Background. I hang out every now and then with my 14 year old niece who has trouble making friends. My sister and her boyfriend(her dad) don't really know what to do about it. Since I'm slightly spergy myself we've bonded together a bit but as an adult who has no real problems socially it's hard for me to understand what she's going through.
She is a pretty quirky girl- she just keeps to herself and does her own thing. She's even more obsessive than I am about things she does- she could spend hours reading or going online researching about random things. One of her favourite things for example is art and circus theatre, and she could talk for hours about the random details that honestly can be quite boring, but she seems so enthusiastic about it that it's hard to "call her out". That's just one topic, she's into quite a few.
I don't think she's as open about it with her parents, but recently when I was hanging out with her she broke down crying and hugged me. I asked her what's wrong, and she said how unfair it was that people at her school aren't friends with her. She said sometimes boys would come and talk to her but when she tries to talk to them back after a while they would call her "weird" or "a freak" and walk away from her. If it's relevant, she's not ugly or fat, but not that pretty either, obviously it's hard for me to say how "hot" she is but she's a 6 or 7 and looks pretty normal so that shouldn't be a problem. But I can understand how people think she's different.
It's out of left field to me, I mean I noticed she hasn't had friends over but I always thought she's really introverted and prefers having more alone time. I never realised how much she'd been trying to make friends and failing. I figured it would be worth a shot to post this here just in case you guys are able to help me.
She is a pretty quirky girl- she just keeps to herself and does her own thing. She's even more obsessive than I am about things she does- she could spend hours reading or going online researching about random things. One of her favourite things for example is art and circus theatre, and she could talk for hours about the random details that honestly can be quite boring, but she seems so enthusiastic about it that it's hard to "call her out". That's just one topic, she's into quite a few.
I don't think she's as open about it with her parents, but recently when I was hanging out with her she broke down crying and hugged me. I asked her what's wrong, and she said how unfair it was that people at her school aren't friends with her. She said sometimes boys would come and talk to her but when she tries to talk to them back after a while they would call her "weird" or "a freak" and walk away from her. If it's relevant, she's not ugly or fat, but not that pretty either, obviously it's hard for me to say how "hot" she is but she's a 6 or 7 and looks pretty normal so that shouldn't be a problem. But I can understand how people think she's different.
It's out of left field to me, I mean I noticed she hasn't had friends over but I always thought she's really introverted and prefers having more alone time. I never realised how much she'd been trying to make friends and failing. I figured it would be worth a shot to post this here just in case you guys are able to help me.