I feel ya. I have ADHD and was therefore my emotional development was a few years behind my age. I was very innocent and naive and I could not manage the social dynamics of girls groups. You usually need to have some level of viciousness as a young girl to navigate that. Can’t allow yourself to be visibly affected or pushed over or you’ll be torn apart. I could understand the fact that you could be “friends” one day and then not a few hours later, that you can be “friends” but they will gossip etc etc. It was so stressful for me. So I even though I was “there” sometimes in the little group things I was just quietly observing and not truly participating- therefore I wasn’t truly “in”. I much preferred hanging out with the boys. For the aforementioned reasons but also because they would “do” things not just talk. We could play tag, soccer, try to find frogs, whatever. Boys were much simpler.

As I got older it didn’t really change much. Women are less outright about the machinations. I’d participate and some of them knew me well enough but I just stuck to my really close girlfriends for the most part and always assumed the rest weren’t actually my friends, just “acquaintances”. By college and onward I haven’t had much of an issue. I can hang out with groups of moms from my kids school with no problem, they all seem to like me and want to hang out. I have neighbor mom friend groups etc. I still would much rather hang out with men but it’s not like it’s easy when you’re married and your spouse doesn’t socialize. It’s a shame. Men are just much more “chill” as long as they’re not trying to get with you.