When We Feel Left Out

Hi, I’m Kale. Today I wanted to talk about the times when we feel left out.

In non-monogamous relationships, there are going to be times when we feel left out.

Like if someone we care about is spending extra time with a new person, or they are doing things together that sound really fun and we wish we were doing too.

The most likely time to feel this is when our important someone is spending time with a person they are romantically involved with.

We may or may not feel the same intense level of feelings when they are spending time with platonic friends.

The acronym FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) comes out of a common occurrence in our very connected society – that we know something fun is happening elsewhere, and we are experiencing some anxiety that we are not a part of it.

This can happen when we log on Facebook, when you’re friends are at Burning Man, or when someone you care about it doing fun things when you’re not around.

In relationship anarchy we recognize that each relationship is between two autonomous individuals, so we must accept the fact that each person is free to spend their time as they choose, and it won’t always be with us.

We also work on overcoming entitlement; we want to create mutual relationships by giving people freedom rather than making demands.

With these things in mind, what do we do when we are feeling left out?

First of all, know that all our feelings are real and valid. Just because we are working on respecting other’s autonomy doesn’t mean that we won’t have feelings about their actions.

We should also always be aloud to talk about how we are feeling. It’s our actions and how we respond to things that we can be in control of, not our feelings.

It might be hard and even painful to experience left out feelings. There are a few things you can do when you notice this happening.

One is try not to resist the feeling. You are feeling it for a reason! Sit with it, and try to figure out why you are feeling it. It might not be for the reasons you first thought.

A common suggestion in poly circles is to take some time to focus on yourself. Spend time with other important people in your life, work on projects and hobbies, do things you love that make you happy.

Another thing is to avoid comparing yourself to other people. You are still an important and worthy person!

Relationship anarchy recognizes that each relationship is unique and can offer us different things.

The fact that someone we care about is spending time with someone else is not a reflection on our own worth.

If you doubt your own self worth, you might ask questions like ‘Why am I being excluded?’ or ‘Why don’t they want to spend that time with me?’.

Questions like this will only leave you feeling drained. Try to focus on things like ‘What can I do right now to embrace this time I have?’ or ‘What can I learn from this?’.

In the end, working on ourselves is the way to move through lonely feels. Sit with the feeling, look at what actions you can take, practice self care.

If you’d like to talk more about what to do when feeling left out, join our Facebook group or follow me on Twitter, both which I will post down below. Thanks for watching, bye!