My whole life one girl/woman dislikes me for no reason and then gets everyone else to dislike me :(

[LocalNetter]

My whole life one girl/woman dislikes me for no reason and then gets everyone else to dislike me :(

I don't know why but this pattern has repeated my entire life so far. At school, in my house-share, at uni, at work.

There will be no argument, no fight, no disagreement. I would have maybe spoken to them once or twice and suddenly they'll be all cold (but some will pretend to be nice to my face) but will gradually stop the ones who do talk to me from talking to me. It will always be those most closest to that girl/woman who will firstly start acting off with me and then eventually most people get converted to that way.

Whilst the others wouldn't necessarily be my bestest friends, I know they'd like me enough to make pleasant talk with me etc and over time they almost start becoming a bully towards me.

Is this how some people bond? By talking about someone else negatively to build their own friendship?

The saddest thing is I would have had no fight or disagreement or done anything remotely unkind to deserve that hate. Fine if she's not interested in being friends with me but to actively dislike me for no reason and turn others against me is horrible. Sometimes, the girls who do this are initially much less liked by others than I am and yet they miraculously turn it around completely.

I'm just sick of being the butt of it for other girls to bond with each other and I don't know why it happens to me every time :( :( I always try and help people, have never been disloyal or even rude, even these girls themselves will often say I'm super nice, etc. - it's almost like that film "mean girls".

Have you seen people treated this way? Do you know what seems to make a particular person a target for this kind of behaviour?

I hate being a victim of this any longer :(

There’s been two that I can think of - the last one was intellectually superior to everyone ( apparently ) and then a few weeks earlier was a thread about the woman with her own legal firm with no friends and her family had told her it was jealousy. Apologies to either poster if I’ve misremembered any detail. I personally can’t think of a time when I’ve been jealous of anyone - even those with size 8 figures and DD boobs.

Sorry OP but you are the common denominator here...

Probably worth a conversation with a therapist or a brutally honest conversation with loved ones if you think you can handle it.

By the way it doesn't make you "bad" or "wrong" and it certainly doesn't make any type of bullying acceptable, and I'm sorry you are experiencing this. We all just want to be loved and accepted at the end of the day.

Look at this as an opportunity - many people never take the time to really get to know themselves through therapy or introspection and therefore we repeat the same behaviour... And end up in the same situations.

I’ve only skim read, but I identify with a lot of what you’re saying. I’ve been there. I don’t really do groups of women, but I do make strong 1:1 friendships. Recently my eldest child has been diagnosed as having Aspergers, and I strongly suspect I might be the same.

Interesting how a few people have commented suggesting you are inviting this upon yourself

Bullying (for that is what this is) is never the victim's fault. Bullies pick on those they can see will not stand up to them. Most bullies are cowards. They rely on their entourage to give them confidence (hence turning everyone against you).

@lockdownmisery

It's because it's happened many times. Once or twice is plausible. But really, what are the chances of different, individual bullies turning whole groups of people against her, time and again? That's a very large pool of people willing to swallow a "story" about the OP, it doesn't ring true.

That's why people are suggesting the common denominator is the OP.

I've got a lovely friend who is shy. She chats well with another person but in groups her shyness comes across as being sullen. She has a naturally cross looking face sadly. Not that I'm saying that's you, nor is it an acceptable reason to ostracise someone, but it could be that people think you don't like them rather than the otherwise way around.

*Occam's Razor.

If everyone you meet eventually stops wanting to be your friend, the simple explanation is that you are unpleasant to deal with in ways that you're unaware of.

A complex conspiracy about multiple jealous individuals dedicating themselves to extremely effective exclusion campaigns against you for no good reason at all is much, much less likely (though more gratifying to your ego).

Find a brutally honest therapist who can spend a few weeks getting to know you so they can outline what the issues you have to work on are*

@antisocialdistance is right. “Everyone is just jealous” is not the common denominator here and even if it was it would make no difference as you can only change yourself. I think you need to examine what you are doing that is getting this sort of response time and time again. It doesn’t mean that it’s OK for others to be unkind or that you’re intentionally getting it wrong but I think you have to have a cold hard look at your behaviour and social interactions. A good form of therapy for you OP would be Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy which will quite forcibly challenge your assumptions, your demands and extreme thinking.

Sometimes girls/women can be unkind/catty.Possibly jealous of you by the sound of it .Some women hate to feel they are not "The best" and will take it out on those they are envious of .Not sure what you can do really. Try not to let it bother you (not easy I know) Can you join a group of like minded people? What kind of interests do you have ?Maybe a Church group for young people ? My friend told me there was some research that showed women become kinder to each other once they had children(Not saying people without children are unkind BTW !) I think it is sad really .

OP fellow size 8 here and real dd boobs but saving up for a reduction as they give me back ache and look a bit disproportionate on my frame...

I Do agree with a PP though that others' insecurities or envy are not mutually exclusive to OP's unconscious behaviours in causing this to happen repeatedly.

I've found that wherever I 've worked there was always someone I didn't get on with.
Sometimes they see you as a threat to their own progression, sometimes they are just nasty people.
It didn't make it any better but I always tried to ignore it.

Yeah I don’t dispute that I’m part to play in this but also like others have said, certain jealousy (whether misplaced or not) can also not be discounted. I think it’s the same when women keep repeatedly ending up in domestic violence relationships - it happens to some women repeatedly and some women never but I often find the ones who are domestically abused are not acting superior/deserve it but rather get targeted because they’re a little softer and willing to put up with more (if it happens again and again) and may be gravitating towards the wrong kind of men subconsciously but the general consensus is whatever a woman has done, if a man doesn’t like it he should just leave her rather than abuse her. Same could be said of the ringleaders - I’m fine if they just ignored me but to be abusive and tell others not to talk to me (I know as they will often talk to me when she is off sick/on holiday). I once got treated this way by a woman that I had hired for a job even..!?

The only feedback I’ve got from women are that I’m too nice that they can’t ever imagine me getting angry about anything, very smiley all the time, etc. time and time again, even from women who have bullied me (the ones who do the hot-cold thing) and becoming a bit more assertive and slightly rude seems to win people friends with those clique leaders from what I’ve seen but I’d find it near impossible to behave that way.

When one of the girls who did this to me at work was confronted by the boss, she said ‘it’s not anything she’s done. I don’t have a particular reason. Some people just don’t like certain people. It is the way it is’

I also agree with a previous poster about older women being lovely. They are always so kind and not an ounce of competitive rivalry or bitchiness from what I’ve seen. I’ve definitely observed it most with women my age.

Hmm I kind of agree with antisocialdistance.

Not wanting to victim blame or anything, but I don’t know that many people (women / girls in your case) who are like this. Nor did I when I was younger. So maybe it is something you’re putting out there? Could be wrong and maybe your radar could do with some honing so you avoid these toxic “friendships”. I think I can spot a problematic person a mile off (Man or woman. You know, the type who talks behind people’s backs etc) and I avoid, avoid, avoid.

I did know a girl who lived over the road from me when I was a teen who said “women hate me and it’s because I’m pretty”. I remember thinking a lot about that because it was such a strange thing to say. But actually, I reckon she struggled to make friends because she was intense and quite awkward to be around (conversation was never easy and always one-sided) and nothing to do with what she looked like.

@cactusflower1 thanks for the reply. Awkward and intense in what way?

At about age 16 a friend of mine, Terri, decided she didn’t like a new girl, Brittanie, who joined our church youth group.

Because Terri didn’t like this girl, our group of friends stayed away from her. I didn’t even really go beyond meeting Brittanie and certainly didn’t give her a chance. I was always polite, but just kept my distance.

Later I found out the reason Terri didn’t like the new girl was that the guys we were friends with had said “You’ll love Brittanie! She’s just like you!” Terri admitted she was jealous that the guys liked her and compared them, nothing more.

Our entire little circle of friends, 4-5 girls, avoided Brittanie for quite a while because of Terri not liking her. Out of loyalty, because it was easier, because we already had friends. No one was outright mean, we just kept our distance.

Later the two became close friends. Even after that I wouldn’t try to get to know Brittanie because I felt like we’d been so awful to exclude her for no reason. It didn’t seem right. I also realized that Terri was pulling strings and exerting control over the rest of us.

How messed up is that?

The only feedback I’ve got from women are that I’m too nice that they can’t ever imagine me getting angry about anything, very smiley all the time, etc. time and time again, even from women who have bullied me (the ones who do the hot-cold thing) and becoming a bit more assertive and slightly rude seems to win people friends with those clique leaders from what I’ve seen but I’d find it near impossible to behave that way.

This the feedback I had too. “Too nice” and “Too kind for your own good”. I think that you can be seen as a pushover or an easy target. What I noticed was that when I started pushing back a bit with the “frenemies” that they started targeting another girl and in fact, when I ditched the lot of them, she became the next person to get treated like shit. She was pretty, thinner than the rest, more talented than the others, more professionally successful, first to get married to a great guy and generally sweet and kind (except when she was involved in picking on me ). Like me, she ditched them as she neared 30. There’s only so much you can put up with from people who are supposed to be friends.

What I found started to work a bit better for me was when I’d be insulted, I’d just keep repeating the insult calmly and unemotionally back to them;

“ugh, you are the worst“

(Entire group laughs and sniggers at me, rolling eyes etc. As I recall it was because I asked for a straw at the bar because I had a mouth ulcer)

“I’m the worst?”

“Yeah”

“I’m the worst”

“Ugh. Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Are you actually just repeating after me now? How immature?!”

“It’s interesting you think I’m immature. No, I was just clarifying that you think I’m the worst and wondering what that means? The worst at what? I’m genuinely interested to know.”

“OH MY GOD YOU ARE ACTUALLY PATHETIC.”

“You think I’m pathetic?”

That is a very petty example but I’ve found now if I use it early enough it works and people don’t target me as much. It works really well when people use racist or prejudiced language as they are forced to self reflect on how awful what they’ve said is.

The key is to not just take the insults but not become aggressive or rude back. It took me a long time to realise you can be assertive and still be liked!

I think sometimes if you’re too nice and easy going you attract the wrong kind of friends, like women who keep attracting bad partners. You tend to not notice the red flags that other people do, or you do notice and you make excuses for them, until eventually these people turn on you for whatever reason. I haven’t experienced this numerous times, but it happened to me a few years ago, someone I considered a best friend of about 10 years, started acting strangely towards me and cutting me out, she’s done it to other girls in the past so I shouldn’t have been surprised, but again I made excuses for her. I asked her repeatedly if I’d done anything wrong as she was acting different with me, purposely leaving me out of things, cancelling on me, I would invite her to things, she wouldn’t get back to me then I’d find out she went with someone else. and she denied it every time, said nothing was wrong and I was paranoid. She had our whole friendship group lying to me and excluding me as well, as she’s definitely the “ring leader” so to speak. To cut a long story short she had asked me to be her maid of honour, then told me she wasn’t having any bridesmaids, only to invite me to her wedding, to see her have another friend as her maid of honour. That was the final straw, so I ended the friendship and haven’t heard from any of them (except for one guy) ever since.

I don’t like to assume jealousy is the cause, but she is a very very jealous person, and has cut other girls out when they had something she wanted e.g a baby, or got engaged or a bought a house. She started acting weirdly towards me when I finally settled down (was always her single friend), got engaged and bought a house, I was also doing my masters degree, so like I said, I’m not one to think people are jealous of me at all, but with this and her not wanting to tell me what the problem was, I do think it could have been the case.

It could be that you’re attracting these types of people as friends and they’re looking for a friend like you who will tolerate their crappy behaviour. I know that I make excuses for friends a lot and want to see the good in them, so I end up staying friends with people who aren’t good friends or good people (until it bites me in the arse years later!).

At the risk of being jumped on - having worked on my school's yearbook team (many, many years ago), we also did the "most likely to..." bylines. They were never an award, always tongue in cheek and at times, very sarcastic. The fact that you've carried yours with you through life as an award is actually quite telling about how you view yourself.

Your need to reiterate how nice you are, how pretty you are, how clever you are... whilst referring to other women as "girls", over and over again... suggests to me that you are the insecure/jealous one. And you'll be giving those vibes off to other women, who will react accordingly, I'm afraid. The more you talk yourself up, the more grandiose you become, the less likely you are to be included or even liked, I'm afraid.

My daughter went through this - until she was diagnosed with NPD, at which point she seemed to understand why no one was willing to be friends with her for longer than 3 months. Now, she's got work colleagues whom she gets on with/invite her out with them, and a solid group of 3 friends whom she went to university with. She's also someone who can look like a tramp one day (sometimes she forgets the back of her head whilst she's brushing her hair, because she's absorbed in whether her eyebrows are "perfect", for example, and has to be cautiously reminded to brush it properly before leaving the house) and a model the next, and is academically brilliant when she sets her mind to it. But all through school and university, people would actively avoid her, make her feel bullied, and helped to create her victim complex (which you also seem to be displaying, OP). She's had a few years of therapy now and grasps that if you're constantly flouting your own brilliance - the only friend you'll make is your own reflection.

I suggest therapy, and working on not referring to grown women as "girls". That might be a start.

(I'm not even going to touch the comment "runt of the litter", because its so bloody awful and demeaning!)

I've talked about this before. The rule of "There's Always One". There always is and you have to expect it, don't get caught unprepared. Any time you go into a new situation, keep an eye out for The Always One. I'm a bit older now and it took me a lot of years to learn how to handle it but what works for me is initially be as friendly and approachable as you always would be. The second they display any kind of abrupt, dismissive, sneery or rude behaviour to you, either mirror it straight back at them or withdraw from them completely and be polite but no friendliness at all and then keep it up. Don't try to get them to like you or think "oh if I am nicer and more approachable he/she will see what a nice person I am". They won't because they don't want to. It doesn't work every time but most times it does for me. You don't have to confront, just make it quite clear you're not receptive to them now while being lovely to everyone else. Politeness with resting bitch face whenever you have to interact directly with them. You have to do it the very first time at the first sign though and don't let a pattern establish itself, it's hard to break after that.

I will admit it's easier if you genuinely don't care what people think of you though, which is something I have developed with age.

@HannaYeah Interesting story - and interesting to hear it from the perspective of someone who was part of the inner circle. It's been similar for me. The ringleader would be an outright bully whilst the others in her group would be polite but definitely avoiding me as much as possible on the days she would be in but fine with me on other days. If I ask, why they're different to me and if it's something U've done, they'll pretend they have no idea what I mean.

Thanks @NameChange84 those are some good tips. I always start catastrophising and being upset and think I've done something to elicit such negative behaviour towards me and almost rebound by being extra nice to them which makes the bullying often get worse as I cannot fathom why someone would be nasty to someone for no reason despite seeing evidence of it time and time again (even on newspaper sites where there's the same people slating a celebrity and being a cyber-bully towards a celeb they have never even met. Whilst I don't understand becoming obsessed with a celeb, I equally cannot understand the venom some people feel towards someone that they've never met.

@Elsiebear90 That's awful what your ex-friend did with regards to the wedding. My only guess would be jealousy in your case too - it's almost like she wanted you to feel the jealousy feelings she was feeling and tried to simulate that by inviting you as a guest to the wedding. Equally why she couldn't tell you what you'd done wrong because you hadn't done anything wrong and she was embarrassed to admit it was jealousy. I've done the same and asked girls like this what I'd done wrong and never have I gotten an answer - either they pretend they don't dislike me or say they just don't like me and they don't need a reason for it, which makes it point towards jealousy. If I had said something rude or did something they thought was unkind, surely they'd tell me they felt hurt/angry because of X, Y and Z.

@contrary13 I only refer to them as girls as females below the age of 18 are girls..! It would be weird to refer to them as women surely..?! Most of the stories I've recounted here are from school and college years and to use "girls / women" in case I happen to mention a colleague just not to offend anyone will make my responses lengthier than they already are. The MENSA award wasn't a jokey yearbook award - we had those too and they were very much separate and included things like "most likely to become a fashion designer, comedian etc. and were very tongue in cheek and sarcastic. The MENSA award was part of an awards ceremony where parents were invited too and the teachers who had nominated me for it had been asking me to apply to oxbridge and practically forced me to attend their open days and my exam results were published in my high school's brochure the next year so it clearly wasn't sarcastic. If I'd gotten most fashionable or sportiest, etc. then I could bet all the money in the world it was a sarcastic award..!

Whilst I probably have faults in my personality, I know for sure "flouting my intelligence" is not one of them - every feedback I've gotten at school parents evening is that I am too unsure of myself and I start every sentence with "I think" rather than "it is" and my boss said "how can you start making people believe you're intelligent and competent as you are, if you don't believe in that yourself?"

@YgritteSnow Thanks, that makes sense.

A lot of people have suggested therapy but do you have recommendations of what types of therapy?

At the very least to feel more resilient and not crumble every time this happens to me.

I've had this happen to me a few times. I moved to a new area at 13 and had to start a new school and on my first day at the new school a girl took a dislike to me before I'd even opened my mouth to speak to anyone, and because she was a bitch strong character most others in my year were too scared to be properly friendly with me.

I then had it happen about 10 years ago when a friend and mum of DDs friend suddenly started being very offhand with me and turned a load of mutual friends against me. I repeatedly asked if I'd done anything to upset any of them but they were all so cagey and no one would give me any answers and acted like I was causing trouble and being difficult by asking why they were all ignoring me!

More recently, a mum from DS's school year too a dislike to me and tried to stir and cause some other issues with other mums but tbh I'm in my forties now and I have no tolerance for this kind of shit and if she wants to dislike me and turn sheep against me she is welcome to.

@DJTanner sorry to hear that. Your experiences sound so much like mine. There seems to be two types of hate:
One where the ‘victim’ has done something to elicit it (been disloyal, lied, selfish, didn’t pay back money she borrowed) - in these cases, the ‘victim’ of the hate will often not ask what she’s done

Type 2 where the victim will ask what she’s done wrong and will not get an answer from the haters. If someone behaves badly to the victim, they don’t care about the victim’s feelings so it’s not like they are not telling the victim what she’s done wrong to avoid offending her so what other reason is that? Surely the reason must be irrational or jealousy which would explain the reluctance to say so (no one would want to admit that)

So you think the reason this keeps happening is because you are too nice, too beautiful and too clever?

I'm another one who finds it peculiar that this keeps happening - I don't think it's ever happened to me in my life, and I'm academic and used to be fairly pretty before I got old and fat . I also find it odd that these women apparently have this power over everyone - it seems strange that a whole group of men would stop talking to the very pretty, nice, clever girl because a plainer one told them to, IYSWIM?

I think there's more to it than 'plain women are jealous of pretty, clever, nice women and turn everyone against them'. I agree that maybe therapy may be helpful if this is really negative impacting your life. I also agree you must be contributing to this pattern somehow - whether it's by accepting poor behaviour, being drawn to toxic friendship groups or treating people in some form that they react badly to, because the only common denominator in all these situations is you.