Photo by NeilGHamilton on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Dear Captain Awkward,

I recently have had the problem where I am involving myself in a new hobby, which is different from my other group of friends, whom I love and adore and have been really great to me since I moved over here a few years ago and didn’t know anyone, I can be really shy at first even though I have a bubbly personality, but thats not the problem.

I’m being nice to everyone, involving myself and helping out wherever I can, it’s a slow process making friends for me and I have a little trouble opening up. There is a small problem though, one girl who part of this new hobby i’m involving myself in (I’ve spoken to her a couple of times and she seemed nice) used to be part of my old friendship group, and long story short, they both hate each other with a vehement, in the past having public smackdowns in the past, hatred of each other. As soon as she discovered my association with them, she went from being polite to just ignoring me, making sure she is not even in the same room as me and when I do have to talk to her, I make sure I am nice and friendly and polite, but she wont even look me in the face and changes her tone and demeanour.

She’s a lot further into the group than me and I’ve told one or two people about the situation from both groups, and while they’re both understanding and I love that they aren’t getting involved or gossiping about it making harder for me, I just hate that someone has a problem with me that I didn’t cause and isn’t my fault and I’m not very good at confrontation (in fact barely despite again having a confident personality) so I don’t know how to broach this, and somedays I don’t want to show up and I haven no interest in making anyone’s life difficult or horrible. 

Long story short, how do I enjoy my second hobby and not get sucked into this? I’d like to note that my friends have warned me, but are understanding, supportive and know its not my fault so it’s not an issue with them.

Timid.