Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

to ask you to share your experiences of a Wendy

85 replies

OnlyWantsOne · 28/06/2014 20:00

Reading other threads about relationships with friends has got me thinking about women in my life who have made deliberate and calculated efforts to exclude me from having a relationship with one of my close friends.

She's a bit odd tbh. What grown woman turns up at another person's house unannounced with a bottle of wine and an over night bag for a "GIRLY SLEEPOVER" and basically takes over the house and has a jealous rage about friend texting any one else when she's with her. Making face book status about how much they love each other etc. I let them get on with it now but when it first happened I was really upset

OP posts:

winkywinkola · 29/06/2014 08:33

How is it misogynist?

pictish · 29/06/2014 08:37

It's a misogynist term? You what??! Hahahahaaa!
Sure. Whatever.

HarrySnotter · 29/06/2014 09:04

Yes I had experience of this last year, it was utterly horrible. I decided to just let things play out and oh boy they did. She has now managed to alienate everyone as they all eventually saw through her and she has moved on to her next victims really. However we live in a small place and she is running out of people.

x2boys · 29/06/2014 09:09

This happened to me about twenty years ago I had a friend very attractive but for some reasons she could never keep friends I like her though and always kept in touch all the way through her being at uni and me doing my nurse training etc she went to america for a year to do au pairing I as the only person who visited her when she moved back home I reintroduced her to my group of friends she knew them but had lost touch , within a few/weeks she had completely turned them against me I have no idea why spreading rumours etc they eventually wised up but I could never really forgive them for believing someone who they had effectively only been back in contact with a few/weeks over me who they had known for years .Its hurtful and destructive behaviour I can only assume people who are like this have very low self esteem .

andsmile · 29/06/2014 09:23

mrsterry I was pondering that lastnight.

Do you mean us posters about the 'wendies' or the wendies in their behaviour to other women.?

This thread has helped me that little bit more.

Can I ask, those who have had it done to them, did you feel angry and a need to put your side across? I still do sometimes, it's been a while for me now but they are there every day.

Longtalljosie · 29/06/2014 09:33

Someone had a go at Wendying me a few months ago. Actually having the term (thanks MN!) gave me a term of reference and made me feel more relaxed about it. She was unsuccessful as the friend in question is quite reserved and backed off rather than being flattered. Oddly that not having worked, she's now quite friendly with me

bleurghblah · 29/06/2014 09:54

I was at university. Had a group of four girls all living together from the first day and I made friends with her and brought her into the group as I felt sorry for her as she hadn't yet made friends (warning sign anyone???)

She was hilarious and wonderful and everyone liked her apart from one girl who thought she was a bit off sometimes. We were best friends and I was so happy to have brought her into the group. after about six months she suddenly went a bit weird with me and her and another girl from the group started doing a lot of stuff together.

It wasn't a big deal because we were all friends but then I got left out of shopping a couple of times and then a night out, and I got a bit upset as in a group she would talk over me and ignore me etc.

I thought I was being pathetic until she started saying things which weren't what she has previously told me (that makes me sound petty but things like that she had been travelling, lost virginity to a pop star, been in music video, been abused by parents) and I challenged a couple of things, and she fell out with me saying I was jealous. (Which I probably was) it was at this point the girl who told me she was off said that was what she was like with her all the time.

then we lived together with some other girls in the second year and she did exactly the same thing to another girl so there were two of us wondering what happened.

By the third year I was bored of it and moved out of the house and lived with different friends but her behaviour escalated to the point that no one knew where they stood but everyone was frightened of upsetting her.

She did a couple of really horrible things like pretending she had taken an overdose the night before some exams which my friends then spent overnight in a and e and unsurprisingly didn't do as well as they could have, and Pretending she was pregnant etc.

Even though they all saw through her too, I think they were just all a bit more forgiving of her and they all stayed in touch after university. I avoided anything where I knew she would be but bit by bit just moved away from being friends with them.

I don't miss them as I had a group of friends from home and other great friends from universoty but I still feel responsible fifteen years later for introducing that PSYCHO into our group.

andsmile · 29/06/2014 10:37

Bluer that sounds awful, going thru uni like that.

Shockers · 29/06/2014 10:40

I had a friend who did this. She was horrible about another friend of mine and I pulled her up on it. She then went out of her way to undermine everything I did for a mutual friend (who I had introduced her to), whilst putting statuses on fb about their marvellous friendship.

I withdrew from the friendship group as it had become toxic.

I'm much happier now. My friends are normal people who don't turn everything into a competition and I enjoy spending time with them.

Pickledradish · 29/06/2014 11:51

Unluckily was wendyied by a "Teflon-coated" specimen who now has a job at my DC's next school.

MyFairyKing · 29/06/2014 13:29

YABU for using the term "Wendy". You could have put your point across fine wit out it. It reeks of trying too hard yet failing.

andsmile · 29/06/2014 13:55

Wendy is a term used on MN there are a few threads about this type of behaviour in friendship groups. I think it is from a book.

Trying too hard? How in earth does the OP come caress like that.

SavoyCabbage · 29/06/2014 14:07

It's from "Blubber" by Judy Bloom.

Phoenix2014 · 29/06/2014 14:07

Trying too hard? at what? am I missing something?

MrsTerryPratchett · 29/06/2014 14:20

Using a female name for nasty, spiteful, excluding behaviour. Can't see how that's misogynist. Anyone want to share their experience of an Ian or a Terry? No?

I've had a couple of shitty frenemies. Astoundingly, gender was not a factor. Blokes can be arseholes too.

Pickledradish · 29/06/2014 14:37

Why are "frenemies" so common on the school-run and PTA? What is it that brings out bully in some people?

pictish · 29/06/2014 16:09

No one 'tried' it just happened as the result of a thread on here that started "So I know this woman...let's call her Wendy for the sake of the thread"

Relax.

pictish · 29/06/2014 16:14

No one said "oh we must give this phenomenon a woman's name...let's use Wendy" it just went that way, because someone else said "I knew a Wendy once too" and it took off from there, all of its own accord.
We can call males of the same nature Wendells if you like.

MsVenus · 29/06/2014 16:15

I have been wendied at work and it was/is horrible, she turned my boss and some of my colleagues against me.

MrsTerryPratchett · 29/06/2014 16:22

I'm calling this Wendelling from now on. Who's with me?

groupiedoo · 29/06/2014 16:23

A bloke tried to Wendy me not too long ago, too long a story but the gist is he wanted to take over a fb that I co administered
He would message the other two involved with lies and stories and offer his services, but thankfully the other ones forwarded his rubbish to me!
He also would send me massive long rants on fb, each one was answered by me with the utmost of politeness as I'm sure he was just trying to goad me into losing it, the nicer I was to him the more irate he got, it was v entertaining

SquigglySquid · 29/06/2014 16:25

I have so far managed to avoid a Wendy, but I usually make good friends that don't put up with bullshit. Also, if I'm with friends and plans are being made, I invite myself along. But really, I guess I'm not a good target for Wendy's anyway since I have more than one circle of friends. If I'm not with one group, I can always just hang with another. No biggie. :)

I did have a coworker try to spread stupid rumors about me and turn the office against me. But, that's not really the same as he didn't ruin any friendships that I had before he started his stupid game. The only people that I cut contact with were just coworkers in the first place. But he wasn't particularly subtle on his game anyway, and it ended up backfiring on him before I quit.

waterducksback · 29/06/2014 16:46

I have a Wendy boss!

As soon as she sees me getting on like a house on fire with somebody, I suddenly find myself working a different shift. .

The strange thing is, I wouldn't say I get on particularly well with her - but she is quite possessive of me.

Bizarre!

waterducksback · 29/06/2014 16:47

I'm seeing 'wendy' as a person who is possesive over her friendship with another person?
Or do I have it wrong?

andsmile · 29/06/2014 18:23

We'll the manipulate it so that person can't be formed with others and other people are frozen out. I've seen some people refer to it on here as a bitch wedge also.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Swipe left for the next trending thread