by wild_quinine on Wed Feb 16, 2011 3:41 am
I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt if they seem cliquey.
It's easy to overinterpret signals when you're feeling vulnerable, for one thing. But also, it's quite natural to take a little while to adjust to someone new. And it's very easy to ignore someone new in a group when you don't really know what to say to them, or don't know what you've got in common... it's a fault, there's no denying that. But it's not your fault. Sometimes, you just have to be the bigger person to start something off.
So give people a few chances to welcome you, even if it feels a bit uncomfortable. Don't give up after one or two bad experiences. Good people come round.
If not, move on. No harm done, and the experience will make you better at meeting other people who will give a damn.
Note: There are some, very few, people who do care very deeply about the quality of the company they keep, and will actively try to keep others out. Don't worry too much about them. They're not as common as you might think, and they'll get theirs. They maybe don't realise, but the quality of the company they're so interested in keeping is uniformly lousy.