I am stuck on versions 1.8 and 1.8.1 on mine craft and a lot of servers i like are on 1.7.10 and its really annoying because i can't play with my friends

Put the summary of the bug you're having here

What I expected to happen was...:
that i would be able to join these servers

What actually happened was...:
it went back to the launcher

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Put a step by step guide on how to trigger the bug here
2. ...
3. ...