I have discovered anger toward my N-ish best friend.I suppose I need to come up with a nickname for her for blogging purposes, because she's probably going to be a common topic of discussion from now until who knows when. Hence forth, allow me to introduce you to "Samantha".
Samantha is the same age as me and we have known each other since we were small children. Even back then she was selfish and didn't like sharing her things while I was expected to share mine. And I did, because my NM taught me to share. She didn't teach me how to stand up for myself, although I did learn to start doing that. Anyway, she was practically my only friend, and since our parents became friends I saw her often and it's probably because of our parents that we stayed friends.
Samantha was never thin. She wasn't morbidly obese or anything, but she was never tiny like I was. She has struggled with her body image and weight for most of the time I've known her. When we were kids, she didn't like that I was so little and yet ate sweets whenever I wanted. She hoped I would get fat when I got older. That hasn't happened yet. Of course I've filled out in all the right places and I'm not a stick anymore, but I love my hour glass figure and so does DH. Sure, I have my insecurities, but over all I think I am a decently attractive human being.
So since I opened up to my friends and E-Sis about Samantha and her behavior as of late, I've learned some fascinating things. One friend (who I've talked with about NM before and has a mother way crazier than mine) has only been tolerating her for my sake, although Samantha doesn't know it. Samantha seriously damaged that relationship years ago by being a shitty friend when that friend's father was dying. Another views her as more of a friend of a friend. A newer, third friend has noticed Samantha trying to become closer with her and absolutely does not want to be closer to her; she has been down the road I'm walking with a best friend before. E-Sis, for all her faults, can be very protective of me and wanted to punch Samantha in the face the other week for making me cry.
But best of all is the things I have learned Samantha has said to other people! She has disparaged DH's degree behind my back for coming from a less prestigious university as hers. Never mind the person she told this too has a degree from the same university as DH and that's where almost everybody in my group of friends got their bachelors degrees from, including me. Never mind that her fiancee has a degree from there. Never mind that fact DH makes literally four times as much as she does and that her fancy degree has gotten her absolutely nothing. It's more worthless than a liberal arts degree, seriously. Samantha had to lie on her resume to get a fucking clerical job. But in a case of delicious irony, Samantha is going back to college to pursue a degree in the same field as DH, and even more ironic is that she may very well be going to that very same less prestigious university the rest of us went to.
I also learned the reason why my bachelorette party was so boring and lame. Apparently I "like it boring". I didn't know not wanting to get drunk off my ass and not wanting any male strippers left lame and boring as the only party option left. Yes, she told one of my other bridesmaid that it was okay, that I liked it boring. Apparently they offered to help but she claimed she knew what I wanted. Fascinating, since she never asked me anything beyond what I told her about not wanting strippers. Dinner was fine, but after that we all went back to her place and she had no food and there was nothing to do. She started having a political debate and raising her voice with another guest and had the nerve to get annoyed with me for being unhappy about it! Raised voices are a trigger for me, you see. That happens when you spend your formative years getting yelled at. But it isn't just my party, she didn't know what to do after dinner for her sister's party, either. It was a fluke somebody suggested something fun to do after dinner. Samantha can't plan things well, especially things that aren't for her. Although with what she's been saying about her wedding plans, I'm not sure she can plan things well that are for her either. Well, in all fairness the bridal showers and baby showers she's done have been very nice and gone very well. But those have an easy formula to follow.
I almost forget these gems: in her maid of honor speech, she'd had a bit much to drink, but she made a joke about having control over me and took credit for the fact DH and I started going out. The truth of the matter is I just asked her what she thought of him before I asked him out. I'd have probably done it regardless of her opinion and the reason DH and I even met was because our similar interests brought us to the same club. Also, when we were in our late teens and her boyfriend had dumped her and her "friends" ditched her, our mutual friends and I consoled her and hung out with her and cheered her up. Apparently at some point I don't recall, she said something about wanting to be with her "real friends". Guess we didn't count? No wonder my friends aren't friends with her anymore!
Samantha also whines when she doesn't like something or doesn't get her way. She almost caused the friend who was tolerating her for my sake to leave her own bachelorette party with her stupid whining about how the place we were at didn't have anything she could drink on her crazy new diet (which she would not stop talking about). Even though the place did, she just didn't believe the matron of honor until she looked it up herself on her phone.This was after yelling at the bride to be for telling her to calm down when she wasn't getting along with another guest (who admittedly wasn't that likable to begin with, but that's not the point).
Now Samantha has her own wedding to look forward to, and from the way she talks, money is what she's really looking forward to. She wants to register for her honeymoon and that's fine, but she keeps talking to me about getting money, money, money from guests. Estimating how much she might get based the value amount of the gifts her sister got, and so on. Frankly after hearing it, I'm not inclined to give her any money.
Oh, and she canceled on plans two more times since my last post. I wasn't surprised. But naturally when she needed me to go dress shopping with her, she didn't cancel.
Now you have met Samantha and seen some of her shining examples of bad behavior. It paints a very nasty image, I know. But what actually makes it harder for me is there have been times she has been a really great friend. When I had "The Confrontation" with my mother (I really need to write a summary of that up for you readers), she came and picked me up and took me out and talked me through the rough parts that followed. When she went abroad she wrote to me and sent gifts, including a very special gift from a place I desperately wanted to go one day. I've been able to talk with her about my problems with NM and E-Sis and know what I say won't get back to them. We had a lot of fun as kids, too.
I'm angry. I know I have been wronged and I'm not going to take it lying down anymore. I'm going to use that energy to change how I interact with and handle Samantha, and whatever happens from there, happens. I'm hoping for a gradual drifting apart because I'm not interested a dramatic mess, and I already agreed to be a bridesmaid before I had come to all these realizations. Whatever happens though, I've got my real friends backing me up.
And I totally forgot to mention what set off the anger. A spontaneous "girls night" happened without her and somebody made a Facebook post about it. She whined about not being invited, we saw it while we were out and bitched and rolled our eyes about it, and then because we ignored her she started whining on another, unrelated Facebook post the next day about how she was butting in because we ignored her and she just wanted to be loved and blah blah blah.
ReplyDeleteHeaven forbid I go out with out her! I had a fantastic time, so her bullshit really pissed me off and caused me a lot of unnecessary stress and crying the next day because I didn't know what to do. E-Sis diffused the situation by explaining how the night out happened unplanned and Samantha then just pretended to be joking around. Ugh.
People keep telling me that anger is a very unproductive emotion. But it works for me.
ReplyDeleteIf they were consistently nasty, we would have caught on long ago. But they're not. I do believe you wrote a ditty about Conditioning and Learning a while back? Same principle. Of course you like "Boring." She decided you'd be grateful for ANY overture on her part so she didn't have to make too much of an effort to define you and keep you in your "safe little box"-no threat to her. Besides, she's calling in her chips now. Who ever said they can't plan ahead/are impulsive must never have had any significant experience with an N or made the typical shrink blunder: Believe they are un-erringly truthful.
ReplyDeleteAnd we KNOW how N's LOVE DRAMA! How exciting to participate if only vicariously in your "Dear Friend's Life" as it blows up! Such a gooooddd "friend" and now she has the inside scoop on all the details and more info yet on what makes you tick, so she can just file THAT info away for further use-to her advantage. It's just not FAIR that you're so much more attractive than her and having your life blow up with her in a front row seat helps to level the playing field. She has envied you forever and it does her N-Soul so much GOOD to know you're getting your come-uppance: "So THERE, Ms Perfect!"
Of course they can be strategically generous: Our bar for reciprocity in relationships is virtually non-existant so any little old tischse-type "gift" that says, "I'm HERE and YOU'RE NOT!!!" will do to remind you she's on a lil' "trip" YOU'LL never have the opportunity to enjoy.
What a "friend." The Drama Quotient is about to increase exponentially with this unabashed "Wedding-Grab." She said she "controlled you."
What, you thought she was KIDDING?
TW
Indeed, I did. But she'll be realizing that she doesn't soon. And we really do have a low bar. But I'm raising that bar starting now!
DeleteI know all the details and inside scoops on her, as much as she knows about me, likely more. In fact, sitting in my file cabinet is a nice little file on her because she was my guinea pig for my personality and intelligence assessment courses... Ethics keeps me from disclosing the details, but that doesn't mean I can't use that knowledge to MY advantage.
She's not very clever or very subtle, I've realized. Whining and getting angry are the only tools she's ever used when things don't go her way. She's not a very hardcore N, she's kind of a wannabe when you compare her to the ones we all blog about. Still, she's welcome to run off and blab to my NM or E-Sis if she likes. It won't get her very far, the most scathing information is on this blog and she doesn't know about it. In fact, it might even backfire on her because E-Sis is already fed up with her and NM gets super protective of me against outsiders slander or wrong doing (guess it's because I'm supposed to be her chew toy, not theirs).
I might just preempt it all by choosing to talk to NM about my problems with Samantha. Normally I keep most of my personal life to myself, but this might make for a good exception. Although I suppose by now E-Sis might have already started talking about it to NM since dear Samantha is pissing her off, too.
Adela, we in the ACoN group are your friends too. You can always run anything by us, for "reality-checks." I think we are trained, like Teedub says above, to put up with too much from people, precisely because occasionally, now and then, when they feel like it, they're nice to us. Just like our parents!
ReplyDeleteThanks, and I am super grateful for it!
DeleteAdmittedly though she was much more bearable and likable before she started this crazy diet she's on. It's exacerbating all her negative traits that she seemed to have grown out of. Almost all the incidents I talked about are spread out over ten or so years, so putting them all in one place like this makes them seem more severe.
The downward spiral literally began at the same time as my friend's wedding and bachelorette party that I mentioned, which is also the very same week she started this dumb diet, and it's been increasing ever since then. She might be a bearable human being again if she'd just eat a proper fucking meal.
She got called out in Public at the bachelorette party on her unacceptable behavior and her attempts to usurp all the attention in the room due to her "very special diet requirements" blew up when it became clear that indeed, they did serve "Fillet of Pickle Juice" for the "Dieting" crowd. So, if she has to "Suffer to be Beautiful" you all have to as well, because if she's gonna starve to death you all "deserve" to participate vicariously. Meanwhile, out of public "view" she's stuffing chips, ice cream by the gallon and hitting every drive-through fast food restaurant on her way home. It doesn't "count" if: None of your friends see it, you eat it in the car AND you hide the evidence in the closest dumpster. IMO, just buy some Spanx, (Human Sausage Casings) and be done with it. But that's not as drama inducing as some ridiculous diet. She's well beyond making friends with her body, so it doesn't sound like you all deserve any more consideration or thought: Every thing and every body (literally) is an extension of her.
ReplyDeleteI wish this was all exacerbation-by-diet. I think she's kind of settled into Narc-ville now that the frontal lobes are finished growing.
TW
What are "friends" for? ;)
TW
The N traits were definitely there before the diet, but they were never so CONSTANT before. And it's not just that I'm only noticing it now, everyone I've talked to thinks it's spiked since the diet started. Even the people who only tolerated her for my sake! It's like she's lost the ability to self regulate her behavior, which given the change in her brain chemistry isn't surprising.
DeleteOf course I still don't see why it was a big deal if they had something alcoholic she could drink or not. Don't need booze to have a good time. But then, I like it boring so what do I know?
And LOL, the amusing thing is she and fiancee are both on this extreme low carb, high fat diet. "Ketogenic" diet. They have to test the PH of their urine every day or something to make sure the are in ketosis (that first stage in starvation where your body starts using fat instead of glucose for fuel). So she can't cheat because it'll show up when they test! Unfortunately for her, carbs drastically increase the odds of tryptophan getting to cross the brain-blood barrier; it has to compete with other amino acids which greatly out number it on this high fat high, protein diet. It's a necessary building block for serotonin, which helps regulate your emotions, among other things. The girl already has a family history of depression on anxiety, and messing with her serotonin levels isn't doing her any favors!
... Call me spiteful, but really enjoyed eating my dessert right in front of her the last time we went out!
Ummm, ketone breath is absolutely disgusting....
ReplyDeleteTW