constantly feeling insecure after a night out. any tips to help my self esteem?
(first time poster on here, just to get this off my chest. don't know if i'll probably delete this bc i'm not one to talk about these things publicly but it's happened a few times now and it's been hard)
so, don't know about you guys, but i love being close enough with friends that we can flirt/make out/hook up with no problem at all (most of them are in open relationships). most of these friendships began online via twitter/bluesky or sometimes even grindr/scruff. all in good terms, i say they're hot and they say it to me too, we talk about what we'd like to do to each other, we trade photos, all that good shit, completely consensual from both sides.
however, whenever i try to meet them in a bar or something (we live in the same big city) and i put on my best behavior, act flirty and everything, at the end of the night i still see them making out amongst themselves while i end up alone and feeling completely invisible/unattractive and my self esteem (which already isn't that great lmao) drops down to hell.
it's been happening the last times i went out with an entire group of gays and i really don't want this to become this big of an issue because even though my main friend group is very progressive and has some queer people in it, it's still very hetero-centric and i miss the connection that only gay people have with each other. so i don't wanna miss out on this because having a community and support network is extremely important to me