Gemma Spake

So you start to replay conversations, you blame yourself, you're scanning all your memories for what went wrong, you're hyper analyzing your behavior.

From an evolutionary standpoint this might make perfect sense even though it's really frustrating.

You basically want to know where you went wrong and how you can fix it.

For most of human history your survival depended on being part of a small group.

for food, for protection, childcare, information.

Being socially excluded meant you would have less access to those resources, less protection, and a higher chance of literally dying.

So it makes sense for natural selection to kind of build a brain that is hypersensitive to any signs of rejection, especially in a group, and even long before actual abandonment happens.

In the 1995 paper,

titled Need to Belong.

It's one of our essential readings.

The authors argue that belonging and feeling seen and included is just as fundamental as shelter, as security, as warmth.

A lack of belonging is linked to literal health problems, increased risk of getting dementia, increased risk of getting sick more often, virus susceptibility.

Researchers later took this further and they argued that social exclusion is processed using the same systems in our brain that handle physical pain.

Basically, evolution has co-opted the pain system to ensure that we pay attention to threats to our sense of belonging and to being excluded.

feeling like the third wheel and having a deeply painful reaction to that is not stupid.

You are not overreacting.

There is scientific evidence here that this sucks.

Biologically, your body is primed to push back against this and it really does.

It hurts us on a physical level.

I think it gets even more complicated with three people rather than with a big group because