My primary school experience was similar to yours, and there was a bit of a bullying episode where I think I became more introverted but I think it turned out better for me because I started to develop a better sense of knowing the other party’s personality (i.e. I could start telling when a person was just all talk and no action). I’m sorry to hear you’ve also had a tricky high school experience – I had rumours of my male friends and I going out together, but I never bothered about them (laughed when I heard the silly stories) and those rumours died down anyway.

Looking at your situation with the group of girlfriends, it’s no wonder you feel exhausted after all those events – you want an authentic connection, and perhaps more meaningful conversations about how to resolve problems, or topics of self improvement. I think you have a more mature mind compared to your peers, hence you feel disheartened when their topics of conversation are not “in the frequency of your personality”.

You can’t seem to let your guard down, and I think it’s your intuition telling you that based on the topics of conversation you’ve heard from those girls, if you’ve shared something personal to them it’s likely they may gossip about it and it spreads. I’ve been in those situations, and I’ve shared the bare minimum of myself which worked well for me.

Like Greenshade has mentioned, you may connect better with women of a different age group because of your matching personalities and string of thoughts. The conversations I’ve really enjoyed with female friends were those in their 40s-60s (I’m 28 this year).

Please don’t feel disheartened, you’re not alone. For myself personally I’d rather hang out with some boys with sensible personalities than some girls who thrive by drama.

Hana