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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Am I being mean about the "supersweet" friend?

532 replies

endlessnonsense · 14/08/2024 08:22

I have a friend (well, she's equally a friend of me and DH, she and her XH used to be our neighbours). We now only see her a couple of times a year as we live far away now, and I wouldn't call her a really close friend. When we go on holiday, which is to a hot seaside place in Europe, we often get friends joining us as we have a place to stay and a boat, which is fun. This year she came.

I spent a lot of the time she was here in a state of suppressed anger at her, which caused me to resent her being here. This is because she turned out, on a several-days long time together, rather than the odd dinner we usually have, to be constantly pretending (or was she pretending?) to be very thoughtful and considerate, when I felt she was being just the opposite, in a passive aggressive way.

Everywhere we suggested going and everything we suggested doing, she deferred to us, "oh I'll do whatever you want, don't worry about me", never offering any suggestions of her own or seeming especially enthusiatic. OK, fair enough, we know the place and she doesn't. But it went much further. She was always faux putting herself down/being the martyr/putting on performative sweetness.

My son has special needs and she is always supersweet to him, but I told her multiple times during the holiday, no, he doesn't want an ice cream, he doesn't like it. It must have run into more than a dozen times she said, "oh darling, do you want an ice cream, oh please let me get him an ice cream, I'll pay"(as though I wasn't getting him the ice cream myself because of meanness). (Strangely, although she knows he does like chocolate, she never once offered to buy him a chocolate)

We planned a trip to a particular place she hadn't been, specifically to show it to her. Other friends were coming too, they are local and had been to the place many times, but we're coming along to be sociable with us and her. When she asked me how many people were coming and I mentioned it would be quite a few (in positive way, saying it would be a fun social event) she said, all sweetly, "well if you don't have room for me I'll just stay behind at the apartment, I don't mind at all". That really annoyed me, she knew the trip was arranged specifically for her!

Another (even more annoying) example, we were at a beach bar/restaurant with a bunch of people. Too many to get one table so we were split between 2 tables. Our food came marginally before the other table's (not more than 2 or 3 minutes). In that time she expressed concern that the toddler at the other table had not yet got her food, and actually got up to take her own plate of food to the toddler (it was a salad of some sort and the toddler was getting chips, so not even remotely the same thing). Me and DH had to physically get her to stop it and sit down before the toddler's mum saw.

She has always been very much a "oh don't worry about me, I'll just have a tap water" type of person, but on this holiday she really got my goat. She's left now and I am not sure if she noticed I was a bit snippy with her by the end. AIBU and a mean friend?

OP posts:
Cherrysoup · 18/08/2024 22:20

Took me until the grand age of 50 to realise that I didn’t like a friend I’ve known since I was 16 and some very good advice on social media of how to extricate from the friendship. I know she can go anywhere on holiday, but she hasn’t waited to be invited? Is she presuming that she’ll be going out on your boat/out to eat with you ?

lifesrichpageant · 19/08/2024 05:21

OP, I used to be a milder version of your friend and now I find these traits infurating in others. It is anxiety and low self esteem (and, as I have discovered, a need to control others' opinions of me) masquerading as "being nice" or "easy going" or "chill". It is very dysfunctional and almost selfish at times.

It has taken me a lot of practice and therapy to develop boundaries and my relationships are so much easier. I hope your friend develops some self-awareness on how her martyr-dom affects others!

HoolsB · 22/08/2024 09:34

@endlessnonsense did you take my MiL on holiday? She does this and it is exhausting, she won’t voice an opinion on anything but will make a 1000 little comments to garner sympathy (oh, we could go to the restaurant im sure my knee would be fine with the cobbles and hill) rather than just saying she’s not sure she could cope with the walk! Or she will proclaim she will just have water and chew a stale loaf of bread rather than say she doesn’t fancy Italian that night!

WeetabixWisp · 24/08/2024 17:06

I have come back to this thread and read the further two dozen comments and I’m so glad I have. Part of me felt a bit bad about the friendship failing but reading all these examples so many were just like her. It was bloody exhausting really.

Illegally18 · 24/08/2024 17:44

lifesrichpageant · 19/08/2024 05:21

OP, I used to be a milder version of your friend and now I find these traits infurating in others. It is anxiety and low self esteem (and, as I have discovered, a need to control others' opinions of me) masquerading as "being nice" or "easy going" or "chill". It is very dysfunctional and almost selfish at times.

It has taken me a lot of practice and therapy to develop boundaries and my relationships are so much easier. I hope your friend develops some self-awareness on how her martyr-dom affects others!

I knew someone vaguely like this in the past. She would tell you how self-conscious, sensitive and vulnerable she was at every opportunity. I believed her when I first met her, and then I got tired of hearing it, and one day told her that everybody was vulnerable. She pulled a face because what I said didn't fit in the scenario she had of herself. I also told her that if she was self-conscious all the time, that she was thinking of herself all the time and that it was a form of conceit. She was also terribly, terribly nice and it was wearing. It is known as 'humble brag' I believe. It is a manipulation.

semideponent · 24/08/2024 18:35

Sounds like my MIL, who really gets under my skin. My way of dealing is to be as direct as possible, otherwise I end up sitting on a volcano of suppressed anger. So long as I'm direct and simple and stick to the issue at hand, I find my emotions don't run away with me. But it takes a bit of work. I have to use the question "what could she do/have done that would mean I felt positively about this?" Once I've answered that question for myself, it's clearer what to say or not say to her.

MyNewCat · 26/08/2024 17:11

@endlessnonsense sounds like a great holiday - can I come?! 😬

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