Are your friends actually your friends?

So this week at work I found out that everyone and their dog got invited for a BBQ thrown by one of the people that just left. I wasn't invited, I didn't know about it, and only found out when a coworker asked "So, did you go to X's BBQ?" "Huh?"

Turns out another coworker also wasn't invited. Seems like everyone else was. A month ago, a similar situation happened when I saw a coworker's picture at one of the parties that again I wasn't invited to. That coworker? Neither was she.

At work there are the people I know who don't like me (and guess what? It's reciprocated!), but everyone else is friendly, we go out to lunches together, they took me out for my birthday and what nots. We talk, laugh, joke around. But "extra-curricular" activities almost never get extended to me. And the thing is? I don't care much, I really don't. I'm disappointed, but in all honesty I don't want to hang out with them after work either. The BBQ I wasn't invited to, I was actually too busy throwing my own party to be able to participate.

But those are work people.

Today I found out a similar situation happened, but this time by my friends. Again a group planned something and I wasn't included.

So while I spent most of the day freaking out about some awesome kick ass good news that I was DYING to share with my friends, I am now at an impasse: do my friends actually consider me their friend? Because you know what? I think they hang out with me by association -- I'm part of the group, so I tag along, I get invited to the "the more the merrier" stuff, like Happy Hours (which now thinking about it, they know I can't make it anyway) but if I can be excluded, I am. If it's a smaller group going, I'm not part of it.

I'm already working on new coworkers (freakingly awesome good news mentioned above), but damn, it's much harder finding new friends! And the friends part actually bothers me, enough to ruin my day, shatter my mood, great news aside.

Am I THAT unpleasant to hang out with? I always thought I was good fun and funny. But hey, we all think that of ourselves, don't we?

And we think as adults we actually have a better hang on choosing our friends...