YOU KNOW HOW
horrible it felt when Tina
Capicolo didn’t invite you to
her sweet 16 and you had to
hear about it at school later
while gritting your teeth
hard enough to create a
diamond? Thanks to social
media, you can now regularly
experience that emotion as
an adult. We have immediate
front-row seats at beach
getaways we weren’t asked
to attend—and the pang
of exclusion stings just
as badly now as it did back
when you used Jean Naté.Do yourself a favor and try
a little perspective: Pre-
internet, this kind of thing
happened all the time—you
were just blissfully unaware.
Speaking of awareness, this is
a good time for a self-audit.
There could be a simple
reason you weren’t invited—
maybe the group assembled
to obsess over a novel you
haven’t read—but it could
also be more personal and
complex. Is there a lingering
grudge you and your friend
haven’t addressed? Maybe
you’ve been distant lately,and she thought you were
pulling away. Have you been
spilling her secrets?
Dominating chats with
20 - minute diatribes about
how maybe it’s “finally time”
for you to get Botox?
Keep in mind, too,
that you’ve probably caused
FOMO yourself, with no
negative intentions; give
your friend the same pass
you’d want to receive. If you
really can’t stop licking your
wounds, it’s fair to bring up
your agita—nicely—with
those who left you out. “Onenight several years ago, my
Instagram blew up with
photos from everyone I knew
at a friend’s party—and
I hadn’t been invited,” says
the actor Busy Philipps (who
has 1.8 million Instagram
followers and considerably
fewer close friends). “My
feelings were really hurt, so
a couple days later I called
the person and said, ‘I need
to talk to you, because it
feels like this was a thing.’ It
turned out that it was, and
we got to the bottom of it,
and we got through it.”JUST
SAY NO
TO
FOMO
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98 SEPTEMBER^2019 OPRAHMAG.COM