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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to ignore jibes from friend of friends?

46 replies

pandarific · 30/03/2016 21:31

I have two friends at work, let's call them A and B, who are very close friends. I'm mates with both, individually and separately, and have been since we all met.

Another woman, C, quickly became very close friends with A and B too after she started, meeting up at the weekend etc, where as I don't unless its a bday or something (am okay with that). Thing is, C and I have never seen eye to eye. You know when you meet someone, and for some reason you just don't click? That.

Since C left the place I work at she's been there several times when A, B and I are hanging out as she's really good friends with them both and they often socialise as a trio. However, in the interim C has decided she hates me, and every time we get together, she will - either in front of the others or more often when the others are at the bar/in the loo etc - say something SO catty and bitchy I'm just sitting there like .

One example - A, C and I finishing the last of several glasses of wine, drinking up and getting ready to leave (B having left earlier) and C leans across the table and says 'Oh, I see what's going on here, you think A likes you, you think you're FRIENDS. Hahahahaha!' A is going 'quiet, shut up, shut up etc', and then we leave.

I know she's just a cow, I'm not particularly worried about whatever I may have done to offend her, but I am getting so pissed off with it. I'm just like... WTF is wrong with you? I've never said anything back, or even reacted, but I am this close to glitter-bombing her and denying all knowledge.

Gaaah it's just so frustrating - I don't feel I should have to stop being friends with A and B and though I avoid deliberately seeing her, she often arrives with them/joins, so I WILL be in her company. AIBU to grit my teeth and ignore her? I suspect anything I say back will just fuel it.

OP posts:

icelollycraving · 30/03/2016 22:02

With friends like them...
I suspect they have been bitching. Who suggested the evening out? It all sounds like too much weirdness for me to be arsed with on my one night out every millenium.

UpsiLondoes · 30/03/2016 22:03

Work friends aren't necessarily real friends. You say you only socialise around your work hours not at weekend, like A, B,C. Chances are if you switched jobs, you wouldn't keep in touch and still socialise would you.

Aworldofmyown · 30/03/2016 22:03

I would ask A & B outright if I were you.

Are we friends? I know C doesn't like me but if you are just tolerating me we are adults and I would rather you just said.

If you still work with A & B then that may be why they are being nice.

Original poster

pandarific · 30/03/2016 22:06

. It is possible that C has been instigating the bitching about you to A (and B?) and A is just too weak to defend you so she goes along with it, or she agrees and contributes to the bitching.

That's what my gut tells me. I genuinely like A, she is a really nice person but probably, like me, is a bit passive. She also really really thinks the sun shines out of C's arse.

B I know genuinely likes me - she's a bit more off to the side. I sense she sees herself as 'keeping out of it'. A bit shitty, because I don't want to be 'in it' at all!

OP posts:

Original poster

pandarific · 30/03/2016 22:08

Who suggested the evening out?

B did - suggested A, I and her pop around the corner for a drink. C texted B on the way said she was in town, so joined.

OP posts:

Original poster

pandarific · 30/03/2016 22:11

Mostly around work hours, but a few times on weekends. A/B/C hang out a lot more at weekends but tbh this is fine with me. I'm okay with having different levels of friends, and without C in the mix and a flat I can't invite anyone around to as we are renovating I'd make more overtures, but I kind of feel I'm being... warned off by C, or something? I would keep in touch if I left, meet up for drinks etc.

OP posts:

liinyo · 30/03/2016 22:15

Two things - it does sound as is A has said something negative about you to C. If you re otherwise secure in the friendship (and value it) I wouldn't pay too much attention to that. I have said some pretty mean things about people I otherwise like when annoyed at them or particular parts of their character or actions. I would hate it if they ever heard those things and my dislike of one part of them does not mean they are not important to me. Luckily the people who have heard me say these bitchY things have been discreet so far. think a certain amount of two-facedness is an inevitable part of civilised relationships. But I would say that wouldn't I?

Second thing - what is glitter bombing? It sounds lovely, but from the context I don't think I'd like it

Original poster

pandarific · 30/03/2016 22:20

liinyo shipyourenemiesglitter.com

OP posts:

liinyo · 30/03/2016 22:23

Thank you pandarific. I would indeed quite like that, but my DH would have forty fits.

EverySongbirdSays · 30/03/2016 22:23

What's a "Wendy" ?

LeanneBattersby · 30/03/2016 22:29

These women are not your friends.

In fact, they are just a bunch of bitches. Sack the lot of them off and find some grown-ups to hang out with,

WonderingAspie · 30/03/2016 22:34

every a Wendy is someone who comes along and muscles in on a friendship and essentially removes someone from the group and they have 'been wendied'.

EverySongbirdSays · 30/03/2016 22:37

Aaaahhh thanks Aspie - someone tried that on me once - only partially succeeded

ReaWithson · 30/03/2016 22:43

I would have expected a "Stop being a cow! We are friends!" from A, but the reality is she has had a bonding bitch about you with C. I think talk to B directly about it in a non-confrontational way and let her know she can trust you with the truth. And, ultimately, it's probably worth expanding your social circles to spend time with people who don't make you feel you need to question whether you're genuinely welcome and friends.

Many of us have been there, even as adults even though the whole thing seems so ridiculously teenage! Step out of the group and liberate yourself. I had a similar situation in a group of 4 in my twenties. B and I remained independent friends but I stopped spending time with C and A (meaning I did miss out on A, B and C events but it was good for me as it gave me more time to spend with other people and I really strengthened some other important friendships that way). C eventually - and inevitably - showed her true colours and A subsequently went into overdrive to try to rekindle our friendship without ever acknowledging that she had been weak/a cow. I really wasn't bothered by that stage so didn't force the issue - we are friends but I can't say I'll ever really forget that I couldn't really rely on her to stand up for me in that situation so we're not as close as we once were. Though that could all change as life moves on of course.

elQuintoConyo · 30/03/2016 22:47

I would leave them all to it, to be honest. It sounds exhausting. Just back away and find new friends

MadamDeathstare · 30/03/2016 22:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

pandarific · 30/03/2016 22:58

Thanks vipers, good advice as usual. I am sad though, as I've been open with A and B and told them lots I wouldn't have if I didn't trust them. I think I'll just detach a bit and if I'm invited somewhere C will be will decline, say it's because C and I don't get on and leave it at that.

OP posts:

TresDesolee · 30/03/2016 23:06

You sound too nice to be putting up with this crap, panda . Try not to let it knock you back.

CubicZirconiaBossyBabe · 30/03/2016 23:07

I was a bit of a C at school

I had an A and a B who would offload all their friend frustrations out to me and bend my ear always bitching about their other friends..

.. so I only ever heard about ways that other friends had fucked my close friends over.. and felt upset with other friends on their behalf

Of course then by the time we all went out in a big group, A & B had got everything off their chests (to me) and were best buds with other friends again.. but I then found the other friends harder to like and I'ld still be pissed off with them about the things A and B told me about them

I was young and I did step away from them all before the end of school

but I wasn't trying to "wendy" anyone, I just heard nothing but bad things about these people who my "friends" were friends with, and was still to naiive to realise that they were probably saying similar things about me to their other friends

because they were bitches.. but also two faced.

justmyview · 30/03/2016 23:29

OP - In your shoes, I'd detach a bit and see if A and / or B make the effort to keep in touch with you

I think some people make a lot of effort to remain friends with people when it might be better to accept that the friendship has run its course. This is a general observation, not necessarily saying that's the case with you

SpringerS · 30/03/2016 23:57

I was kind almost wendied once. I skipped a year of school and was in my exam year ahead of my best friends, and while I was studying they got evening jobs in a local supermarket. And they met a 'C' who worked there fulltime. They became great friends in work and developed a great social life, while I was busy with school. The next year I started working there evenings/weekends but they had quit as it was their exam year. I was enthusiastic about getting to know C but she was very stand-offish, so I made my own friends at work. After my friends finished their exams and came back to work, C was straight back in with them and made it clear she hated me being part of her social circle. I never could understand why but CubicZirconia's explanation makes a lot of sense.

I was the first of my friends to have a boyfriend, and I was a crappy friend who spent all her time with her boyfriend. Even though I was back to being great friends with my friends when they got their jobs, I think they resented my vanishing act and bitched about me to C. To be expected as we were 17, and tbh, they both did similar once they got into relationships. Her opinion on me was formed before she ever met me and she wasn't willing to change that. I wonder if something similar is happening here, even though I suspect you are all older than teenagers. OP, do you spend more time with your partner? Not that there is anything wrong with that, it's what happens naturally in adult relationships. But maybe there is some resentment about you not going out as much as they do? And it is how C is judging you?

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