I have a friend I meet every couple of months or so for a few drinks. I liked her at first but I have come to realise that every single time we meet she knocks me down. Off the top of my head the last few times we met up she said “you look tired” “you look pale” “you’ve put on weight”. Always an insult within the first 10 minutes of meeting. I met her last week and she commented on my eyelashes! I have a skin condition (like vitiligo but the opposite, even the doctors I’ve seen aren’t sure what it is) and it’s made my eyelashes go white. I do use mascara sometimes but on this occasion I hadn’t. But straight away she managed to make me feel shit for the rest of the evening. She does know about this skin condition and knows how self conscious I feel about it so it felt very cruel.
Then she mentioned hoovers and I said “you should get a shark, they’re great” and I mentioned how I had bought one based on MN recommendations (thanks ladies!). I had also mentioned maybe a year ago about something I had read on MN, So then she starts laughing at me saying “god you and that MN, are you still going on there??” Like it’s the saddest most ridiculous thing to do!
I can’t ditch her completely as we both wfh for the same manager so there are occasions when we need to interact. But honestly she just makes me feel shit about myself and I’m not sure I can deal with it anymore. She has moments of kindness and then I think ok I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt over the rest of it but then she says something shitty again and I remember why I make excuses not to meet up with her.