Frustrated with group work

[Jaymes]

This is my first post and would like some insight to a situation I'm in. I've been working in a group with two other people for school which includes a girl and a friend I met last year whom I developed a close friendship with her.

During our classes, I've actually been forced to do more work that has been proportionally large because they had a tight schedule and the other girl was slacking off with her portion of the work or not showing up. We were suppose to work on an art work installation, and the majority of the time I was working on this alone and tried my best to keep them informed. My friend was putting up a good effort in our group also and kept complaining to me about the other girl slacking off. Regardless of these problems our project impressed the professors that they asked us to present it at the university gallery.

This week we've been working really hard setting up our art piece installation. Both of the girl were developing their friendship, which I don't mind, but whenever all three of us were together they seem to always talk exclusively to each other about planning the project and ignore me in the process. They even laugh and mock the things I do. One night, the girl who was slacking off before said "We could kick you out of our group" I couldn't tell if she was joking or not, but I didn't want to blow the whole thing up. I felt really insulted. I've been working on this very hard, I came up with the original sketch and concepts, setup vital components and electronics for this work, created the website, etc. I hate to keep tabs, but she was diminishing my effort for this grouop. My friend is starting to treat me like a stranger and I'm not very happy about this.

I think it's because of my lack of interpersonal and social skills that when my friend found someone else and got along with better, and is unaware of how I feel shes treating me. I want to improve my social skills, but it takes times and patients, which I also am trying learn ! Shes the only close-friend from school I have we would always work together and chill. While I have another group of friends I just party with. I have feelings of resentment because I helped my friend a lot throughout the school year, I sort of feel betrayed by how shes treating me. I really do feel like a sucker so far. I really wanted to change myself and break out of the cycle I used to be in which is why I am really trying to apply myself. I've tried to look at this in an objective way, but I still feel a bit treated unfairly. I would appreciate some unclouded judgment from this forum.

[thesnowyeti]

well this whole situation seems above my head, but seeing as nobody else has offered any advice here's the best i can do:

social awkwardness takes a long time and lots of hard work to overcome. you can cover it up in the short term, though. just don't worry about whether they are judging you or not, and don't be petty, insecure, or needy to your friend. these are qualities that she probably doesn't appreciate. just bring out your best qualities when your around them, and make sure you don't do anything to get a reaction out of them. trying too hard to seek acceptance is a good example of this. just remember that people like being around people who make them feel happy and at ease. stressing those girls out about how they've made you feel bad definitely doesn't help with that. just make your best attempt at making them feel comfortable around you. probably the most important thing; stop worrying about yourself. stop feeling sorry for yourself or thinking about how people have done you wrong. its your job to make them feel happy and comfortable (and vice versa), and if they ignore you then you're not doing it well enough.

read around these forums and learn more tricks about how to be socially comfortable, and wait for messages from other people. c'mon guys i'm not an expert, post post post