How do I make myself feel less insecure? DON'T READ ALL THE DESCRIPTION?

[thecablegur3949]

Next weekend, some of the girls from my grade are going out for my friend's birthday. Two of her closest friends started a group on Facebook for her birthday event. The birthday girl invited me a few days later and I didn't know about the whole thing until she invited me and afterwords added me to the Facebook group. While looking at who else was invited, I noted that all of the other girls were added the day the group was made. I was not offended because I am not close friends with the girls who started the event. They had only invited 10 other girls, excluding themselves, the birthday girl, and me.
I am in tenth grade now, so as you can guess this made me doubt myself. I love the girl, and I am pretty good friends with most of the invited guests. I know that the group that was invited will be 'the group' in high school for the next two years to come, so I want to take advantage of this opportunity and really show them how great I am. Sometimes, they get together at someone's house and I am usually not invited. I am not talking about those super popular girls, because given the fact that my grade is small, the popular group is pretty big and there is a good chance of me getting in.
When I feel comfortable, I know I can be myself around them, which is usually the funny side of me that can laugh about anything and just have a good time. On the other hand, on a day like that day, I will feel self conscience and I know that when that happens I tend to act awkwardly.
Do any of you have any suggestions as to how I can make myself feel prouder and more confident before I go? I really want to impress them but at the same time I don't want to worry about myself every second.
These girls can sometimes act very tough-like and I know how to defend myself. Really, I want to prove myself to these girls and show them that I am the type of person that they should add to their group.
I know that some of you will respond with 'you don't need to prove yourself to them' and such, but I am past that. I started developing depression because I tried to convince myself of that, yet subconsciously I couldn't believe it. I do have some friends, yet none of them are very close to me. The birthday girl is like a childhood friend, so we sometimes hang out. I am not super close with any of the girls in the group, but we have our moments.
I was strongly considering becoming extremely close friends with one of the girls, and slowly build on and add on other people. My only problem is, I can't just add a friend. My personality is that I need to know someone for a long time before I can go to them about anything and joke around with them instantaneously. There is one person in that group who is like that to me, but she really likes to have a lot of close friends so I can't really build on her. Do any of you have suggestions as to how I can connect with the others? Most of them already have really close friends in the group but I am not really good at making close connections with people in a matter of days. I really am open to suggestions.
If you have personal stories that really helped you out, I would love to hear them. These girls are not all about money, because some of them are really not that rich, but they do enjoy talking about exciting experiences in their lives.
I am not on bad terms with any of the girls, which is good, but I want them to know me a little better so that they will accept me and I can a) put my sub conscience mind at ease that I did what I could and if they don't accept me then there is nothing more I could have done b) become better friends with the girls and get invited to more events.
You may think that I am super materialistic and only interested in popularity, but I can guarantee you that its not the case. If you think I am like that, I do accept personal criticism as long as it means something and you really think I could improve in that area.
Thank you all so much for your time, because I am sure that most of you have gone through high school so maybe you could give me pointers if you were popular or if you could go back and change something?

[HP-FAN]

dont worry about them excepting you just IDK be cool

[Janoskianlover]

Please don't be worried about this, it is no big deal. You just really need to be yourself. If you show who you truly are they will accept you more than they would if you just put on an act to be someone that you are not. If it takes you a while to show who you are around people take your time, they won't be upset. I used to be a really shy person, and still am on occasion. But I know almost everybody and they all accept me for who I am. It took me some time to show them my true personality, but they could all tell it took some time for me to express myself. Sometimes another way to overcome being insecure is to take up some performing art. Like singing, dancing, or acting. They all build confidence and help with being shy. I'm sorry if this isn't a great answer, but I'm sure you wil be fine and will soon overcome your insecurity

[Mathew]

To be honestly I don't have time to read most of this description I do need to study for my own high school classes. I can see why you are so nervous nothing can change this until you get used to the feeling and learn how to adapt to it on your own. I'm into my 6th year in the dating world and I am even used to it I still get the churning feeling in my stomach and think twice before I ask someone out on a date. From people watching there is no "popular" group in high school there are just groups. Trying to fit into the "popular" group more could mean you might not be right for that group. You can't really say that there is popular group just a group of tight friends that steadily grow to make them look super popular normally it is the very charismatic students. The best idea is be yourself you will find your group but you might not. I fit into several group but not so much that I spend every morning and lunch with them. I fit in the intellectual, the nontheists, the theists, (I like to debate) so you could say debate group, without a doubt I fit in the athlete group, the rotc students as well. But not the "popular" groups within them because there are none there are only cliques which are very bad and normally collapse after a short while. Or in cases in my swim team the coach quickly separates them to cause it to collapse quickly. Just be yourself and find your group. And please rethink the love comment now before it turns into a train wreck I am the relationship advice person in any group I go to because I can see trouble early on and the main advice I give because it always works is take about 2 months to think. Think long and hard about it. What do you love? What do you dislike? Make sure you spend LOTS of time with the person prior to declaring it love or it will quickly fall apart. BE YOURSELF.

[Expertlettuce633]

Woah

[Jerson]

grow a pair?? maybe?

[Caroline]

I'm in 10th grade too, and I know exactly how you feel. I'm naturally pretty quiet and not very outgoing, and I started last year at a new high school where I didn't know anyone. Last year was pretty hard because I'm not good at making friends, but this year I'm in a similar situation to you, where there is a group of girls I'm somewhat friends with, but I'm not always invited to stuff they do, and I know they're all closer to each other than I am to most of them. So basically, I know what ur going through.

Something you should remember is that, even if it was as an afterthought, this girl invited you to the party, so she must like you and think you're fun/funny or something otherwise she wouldn't have invited you. What I've found is that sometimes people who you may not be like super close with actually really like you and want to get to know you better, so that might be the case with this girl.

It's definitely a good idea to become really close with one of them and build off of her. I've recently done that with one girl and she's now pretty much my best friend, she makes me feel more confident when I'm with her and the group because I can talk and joke with her easily and it just spreads to everyone

What I'd do if I were you is come up with a plan. Just sit down and think about each girl individually, this makes them seem less intimidating, and it's better to think about them as a bunch of individual girls, rather than one big group (does that make any sense?). So think about each of the girls, and try to figure out each one and her relationship with other girls in the group (like how many really close friends she has in the group etc). So basically go through each of the girls and find whichever one you think doesn't have like one best friend yet, maybe all of the people she's really close to are closer to someone else (again, not sure if I'm making any sense, sorry!)
Anyway, you mentioned it's hard for you to become really good friends with someone in a short period of time, just start talking to whichever girl you pick. You should try telling her a story, like in natural conversation but just be like "oh my god, so the other day..." And then tell her some funny story/ just something entertaining that happened to you (it doesn't even have to be true, just something that COULD have happened ) so then she'll feel like she knows you better, and might share something that happened to her and so on. I guess the hard part is making this happen where it seems like natural conversation :/

Also, you said you are pretty good friends with one of the girls already, but she likes to have a lot of close friends? Try to hang around her at the party, talk and laugh with her, that way you'll seem like you are a lot of fun and really part of the group.

Good luck! Hope this helps!