountain pen, playing the violin). I would go so far as to say that I was headmaster's pet. Whilst it was largely justified - I was told unofficially that I came top in the 11plus exam - it made me an arrogant, horrible person, and I hated not being picked and made up excuses to make it sound like it was my choice not to take part. It was knocked out of me (mostly) when I went to secondary school and found that I was no longer the best at everything. It's not necessarily a good thing to be picked first - maturity is not about what happens, it's how one deals with it.
Mamie Van Boring 1 week ago
Almost always picked last in PE (even by my closest friends on the odd occasion!): very small, weedy, skinny, utterly no coordination with a tendency to run in the opposite direction then fall over.
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