on the outside, looking in

• on the outside looking in

on the outside, looking in

1. (idiomatic) Excluded from a group, process, or opportunity, and feeling downhearted as a result.
   • 1988 Aug. 24, Mervyn Rothstein, "Kirk Douglas And Anger," New York Times (retrieved 2 Aug 2015):

     "In a sense, I've always felt on the outside, looking in," Mr. Douglas says. "It's my background, damn it. My father was an illiterate Russian immigrant, a ragman, the lowest rung on the economic scale. There were six sisters and my mother; I was the only boy. To be a young Jewish boy in a town—Amsterdam, in upstate New York—that was quite anti-Semitic."

   • 1997 May 18, Marianne Macdonald, "Who is Paul Theroux?," Independent (UK) (retrieved 2 Aug 2015):

     A recurrent theme of Theroux's books is this sense of being an alien, on the outside looking in.

   • 2007 Aug. 2, Ishaan Tharoor, "India's Democratic Advantage," Time (retrieved 2 Aug 2015):

     While China's economy soars, hundreds of millions of migrant workers and rural peasants have been left on the outside looking in.

• alienated

• on the outs