I posted this a few months ago: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2602988-dealing-with-ex-best-friend-who-refuses-to-speak-to-me
For brevity's sake, my ex best friend stopped speaking to me spontaneously and cut me out of her life after helping me break up with my ex partner. I later found out she had become friends with my ex and had him as an usher at her wedding to someone she met and got married to very quickly. My OP ended when she turned up as a regular contractor at my work (even though I had moved to a different town) and continued to completely ignore me. I was (still am) unsure what I am perceived to have done and it's been years now.
After a month of not speaking to me at all at work, to my relief she got moved and stopped coming in to my particular office but stayed in the building. But to my horror now I am seeing her much more as she seems to have moved to the same (small) village as me and her behaviour has become more aggressive.
When I see her, she laughs. It's a pitying laugh as if I am perpetually walking around with my skirt tucked into my knickers, or if there is a secret I don't know about, or just a joke she has with herself about me. It's when she passes me in the corridor at work, or on the street, or in our local pub. It's a small community so this is frequent - maybe once a week. It's this sneery laugh as if I am the butt of a longstanding joke and she can't hold it in when she sees me. She is often with one or more other women who she also draws into the laughing - whatever it's about - and they often all giggle. They look at me, then hide behind their hands as if they are trying to stifle their laughter or being discreet but failing. It is like being bullied at school and is very goady.
One of these times I actually confronted her in the middle of a laughing fit and asked her what her problem was. She looked at me and looked round at her friends as if she didn't know who I was or who I was addressing (of course she did) and as If I was a mad woman and then said "nothing" with a baffled face like she was rather taken aback by being talked to at all. Then she talked about it very loudly with the people she was with as I walked away, something along the lines of "what is WRONG with some people? Pathetic!"
Yet the laughing and sneering continues, even worse now that I have reacted. I feel like I'm going mad. How should I be handling it? What should I be doing when she does it? I feel like I am 12 again.
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Relationships
Ex friend sneering at me in public
clingclangclong · 12/05/2016 19:10
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