Mixed feelings towards friend - admiration/jealousy/frustration. AIBU to ask for advice?

*I’m quite shy, reserved and can be sensitive

That's probably as irritating to people who are more brusque as much as the opposite is true.

Yes that’s very true. I was aware of this during the holiday, particularly as this was the longest amount of time we’d ever spent together. I can see how our personalities probably clash and don’t really complement each other.

We’re in our early to mid-thirties.

And yep I know! I agree that it is a bit bonkers to go on holiday with people you barely know. The group went on a previous holiday for a weekend - which is probably doable - and I was also due to go, but couldn’t, as I had a family funeral that clashed with it. A week-long holiday is way too long though.

Thanks GreyCarpet I agree with everything you’ve said.

Thank you so much. I think she’s a real fighter and full of resilience, but this hard-won strength and success has probably made her quite intolerant and lacking in empathy for those she doesn’t think are deserving of her tolerance or empathy.

I know she can be empathetic and kind, as I’ve heard her talk about how she can be, and I’ve seen her be kind, but I think there’s a part of her that is quite strategic about how she uses her empathy and kindness. I think she must have found me irritating or annoying, or just not worth her time, so she didn’t want to use it with me - or perhaps she just wasn’t aware that her behaviour towards me was hurtful.

I know there are some differences between U.K. culture and Portuguese culture, as generally we’re more reserved, more outwardly polite and much less direct in the U.K. (I know this is a big generalisation!) I’m quite shy, reserved and can be sensitive, although, like with anyone, this varies, depending on how confident and comfortable I feel in situations I’m in and whether I feel accepted or not.

I also know though that she is capable of adapting her behaviour to suit others, where needed, as she is emotionally intelligent and she’s been in the U.K. for over a decade, so is clearly very used to U.K. culture, even if she doesn’t always agree with it. The other women in the group are all from similar cultures to hers, so they probably just thought it wasn’t worth adapting their behaviour just for me - not that they needed to, but it would’ve been a nice gesture.

Yes, definitely.

All 3 of the other women speak English fluently and they’ve lived in the U.K. for several years and are permanently based here, so that’s our main common language.

I also speak Portuguese, which is our other common language - 2 of the women are native speakers, and the other is not but is almost fluent, while I speak it very well but not so well as to feel confident speaking it 24/7 with no errors and with the ability to fully express myself.

This definitely affected my communication with the other women and my confidence, as I didn’t feel fully able to relax whilst speaking in Portuguese, whereas they did.

Yes it was exactly this. Thank you ❤️

Yes absolutely, I totally agree. I don’t think we were ever equals in the friendship - she was very much the ‘leader’ of the group, I think.

Thanks very much Hockeymom. I think the main reason why I’ve felt so unsettled by this woman is because, in all our interactions together on this holiday, she either ignored me (just focusing on and speaking to the other women, even when we were all doing stuff together like having a meal), said something a bit snarky or complained to me about how one of the other women were behaving. I just found that really unpleasant and rude, and difficult to deal with because she’s never behaved that way to me before. She’d always been friendly to me before and now it felt to me like she was behaving completely differently and unpleasantly.

I think I’ve now found some closure, so that will definitely help me to stop comparing myself to her and to think about the holiday. The holiday had a big impact on me because I just saw a totally different - and unpleasant - side to this woman that I hadn’t seen before.

I’m sure she’d probably have things to say about me from the holiday - e.g. I became a bit of a people pleaser at times, because we were mainly communicating in my third language, which is a language all 4 of us had in common, and which I have never used to such an extent as I did on the holiday. I get that this must have been annoying for her to deal with, especially as she’s the opposite of that (she’s very direct and outwardly very confident, even forceful). However, she dealt with it by being quite rude and unpleasant - as I mention in my posts above.

I think I’m comparing myself to her because her behaviour on the holiday really affected me - although I doubt we’ll see each other again now, which will certainly help me move on. And probably I’m comparing myself to her because she has been very open about the challenges she’s faced in her life - not at all in a pitying way, but in a very matter of fact way, and she’s never really presented them as challenges. I suppose I feel inadequate because, whilst I think I’ve achieved a lot in my life so far and have faced some challenges, they haven’t really been on the scale of what she’s faced.

I also think I was going through a period in my life where I felt quite lonely and lacking in resilience when I met these women, and I thought that we had things in common (I think we all thought this) and that we could support each other. However I can see that that’s not the case, and that whilst I’m glad to have met them when I did, I don’t think there’s any point us continuing our friendship (and I don’t think any of us want to continue it - at least not in its current form with the 4 of us). I think that is a shame but it’s definitely for the best.

Thanks pizza - yes I’ll be careful, for sure. I think we just had a personality clash and no doubt she finds me annnoying and irritating! I’m just glad to be back and not on the holiday anymore!

I’ve got a question which is minor and a bit daft. I’m part of a WhatsApp group with the other three women, and no one - apart from me - has posted in it since the holiday. No doubt they’ll have already created another separate group to use anyway.

I just want to forget about the bloody Whatsapp group. Should I stay in it and just archive it in my phone? I’m thinking of leaving it, just to forget about it completely and have a completely fresh start, but I never leave groups as it always seems to me to be a bit attention-seeking and would probably give them something to gossip about, which I don’t want to do. Archiving it is probably the best option.

Thanks - yes, I agree.

This woman was also quite snarky to me several times on holiday, and that was the only time she would speak to me directly. Otherwise she just ignored me.

She would make comments like ‘oh you’ve really burned, haven’t you!!’ when I got sunburned one day on holiday or she’d comment that I held my phone quite close to my face when looking at it.

Or there was other stuff like - one day we went to the sea and had a swim, and I swam quite far out, and when I came back to our spot on the beach, she said something like ‘you swim really well, don’t you’. I took it as a compliment, so I thanked her, and she then said ‘oh no, it was a question’, basically asking if I swam well, and then she started talking about how rubbish she was at swimming.

Again, all very minor and insignificant, but it just hurt me, because it all made me feel quite small and dismissed.

That’s a good point - and I actually don’t think I do want to be friends with her. The holiday with her has shown me how little we have in common and how different we are. We have very different lives and interests, and also quite different personalities and values.

Before the holiday, we’d known each other for a couple of years, and I enjoyed spending time with her and the other women. We’d keep in touch fairly regularly by text and would meet for lunch/coffee every few months, which I enjoyed.

We all tried to support each other through things in our lives too - e.g. a close relative of mine passed away a few months ago, and the funeral clashed with a holiday I was meant to have with the women, which meant I couldn’t go, and I think they supported me through that. Also, the woman I mention here has had a lot going on recently and we’ve all tried to give her moral and practical support.

All of this has made me think we get on well together and are there for each other. However, clearly, this holiday - which was a week long, so quite a long time to spend with anyone, especially three other people who we barely know! - has shown me that I’m not really compatible with her or with the two other women.

I previously liked and admired this woman’s drive and determination, and I thought the four of us would be good support for each other and would be there for each other whilst we get further in our careers, as we all work in the same city and the same industry and all three of the other women are very high achievers. I’ve also tried to support this woman with her career, giving her tips and advice after she’s asked me for it, and she did seem grateful for it.

However I can see now that we’re not really compatible. I messaged the other women to see if they wanted to meet up for a coffee (hoping they’d say no, strangely - I think I wanted a rejection and ‘closure’, if that makes sense, although I realise how strange that sounds!!) Two of the women replied with polite decline messages, and this woman never replied.

It’s made me feel like a crap judge of character and has made me question my confidence too - because it all panned out very differently to how I’d imagined - although I know it’s all very minor in the grand scheme of things!! I feel like I can just put this all behind now tbh.