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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU? To want to hear the other side

63 replies

BAHH00 · 09/10/2017 15:42

There is lots of talk on MN about the 'Wendy' and how they stole a persons friend. I would like to hear from a so called 'Wendy' and hear their side.

Also why does the orginal close friend fall for a 'Wendy's' charms leaving the 3rd friend out in the cold?

OP posts:

BlackPepperCrab · 09/10/2017 15:44

booloobalooloo · 09/10/2017 15:52

I could be seen as a 'Wendy'. But it was purely unintentional. I moved to a new place. Met a woman and got friendly and she introduced me to her friends. Several months later I had a falling out with the original woman and it became impossible to spend time with her due to the atmosphere so we started seeing friends separately. She then fell out with her friends over how much time they were spending with me. They now no longer see her but are close to me. I wouldn't have ever done that to her on purpose tho.

SillyLittleBiscuit · 09/10/2017 15:57

A friend of mine introduced me to another friend of hers. The new friend and I were both single at the time and lived 5 minutes from each other. Original friend was married and lived over an hour away. Original friend wasn't overly happy with how many times we met up without her but it was often a last minute, fancy a pizza type meeting which wouldn't have worked for original friend. Was just a convenience thing. As it is new friend fell out with both of us over different things and turned out to be a bit full on so kind of wish we'd never been introduced in first place.

Original poster

BAHH00 · 09/10/2017 16:03

I would also be interested in the no holding back yup I just wendied the shit out of them for reasons x,y and z

OP posts:

LoverOfCake · 09/10/2017 16:07

I think the term Wendy is overused and that there is almost always another side. If someone can come in and turn a whole group of friends against one person there were likely already issues there which people may have been too afraid to raise or which weren't so bad in the scheme of things but which people found difficult to handle on a regular basis.

MadMags · 09/10/2017 16:10

My original friend was wendied by my current friend.

Wendied insofar as OF talked absolute shite about pretty much everyone she knew, and when Wendy and I grew closer, I found out the stuff she'd been saying about me.

So, she'd call it being Wendied. I call it me finally waking up to what a colossal cunt she is!

Original poster

BAHH00 · 09/10/2017 16:14

Yeah @Loverof cake thats what I was getting at, is it true Wendism or is there other reasons. Is it simply the OF is a CC as @madmags says or maybe just new friend more interesting etc etc and was time to move on from OF.

OP posts:

Original poster

BAHH00 · 09/10/2017 16:14

Or are there people on here that were too afraid of their own position in a group to speak up?

OP posts:

FortunatelyUnfortunately · 09/10/2017 16:21

I wonder if I was a Wendy. My friendship with one of my best friends grew when we were working on a project together. My friendship with her grew whilst at the same time her friendship with another mum (they had been very close) waned. I wonder if the other mum thinks I Wendied her. I genuinely did not set out to; I just saw a new friendship growing at the same time as an established friendship started to peter out.

MadMags · 09/10/2017 16:22

If I'm being honest, much as I would annoyed to hear what OF had said, the truth is that I enjoy the company of Wendy far more.

We have loads in common, our kids get on, our husbands get on, and I am just happier spending time with her than with OF.

So, while I put it down to OF's behaviour, the truth is I prefer Wendy. I know that sounds horrible, but it's the truth.

cjt110 · 09/10/2017 16:25

Why is it called Wendy'ing? Who was Wendy?

Gemini69 · 09/10/2017 16:31

Why is it called Wendy'ing? Who was Wendy?

THIS

LoverOfCake · 09/10/2017 16:35

I think it's just a case of sometimes you get on better with one person than with another and often life circumstances changing at the same time leave things open to the friendships changing anyway.

Also, sometimes the "wendied" person is often someone who does have issues of their own but people don't say anything for a quiet life.

I know someone who would swear that she has been wendied on numerous occasions, that every time she introduces two people to each other they become better friends and she is pushed out. The truth is that she is such a demanding person when it comes to friendships that on the whole people do put up with her for the most part but most reach a breaking point, because she's not someone who will listen to reason so it's all or nothing with her.

She e.g. Becomes incredibly offended if her friends don't call her every day or if they don't meet up with her whenever she demands it, but it's not something they can address because she becomes mortally offended if anyone dares talk to her about it. So eventually friends just reach a breaking point where they feel they have no alternative but to cut all contact. And this often happens if two previously unknown friends are introduced to each other and discover that she's treated them both the same. But she would say that she's the one unfairly treated.

peachgreen · 09/10/2017 16:35

I didn't know this happened to grown adults. Friendships wax and wane and that's okay. My best friend from university and I have gone through stages over the years where she's been closer to someone else, or I have - usually through circumstances (e.g. she was a mum before I was and grew very close to her mum friends, I got really into a specific hobby and made close friends through that etc) but that doesn't stop us from being friends and we always eventually come back to each other.

It's a weird idea, that someone can "steal" a friend from you.

FortunatelyUnfortunately · 09/10/2017 16:37

I think it goes back to a thread on MN about 8 years ago, roughly. The OP was writing about how a someone she had introduced (whom she called Wendy) to her group of friends had basically taken over and ostracised the OP from her group of friends. The suggestion is that there is almost a deliberate, almost strategic way that the Wendy takes over the friendship group, often becoming Queen Bee.

sonjadog · 09/10/2017 16:38

I think I Wendied someone years ago at school. She had a bestfriend whom I got to know and became bestfriends with instead. We had a lot more in common than the girl who was wendied had with either of us. I remember she was very upset about it, but really, that's just the way it goes with friendships sometimes...

MadMags · 09/10/2017 16:39

It's from the horrible girl from that Enid Bylton novel, no?

A character called Wendy?

Original poster

BAHH00 · 09/10/2017 16:46

Yeah its interesting as it seems something must be wrong for that to happen and yet you do hear of cases where it seems the new friend is being deliberatley manipulative and people dont see through it !?

OP posts:

Original poster

BAHH00 · 09/10/2017 16:47

no @madmags seemed to be a phrase coined by someone on MN

OP posts:

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 09/10/2017 16:48

When I changed schools I took a friend away from someone else. (Confusingly the friend who was 'taken' was actually named Wendy, which really confuses the roles in my head. ) The other girl had a real go at me in the second term, but tbh I didn't care that much (I was a teenager, so not hugely empathetic). Friend and I just got along really well and did stuff together. I didn't like the other girl so when friend suggested I join the two of them or she joined the two of us, I declined. It wasn't machiavellian in as much as I didn't think about what I was doing and I never put any pressure on friend to choose between the two of us, I just found the other girl annoying so didn't spend time with her.

Original poster

BAHH00 · 09/10/2017 16:50

It will be interesting if anyone puts their hands up and says yes I liked this friend and I wanted her to myself and so I set out to make sure that happened and excluded OF deliberately. Otherwise there is no true wendy its just the wax and wane of friendships as someone posted earlier.

OP posts:

YogiYoni · 09/10/2017 16:54

Is this for an article OP?

sonjadog · 09/10/2017 16:54

I suspect on MN when posters talk about being Wendied or being excluded from cliques, they are often attributing thought and planning that simple isn't there. Most people are just going along being friendly with those the like, avoiding those they don't, not giving it any particular thought.

tiddleywinks27 · 09/10/2017 16:56

I've been wendied. Twice. By the same woman. And it really hurts!

I have this 'friend' follows me around like a bad smell and latches on to my OF's (who have been my friends for years /much longer that she has been around) and all of sudden me and the OF seem to have issues and fall out all of a sudden (although i have managed to resolve things with 2 OF's but things were never the same).
I would have told her to F off years ago but we have family connections so it's sort of tricky and I feel obliged to still keep in contact.
Other mutual friends have told me to take it as a form of flattery....that this woman looks up to me and wants to mimic my life /friendships. But i just find it weird and really annoying!

I've tried to tackle it a few times but don't have any real proof that she has turned OF's against me so I'm afraid to accuse her of anything without any proof however this particular woman is a compulsive liar and shit stirrer and I believe would be capable of manipulating even the most loyal of friends. I'll catch her out eventually... ;-)

Try not be a wendy if you can avoid it. It can be very hurtful for the innocent OF who is getting wendied! I've had many a sleepless night over it all :-(

InvisibleKittenAttack · 09/10/2017 16:56

I think it's called being "wendied" because there was a thread on here forever ago about a woman who had introduced a new friend to her friendship group, who had then spread lies about her and stolen her friends. The MNer who this first happened too named the woman "Wendy" (and I think she named the previous friends too), to explain who was who, and sadly for lovely Wendys everywhere, the name stuck.

I think years ago I might have been discribed as a 'Wendy' if an ex-friend had been on here, but from my point of view, I'd moved to a new area and made friends with a woman, but she was very intense. She introduced me to a group of her friends who were all lovely, but the inital friend's intense-ness was a bit much, so I distanced myself from her, which was helped by this coinsiding with end of maternity leave, and while we were both going back to work with reduced hours, her work pattern and mine didn't really fit for meet ups in the week anymore.

In the meantime, several of the friends she'd introduced me too were far easier to get along with/relaxed, and were either off work on the same days as me, or were now SAHMs, so I'd see them at toddler groups in the week, and sometimes I'd go for a coffee before/after a group with one or 2 of them. Original friend too umbridge to meet ups being arranged while she was at work, and would send snippy messages about being left out. This put the backs up of her friendship group.

I don't know if Original friend thought I stole her friends, or that I delibrately set up coffee/lunch meet ups on days she couldn't do. I was trying to make local friends who were around in the day when I was so I didn't get too lonely when DH was at work.

(I may well have meet these woman anyway, it's not that big a town!)

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