Have you ever just gone off a friend?

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I’ve had it recently about a friend in our group. She’s very lovely so I’m not sure why i’m having this feeling. She’s constantly happy though, which I realise is great, I’m a positive person and like positivity around me. However, I’ve never seen her down or a bit quiet, it just all now seems so false, I don’t know how someone can constantly keep that up? I just want to see realness, the way all others have in our friendship group. I also feel she sucks up to one other member of our group a lot and it doesn’t come across as genuine.
It was a quite sudden change in the way I feel towards her and I’ve not really had this with a friend before, with others we’ve obviously just naturally grown apart.
Has anyone had similar?

@TheYearOfSmallThings I wouldn’t say I’m
usually the most preferred one, we’re all pretty equal, although I’d say the friend this friend has started to be with a lot, is the most outgoing. I have no problem with that, it doesn’t really register, but we generally all get on on a similar level, so I’m not sure it’s that. Maybe I am sensing a recent shift from her though and am reacting to that, not sure what’s happened, I just don’t feel the same and see her a different way

I found out after 20 years a friend had left her husband, 3yr old and baby.
She told me her husband was having an affair and she just walked out.

20years later she decides she wants to get in touch with her kids and asks me to contact them to set up meetings.
But weird but OK

She meets her daughter and afterwards tells me her daughter has inherited all my friends dads money and is annoyed she didn’t get it. ( alarm bells…so that’s why she suddenly wanted to talk to her kids ) She calls her daughter a slag, entitled, rude you name it she had a word for it.
I could see she was upset on losing her inheritance ( a few million ) so moved on.
She then asked me to set up to see her son who was ‘ more important anyway as he’s the boy’!😳. I found him ( through name and type of work ) and set it up.
6 months go by and I hear nothing from her and she didn’t respond to my calls asking if she was OK ( we don’t live near each other)

She suddenly phones wanting something and slagging off her daughter again and I stopped her mid rant and simply told her what I thought of her.
I knew she was fairly entitled in attitude but her treatment of her kids was disgusting.

If she's like that with everyone, all the time then it's not being fake. It's her disposition. I have a friend with a sunny disposition, she is glorious person inside and out and my life is richer for having her in it.

Maybe she senses that you’ve been watching her and it’s putting her on edge.

And it’s no coincidence she gets on with the most outgoing as generally birds of a feather flock together.

@Ritadidsomethingbad Ive not been watching her

Not everyone who is happy and sunny is fake. How sad to think this way.

@JamSandle Yes I realise this completely, this is different.

Yes, I think it was huge in 80/90s America and now seems popular in Australia for some the Instagrammers I've seen. The #livingmybestlife #bekind tagged to hugely edited bikini pictures with impossible curves/impossibly white teeth, perfect nose and groomed hair, so that everyone thinks they are perfect on the outside, which is in turn likely contributing to someone looking at it feeling shit about themselves - they can't see the irony. If you look at their tagged pictures they often look nothing like what their cultivated image and it's this terrible fear of anyone thinking they aren't perfectly perfect that makes me very sad for them. It reminds me of those houses where the wife pretends the husband isn't beating her or worse but everyone on their road knows and can't help.

I'm in no way an Eeyore and have plenty of friends, but I can't do fake perfection. It comes at such a cost.

She may just be naturally cheerful - or she may have been brought up (as I was) being told that if she wasn't always cheerful and smiling no one would want to know her. That sort of conditioning can be hard to shake even in adulthood, and it's not the same thing as consciously putting on an act.

Yes, absolutely.
When my best friend and I became adults, it was no longer possible.
Ugh.

I've gone off friends, for more obvious reasons (negative character traits) but I can only relate to what you are describing with a colleague (now left). She was always bubbly, smiley, and positive and giggled a lot - worked in the same department as her her for three years but not directly - shared breaks etc. all fine always just thought she was lovely but didn't contribute much other than giggling.

Then she was exactly the same way when a colleague had an issue (something colleague picked up for the good of others rather than their actual job) and rather than being supportive or offering some kind of help her giggling and constant grinning seems fake and patronising - hard to explain it. I remember really noticing it and being irritated by it, which surprised me as I always thought she was 'lovely'. A few weeks later I had to work on a small project with her and she was the same and had to stop myself showing irritation. It was like she only had one mode and found it hard to emphasise/listen to other people properly.

With some people what you see is what you get and if you’re hoping for hidden depths you’re disappointed when you realise there’s nothing more.

I got the friendship ick recently. It’s awful and I can’t help it.

Tbh, I don’t complain or moan about my relationship to my friends. I’d see it as disloyal-I’d be very upset if I thought dh was moaning about me to his mates. That’s not to say we don’t fall out and have disagreements-we do-but he’s a pretty good egg. Maybe she sees moaning about her relationship as something she doesn’t want to do. Not everyone who is positive is fake.

I have a friend like that, I have known her for 15 years and at the start of our friendship he only showed her happy side, I would complain about my husband and I’d ask her if she ever had that problem and she would say no never. Do you argue ? No ! Etc..everything was always alright in her life and so it seemed. She is just the type of person who takes a long time before feeling comfortable sharing. And that’s fine ! She grated a lot on me in the past, I thought she had the perfect life and I was a loser ! She doesn’t have the perfect life but she is still an extremely positive person and I get a massive boost after spending time with her !

I've sometimes revised my perception of someone when I realised their outward smiley, personable demeanour was quite shallow. Men as well as women. It's when you realise the outward nice/funny charisma is actually a front for someone who is selfish and thoughtless. For example "oh hi darling it's amazing to see you" but it becomes clear they can't remember your name or anything you ever said or that the "hilarious" quips they make are actually quite nasty barbs at someone's expense.

I don't think I've ever gone off someone for being "too nice" without the above though.

I admit I have rapidly "gone off" potentially blooming friendships for quite judgy reasons: getting new pets without thinking it through and rehoming a few months later; getting their kids christened "because it's a pretty church" despite not believing; conspiracy theorists/anti vaxxers etc. But I don't think (hope) that is particularly unreasonable.

This is an interesting thread, hello from the other side! I am what you're describing as a 'sunny person,' and I do find that people don't always like it.

I'm genuinely very lucky, nice husband, nice DC, nice house, good job, enough money etc.

I genuinely don't have very much to complain about, and try to be positive as I go about my life. I have been described as 'fake' before. I'm genuinely not, it's just that not having much to complain about seems to make people suspicious.

It sounds like your childhood trauma has left you with some hyper-vigilance. Her childhood trauma might have left her with an internalized belief that she will be punished if she allows anything except the good stuff to show. That doesn’t mean she’s fake, she’s just dealing with her own stuff. Two-faced mean girl fake niceness is one thing, but many people genuinely don’t feel allowed to be fully themselves and are just spending their lives trying to not piss anyone off. And some people are just genuinely happy! It’s fine if she isn’t your cup of tea, but don’t assume the worst of her.

See I get that, and you say yourself it is lucky. I don't have issues with people who are genuinely happy and can express other emotions. As another poster said it's the inability to switch out of giggly/smiley mode when the situation calls for it that is challenging.

In my case it's when you know they have huge issues and can't/won't talk about it or admit it or ask for advice. Which is of course their choice, but I can also choose not to partake in a charade and have surface level chats daily while they are suffering or not dealing with something serious.

I'm hypervigilant, I know I am. But I have learned a thing or two in my life:

1. There are some people who absolutely hate me at sight. Why? Don't know and after many years, I don't care. I've spent hours agonising over it - am I competition? Do they think I'm going to steal their significant other? I could go on. I think it's probably something to do with pheremones, but I've learned to accept it, be polite and get on with life.

1. I have had similar thoughts about others at first sight. Every time I've tried to talk myself out of it, something has happened to remind me that I had good reason to dislike them. Again, I just get on with it and do not spend any length of time thinking about it.

When it happens in a friendship group, it's tough, but surely in a crowd it's not too difficult to concentrate on someone/something that's not this person? If others are being vulnerable, empathise and if necessary sympathise but do not reveal your own vulnerabilities in her company. Be aware that if you cannot get past your reaction to her, you may well have to find different friends.

Lastly, for your own sanity and to help you stay with your friends, try to have compassion for this woman. She must have discovered that her true self, for one reason or another, is not acceptable to others and she has to hide who she is behind what you see as a false facade. That must be hell.

Yes I’ve gone off a friend before - it was completely fuelled by pregnancy hormones. I just found her very annoying all of a sudden 😂

I am a happy cheery sort and completely genuine. It’s not that my life is effortless at all, just that my childhood was pretty bad so I am glad to have such a positive and happy life now. I can say when I’m having a bad day but I don’t have them very often. My perspective is perhaps different from others, it takes a lot to bring me down. If it annoys people then they really aren’t real friends to me, and don’t want the best for me so can jog right on.

What is missing in your life to resent her like this op? Or maybe you feel it’s a façade and maybe you are right, and if you care about her enough you will take the time to find out who she really is.

I have a friend I am a bit like that with. In her case, she seems to land on her feet all the time despite creating shit storms all around her and, if I'm honest, I think I'm a bit jealous. I find it really hard to bite my tongue and not think bad things. Perversely, I find the more time I spend with her the better and the feelings go away as I remember that I do actually really like her.

It’s very revealing (of you) that you view ‘moaning’ as authentic and not moaning as indicating fakeness and pretence. Maybe she doesn’t think that trading complaints is what friendship is constituted of — maybe she thinks it’s dull as fuck. I can assure you I have ‘real opinions’ I am more than happy to share with friends, but these would be about politics, books, a play or film we’ve just seen etc. I don’t think being ‘real’ consists of complaining to my friends about my husband. If this is your idea of friendship, it’s incredibly dull and petty-minded.