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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that I/we are being pushed out?

382 replies

HarrySnotter · 10/06/2013 17:35

Sounds very childish I know but I'm not sure if I'm being over sensitive.

I have a group of friends who I see regularly and sometimes our partners also get together. Sometimes we go out as couples too. Another woman who I have known for a while but had a different friendship group had a falling out with her friends at the start of the year so we started inviting her and her husband out with us, I have always got on really well with her. Recently they (the woman in particular) seem to have really taken to a particular couple in the group (my close friend) and ask them out a lot - I have absolutely NO problem with this, they can go out with whomever they want obviously, but it seems to be a little secretive on her part, though my other friend tells me. I found out at the weekend that this couple are hosting a drinks party on Friday night and have invited other members of our friendship group apart from us. I feel stupidly hurt by this and although I will off course not say anything, as its entirely up to them who they invite to their house, I feel like we're being pushed put. I probably sound jealous and childish so accept im probably being ridiculous! Am I being oversentitive?

OP posts:
BreathingLessons · 13/06/2013 22:52

pictish, it does make sense. It perfectly describes a woman I know. I'm not in competition with her. But she seems to believe there is a competition going on. She complimented me with other people listening and then cut me off at the knees a moment later (when people were chatting) with such a breath-takingly inappropriate put down that I was winded. The weird thing is her compliments seemed (with an audience) fairly genuine.

pictish · 13/06/2013 22:53

In short, they feel entitled to take your life. You insisting on hanging around afterwards, only dilutes their part, and focuses on how they came to be there...by your invitation only.
That's not enough for the competitive, greedy Wendy. She can't be expected to play second fiddle to you, she has to replace you.

BreathingLessons · 13/06/2013 22:55

the wendy I know has this personality disorder I think although I know pictsih you said yours was too sane to trip herself up.

BreathingLessons · 13/06/2013 23:02

just reading more links on that site about Histrionic PD there, people with HPD believe an acquaintance is a friend. They think everybody should be focused on their needs, they create drama if there is none, that boundaries aren't as important as getting attention (!!), that impressions are more important than substance, if they can't get enough attention via the truth a lie will suffice... there's more on that list.

pictish · 13/06/2013 23:06

No...mine didn't have a personality disorder as far as I can fairly safely ascertain.
She was very competitive, at a loose end, impressed by my friends, and obviously completely lacking in regard for me.
Simple as that.

It's not all her fault. If my friends had been any sort of friends worth having, they wouldn't have gone along with it. She was very persuasive and charming I know, but still.

It was the kick up the arse I needed to get out of my home town and do something else less boring instead. I didn't hang about to watch them all being jolly chums, while she openly rubbed my face in it.
I was ready to move on, and so I did. Very successfully. In some small way she did me an inadvertant favour.
I'd still quite like to punch her in the mouth. I'm not saying I'm all that confortable with feeling that way about her, but there you have it.

I don't think I've ever known anyone to hate me as much as she did/does. I don't know why, but I guess she was jealous.

The green eyed monster indeed.

ExitPursuedByABear · 13/06/2013 23:10

What hectic social lives people have. Y

BreathingLessons · 13/06/2013 23:14

wow, that's even more chilling really. just like flicking through the ikea catalogue, i'll have your life thank you, now that you have assembled it for me.

I realise now I've seen this wendy business on a minor scale over the years. A beautiful but dull flatmate of mine, 15 years ago, she met a friend of mine, initially she sneered at him a bit, he wasn't quite good looking enough, not quiiite tall enough, and then when she saw how his friends stood so solidly around him, she did a rapid about turn and ended up engaged to him Confused

Dubjackeen · 13/06/2013 23:14

Well done OP, and well done to your good friend. On a light(er) note I know a girl at work called Wendy Smile, she is lovely.
I really wonder what makes people like this tick? What satisfaction do they get from their behaviour?
Hopefully others in your circle will see through her. As others have said, just drop her, and say nothing, keep your dignity, just as you have done up to now. As the saying goes, it is a long road that has no turning Flowers?

pictish · 13/06/2013 23:15

just like flicking through the ikea catalogue, i'll have your life thank you, now that you have assembled it for me.

Exactly like that.

Dubjackeen · 13/06/2013 23:18

Oops, that should be a full stop beside the flowers, not a question mark. Apologies Blush

garlicgrump · 14/06/2013 01:04

My Wendy did one more weird thing after we'd split, pictish. She got in touch a year or so later, really quite desperate to meet up. When she arrived, she looked like me Hmm After years of taking the piss out of my gym habit and beauty routines (this was a long time ago!), she'd copied the whole lot including my hairstyle. The weird part was the way she kept going on about it; she wouldn't shut up! My first thought had been "Oh, good for you, you've got fit and look slick," but it just got more & more obvious that she saw it as having stolen something from me ... Like she thought I had a patent or something on fitness and hair straightening, and should be outraged that she'd nicked it Confused

The only reason she'd been so anxious to meet was to show me she'd adopted "my" style. Well, there was nothing original about it and I was highly bemused that she seemed to find it so special. I really, really, would not like to see what the world looks like from inside a Wendy's head!

pictish · 14/06/2013 09:54

Competitive you see, but no imagination. She gets a buzz out of being better at being you than you are.

Mine was a total chameleon. Never had an original idea in her life.

Mine also did more stuff to me after the initial big Wendy, where she nicked my oldest pals. I won't go into it because I feel that I have talked and talked about myself on this thread enough already. This is a subject I do get quite animated about.

Suffice to say, she is one to avoid forever and ever and ever.

WinkyWinkola · 14/06/2013 09:58

Pictish, has nobody else clocked her for what she is?

Not one of your friends or another person she's Wendied?

Sounds like she is really jealous of you and fixated on you. Sad terrible.

CelticPixie · 14/06/2013 10:02

From reading these experiences I suppose another way of describing a "Wendy" is as a shit stirrer. I've met many of them in my life, male and female. They load up all the bullets and then sit back and watch as it all kicks off around them.

pictish · 14/06/2013 10:17

Yes...my closest female pal that ditched me for her at the time, fell out with her a couple of years later. She broke away from the group too. I did get apologies, but I had moved on by then, and didn't need her fairweather friendship. We are in very sporadic contact and are amicable, but she was awful to me, and I'm not lacking friends, so she's history.

The other close friend she was able to snatch away was a bloke, and they have since fallen out too. The rest of the group have pretty much outcast him at her behest. I don't talk to him at all...he was an utter shit to me at the time, because he had the biggest hard-on for Wendy ever, so his loyalty was firmly in his trousers. He thoroughly enjoyed ganging up against me, as he is an inadequate person himself, and after an argument which ended up with him slapping me across the head in order to impress her, I considered him dead.
He has made tentative attempts to contact me over the years, but I have ignored him.

So yeah...there are people who know who she is, but she is very skillful, and remains going about her life with my oldest friends.

WinkyWinkola · 14/06/2013 10:25

Well she is a poisonous toad.

But in all honesty, you sound so strong and perceptive about it all.

You've shaken off any pally attempts by those two friends who fell out with Wendy. You've forged ahead. You've won. You do realise that? Like HarrySnotter.

Your oldest friends that Wendy is still swanning around with are clearly tossers.

ZacharyQuack · 14/06/2013 10:31

For those that were wondering about the origin of "Wendy", I think it's from the Judy Blume book Blubber

pictish · 14/06/2013 10:37

I remember reading that book as a child.
Perhaps that's where the writer of the original Wendy thread got her name choice from?

myBOYSareBONKERS · 17/06/2013 19:03

OP - any more updates???

vintagecakeisstillnice · 22/06/2013 16:33

bump

iwantanafternoonnap · 22/06/2013 19:48

we need an update OP

jollygoose · 22/06/2013 19:54

sorry to but in after all these threads but so fascinating. Well done Harryand all you Wendy outers. Op please let us know how your bbq or party went.

helenthemadex · 23/06/2013 12:13

we need to know what Wendy is up to now has she moved on?

FruitOwl · 23/06/2013 13:12

Good for you Harry and good for your lovely friend for sticking by you!

I was unfortunate enough to live with a Wendy at university. She would constantly bitch about me to my best female friend and boyfriend, who also both lived with us. They didn't stick up for me because they didn't want to cause problems in the house apparently. After 2 years in which I thought I must be going mad I moved out and it was such a relief.

However my former best female friend is now godmother to Wendy's daughter while I wasn't even invited to her wedding last year. Still really upsets me to this day and it's been very interesting reading this thread as it makes it clear that Wendy knew exactly what she was doing.

Maybe we need to form some sort of Wendy victim support group?!

LucieLucie · 23/06/2013 15:05

Only read first half of the thread but my blood is boiling so have to write! Bloody woman is being a total cow and is actively seeking to exclude you from your friends without a doubt!

But I get so angry because the only way to stop people like this in their tracks is for YOUR FRIENDS to stick up for you and tell her, sorry if op is not envited then we won't go as its not nice to leave her out!!!!! END OF!! Why are they allowing this to happen? Grrrr bloody women Angry

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