Why do some women just want to turn others against people?

[Whatisthepointoffriendships]

I keep coming across women like that, and quite often I am on the receiving end.

I had problems with a so-called friend at secondary school who claimed to be my friend but frequently told people I'd said things and hence they didn't like me or wouldn't talk to me.

I then had it a few years ago in a group of friends. The alpha female of the group bitched about everyone and ruled the roost. She took a dislike to me at one point, and the whole group started being funny with me and I was left out of arrangements. She told people that I had said things about them, which I hadn't done. just like the old schoolfriend had done, and some of them still blank me to this day.

I swore I would become a better judge of character and suss out this type of person again in future. However in the past couple of years I've become friends with a woman, within a group of friends. Alarm bells should have started ringing when she kept talking about others to me and being really unpleasant about them, but I carried on being friendly with her. However as I couldn't attend her birthday meal last month she got the hump, and now she too is doing the same thing. Luckily not every friend from that group has turned against me, but some have, as again she is telling them I've said things that I haven't, and telling them I am depressed, mentally unhinged and that I am best avoided! Which isn't true.

Why are some women like this? I'm genuine, a bit quiet, but try to be a decent person, and people like me always have to suffer and lose friends because of women like this

Bullying. Fear. Insecurity.
To be honest though, I think it says a lot about the people who believed her knowing what she's like.
At least your current circle are a bit more clued up.
It's not just you, it happens everywhere! If people know you for being you then ignore the bitches. True friends would pull you up if they thought you'd been bitching about them!

I could have written your post, I seem to be a magnet for people like that. I don't know why they do it, I have no clue why some people, it's nit just women who do this, enjoy hurting others.

I simply don't bother any more. I don't trust anyone, apart from my DDs, life is so much easier when it's just me.

Just this afternoon one of the women from the current circle of friends has admitted she was pulled in at first by this bitchy woman but then found out some of the things it was claimed I'd said weren't true, and I think that if she was my true friend she would see me as innocent until proven guilty and wouldn't believe negative things about me, or would at least have the courtesy to ask me herself.

I think these women form part of the alpha group and others want to be part of that group. I think the trick is to distance oneself a bit when the gossip starts but then I've never wanted to be part of those groups and make better friends as others gravitate away having been hurt.

I agree that I would do the same as you in theory, but then I remember how I've reacted in those situations, and I've not always done the right thing.
Some people are thick skinned enough to not notice, let alone give a shit but most people who are friends of mine at least, would instantly take offence if someone told them another had been bitching about them!
I used to really take stuff to heart but then I realised that actually, there's no harm in being a bitch back and losing the drainers.
It's part of hanging out in circles of friends - someone always has to view themselves as top dog by being divisive or just plain mean.
Unless you're prepared to brown nose a real bitch to stay in favour, just get new friends. She sounds awful and a bit playground.

I think I'm often an easy target as, although I'm fairly quiet, I refuse to brown nose the alpha female of groups, therefore they have a problem with me as I refuse to do this

I worry more about the sheeples being spoon fed and not able to make up their own minds.

I always wonder about people who always claim other people have it in for them. To me, that says they cannot sustain a relationship and other people suss them out

DS1 has a (female) friend like this. She cannot sustain a female friendship longer than three months. She has been like this ever since she started school. So 13 years. As an outsider I can see she stirs and causes trouble, is insecure and hates any of her principle friends having other friends, thus lies some more and stirs some more. It's all so much drama. Now at 18, she is reduced to hanging round her old school gates trying to Queen Bee it over ex-friends 15yo siblings. They rotate on a three month basis as well.

So all I deduce is: some people are very canny and know when to step away from someone who is "toxic".

I work with a girl just like this. My New Years resolution this year was to not get drawn into any work gossip and to treat people as I want to be treated. I KNOW that it should be an obvious thing but these types of people manage to pull you in and after being at the other end of her bitchiness I decided to pay more attention to what I do and say and to just nod and ignore when she starts her nonsense. Everyone has realised how she is now but for ages no one realised just how nasty and vindictive she could be.
Sorry to go on, what I'm getting at is that if your other friends have initially believed her it might have just been because they didn't realise what she was like.
It is shit though and clearly you don't deserve this treatment.

I think we must all know someone like this or have been on the receiving end of it at some point, like someone else said I could have written your post! I don't know why women do this, I think we get a hard enough time from men without other women being spiteful.

The worst part is when your friends go along with it and turn against you. I lost a friend last year because her boyfriend would make up outright lies about me and she believed him over me without even really bothering to find out the facts. I still hear stories from mutual friends about how she goes around still telling people these stories about me - and they are not true. I'd like to say that we're both in our teens as that might actually explain it, but she's almost 30 and I'm 25. Now I see that she couldn't have been a real friend, but it really hurt me.

I'm with the posters who say it is jealousy, insecurity and all those other things. Whatever it is - it's certainly nothing to do with you.

I think I need to get better at sussing out this type of person and not getting drawn into anything.

I honestly think that emotionally some people never leave the Primary school playground!

The ability to walk away from such nonsense as soon as you see the backbiting start against someone else is a an art form that I've tried to cultivate all my life. If you can make it clear that you won't play this game BEFORE you are singled out as the latest victim then life runs much more smoothly.

I don't always get it right though. DS has been upset a bit by local woman back biting about me to other Mums, after an incident last summer which culminated in my refusing point blank to lie to police to help her victimise someone else. (imho this was an extreme example of this sort of behavior & I'm still kicking myself that I didn't suss her out before!).

I actively avoid getting embroiled with the Queen Bee of the PTA types, or too much gossip.

whatisthepoint, it's not that you're an easy target. She does it to everyone from what your first post says.
Knowing that you're sensitive - find ways to brush it off . You know you didn't say anything about those people and the good ones will know you're being honest. It really does happen to everyone so try to react to it differently next time.
Shrug your shoulders and accept the liar is hard work. Distance yourself from her.

bochead, sound strategy.
I learned the hard way when DS was in reception. It's always the overly friendly ones that draw you in that bite the hardest. Where your kids are concerned, it's a horrible situation to deal with.

Yes they're always friendly at first then they reveal their true colours

Ooh, sorry, wrong thread

I have had something similar ongoing for a couple of years now. I've mentioned it on MN before but to cut a long story short one mum from the school has turned several other mums against me as well as a couple of friends that she's met elsewhere. She seems to have a real vendetta against me for some reason, and I've tried to ask her and the others what the problem is but they simply gaslight me and tell me that there's no problem and that I'm imagining it.

It's all very strange but I've come to the conclusion that the woman causing all the trouble is very jealous of me, and also that she is very much a user and wants people to hang onto her every word. I've already noticed that she has dropped one of the friends that she turned against me intially. This friend has started talking to me again and although I am polite I will never be friends with her again as she was so easily taken in and turned against me so willingly.

It cause me a lot of upset for a very long time but these days I just think 'what a bunch of sad cows'. I took my DD to a party this morning where some of them were, and they all have this air about them that I've done something absolutely terrible and they just nod at me with a face like thunder. However at things like that I go all chirpy and happy and basically make them talk to me.

I've also started making friends away from the village where I live, so that this woman can't get her claws into them (she has turned an old schoolfriend against me). Hopefully in time others will find out what she is like. I can't say that it really bothers me that much anymore as this woman turned it from a case of her clearly phasing me out, to a full blown characture of a fall out.