It isn't like I'm an asocial person. I'm not the chattiest in the world, but I open up easily enough.

So last night, I go out to see a friend off before she goes on vacation tomorrow. She has me waiting there for a while before she meets up with me - she says that more people are coming, because she came alone.

We are not even two beers in, playing darts and minding our own business, and it wasn't terribly crowded or even busy, pretty standard Tuesday night. An attractive guy comes to her and insists he "teaches" her how to play darts. She had been teaching me up until that point, as I had never played, but that evaporated pretty quickly. I get a hurried "hello" from the guy while they both begin a lengthy conversation that is at the same time extremely flirty and cutting me out entirely.

As the guy goes to the bathroom, she makes a face and comments, "Oh, isn't he a loser?" But it's obvious she's enjoying the attention. She giggles and goes on about him until he comes back - I don't say a word, because she isn't really talking to me, she's just talking.

Her friends still hadn't shown up after a few hours, so I decide to accompany her to the bar down the street. The same guy follows her there and begins trying to learn more about her. She's an interesting woman: she's lived overseas, she has a cool job, she's very smart, she's funny, she's amazingly attractive without trying too hard.

Then a new guy, a stranger sitting at the bar, buys a drink for her within a few minutes of us sitting down. They begin talking, and her back is literally turned to me. When she gets up for a minute about fifteen minutes later, the guy sees that I am sitting there and hastily introduces himself. Not long after, when one of her friends finally joins us, we sit at a table where two guys promptly start chatting her up as well as her friend. No effort is made on anybody's part to include me in the conversation, despite the fact that at this point I am literally sandwiched in between these people.

I like my friend a lot, so I try not to cramp her style. I don't mention the fact that she's married, and I try not to be too visibly jealous (not that anybody's looking my way anyway). By this point, however, I am quite drunk and not in the best way.

This seems to happen a lot to me, and with different friends of mine. I do my best to put myself out there, and I in fact go out with some frequency. For the past few years, though, it's as though I'm not even there. My friends invariably get the attention - they are so interesting, they are so beautiful.

But I'm interesting. I, too, have lived in a different country. I, too, speak four languages, have cool jobs, play an instrument with some proficiency, paint, read, opine, fit into a size 5, have long hair and decent makeup, smile at strangers, can be a flirty idiot, make funny comments with little prompting --- am I just phenomenally hideous, or am I really blending in with the wallpaper?

It seems as though I am always lain by the wayside. I work 60-70 hours a week and I still try so hard to put myself out there. I'm wondering why it is that I can't seem to engage anybody, not even creeps. If I do introduce myself to strangers, make the first move, as soon as they meet my friends I may as well not exist.

It's a really unbelievable super power - Invisibility, who knew it was so easy? But I only wish I could do it at will, and that it wasn't all the time. What have all these women got that I haven't?