What Do You Do? What Can You Do?

Right now I'm sitting in my living room sobbing and shaking with emotion, and I don't know how to express myself. I have no idea what I did wrong, or why I've just been rejected by the only people I know in this town. I know that I experience tremendous difficulty in making friends, and that I thought I had made friends with the group of people in my book club. For several months these book club meetings have been the light at the end of a very dark tunnel, and it's what pulled me through the months that I was unemployed. I loved the ladies in the group. I felt no indication that they disliked me, or that they didn't want to come to book club because I was there. It's one of those situations where you think everything is going fine, and then you get an email from someone you considered to be a friend, who simply doesn't want to see you any more.

maybe it wouldn't hurt so deeply if I understood what I had done, or why the other ladies didn't like me. The email simply said that I made others in the group feel "uncomfortable," and that since they were older friends than I, I was no longer welcome to join in. The email also suggested that I might wish to start a new book club with "my own friends." There's the problem. I don't know how to make friends, much less keep them. I don't have any other friends here.

Would it hurt me this intensely if this were not the defining aspect of most of the friendships I've had in my life? The majority of my friends, as well as two of my older sisters, have ended things this way. They don't tell me that the problem is, or even that there is a problem. Mostly they just disappear, like one sister who disconnected her phone and moved away with no forwarding address. My other sister told other family members that I only called when I wanted money, which was a misunderstanding. I decided to let her make the next phone call, but she never did. It took me a couple years to even figure out what had happened. I didn't know it was possible to reject people so easily.

What I don't understand is how people let it get to the point where they never want to see me again without ever telling me there's anything wrong. How does this happen? How do you just throw away a person who thinks they're your friend? I don't get it, and I never have. What's worse is that no one ever tells me what I did wrong, so I have no feedback for next time. I keep messing up over and over, with no idea what it is I'm doing wrong.

I'm so upset right now! Those of you who are my friends, may I please have a kind word right now? I really need some encouragement.