April 22, 2025

By Sophie Matthews

I’m 27 now, but it feels like I’ve been living the same story for most of my life—the story of being invisible. The one people forget, the one who is always the last to be picked, the one no one thinks to call. I’m the person who slips through the cracks.

When I was a kid, it started with my parents. They divorced when I was young, and neither of them wanted full custody. So, I spent my childhood bouncing between relatives—those who were kind, but clearly didn’t know what to do with me. I could always feel the sighs when I entered the room. It wasn’t like they didn’t try, but I was never the kid they wanted to have around for long.

School didn’t make it better. I was the quiet one, the one who sat alone during lunch and got picked last in gym class. In group projects, I always ended up doing the work, as no one bothered to help or include me in decisions. I remember asking a teacher once if they’d seen my homework, only to hear them mutter, “Oh, I forgot you handed it in.” That sting has stayed with me ever since.

Then came Jake. For a while, he was the exception. He was the first person who actually made me feel seen, like I mattered. He listened to me, laughed with me, and made me feel like maybe I wasn’t so invisible after all. We dated for three years, and I really thought we had something real. For the first time in my life, I thought someone had chosen me.

But, of course, I was wrong.

One day, I found out Jake had been engaged to someone else the entire time. I never saw it coming, but there it was. His words to me when I confronted him? “I didn’t think you’d care this much.” He genuinely didn’t think it mattered. To him, I was just someone to fill a space until someone more important came along.

The truth is, it shattered me. It wasn’t just the betrayal; it was the realization that I had been so easy to overlook. The girl who was never truly seen, even when I thought I was.

Now, at 27, I’m still struggling to find a place in this world where I don’t feel like I’m the afterthought. The one people forget. The one no one chooses. I keep trying, I keep putting myself out there, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that maybe I’m just not meant to be picked. Maybe this is my fate—to always be the one waiting in the wings, invisible to everyone around me.

I don’t know how to stop being this person, the one who never quite fits in, the one who is always left behind. But somehow, I still keep trying.