When we're left out, we lash out.
I watched it happen in a WhatsApp group this week.
Ella's school year used to have nearly 60 pupils. After GCSEs, most left for other schools and sixth forms. Thirteen stayed.
For some of the families who left, this had been their school community since nursery. So when the school invited the pupils who stayed to its presentation evening, but not those who had left, people were hurt. I get it.
But I watched what happened next.
We weren't invited became something bigger. The school must be unhappy so many had left. It reflected badly on the leadership. Surely they couldn't now celebrate the GCSE results of pupils who had gone elsewhere?
And, if I'm truthful, I felt hurt too. Ella was one of the 13 who stayed. Their hurt at being left out began to feel like a criticism of those who hadn't left. And there it was.
We were all hurt. We were just standing on different sides of it.
They were constructing a story about the school. I was constructing a story about them.
Maybe that's what we do when we feel excluded. We don't just feel the hurt. We explain it.
They don't value us. They're angry we left. They think we made the wrong choice.
We fill in the gaps. Then we react to the story we've created as though it were fact.
I've done it at work too. A meeting happens without me. An invitation doesn't arrive. Someone doesn't reply. It doesn't take long before I've decided not only what happened, but why.
But this time, I tried something different. I wrote a message in the group. Not to defend the school or to argue about who should have been invited. Just to tell them we missed them. That their girls mattered. That years of belonging hadn't somehow disappeared because they'd chosen somewhere else.
And I ended my message with, "Moving on doesn't erase belonging."
I don't know whether the message changed anything for them. But it changed something for me. Because when someone makes us feel excluded, there is a temptation to return the favour. To withdraw, defend our place, make their choice wrong so that ours feels more right.
Perhaps that's how circles get smaller. One person feels pushed out and pushes back. Someone else feels it and does the same.
So I'm trying an experiment. Next time I feel left out, overlooked or rejected, I'm going to resist the urge to return the favour.
Instead, I'll do one thing that tells the other person they still belong. I don't have to agree with them. I don't have to pretend it didn't hurt. I just don't have to pass the hurt on.
I just won't make the circle smaller.
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