Raise your hand if you’ve ever not been invited to something. More than once? By your friends?! Not being invited sucks, but l think it’s a universal experience!

It’s easy to label the person who didn’t invite you as the villian: a mean, fake friend excluding you without a thought for your feelings. But I don’t think it’s always that simple. Sometimes, the reason you weren’t invited has nothing to do with unkindness or secretly not liking you—it might just be a matter of circumstance.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that 80% of the time, it’s not malicious.

But what about the other 20%? Don’t worry, we’ll get into how to handle those situations where exclusion is intentional.

So, before you jump to conclusions, pause for a moment and ask yourself: could there be more to why I wasn’t invited?