My best friend is a copycat and it’s getting on my nerves. I am going to sound nasty, but I’m fed up and ready to walk away.
She copies everything I do. If I buy Sketchers, she buys Sketchers. If I buy a blue dress for an event, she buys a nearly but not quite identical dress. If I dye my hair, she asks for the colour. If I book a holiday to Crete, she wants my dates. Her favourite colour is whatever mine is. Her favourite animal is the same weird, obscure animal I’ve liked my whole life. If I change my look, she changes hers. If I decide I’m going to go boho chic, she’s suddenly boho chic. If I start collecting Cabbage Patch Kids, she starts collecting them too.
She talks of us twinning it. I can’t have anything without her asking where I got it and then going out and buying the same, wearing the same, using the same words, learning the same language, starting the same hobby…I feel like I’m not allowed my own identity. I feel like she’s stealing it. It’s embarrassing when people say ‘you two are like twins!’ Because I didn’t ask for that…but she aims for it. She suggests it to people.
I know imitation is supposed to be flattering, but I’m finding it suffocating. It’s exhausting trying to distance my self and reinvent myself to gain back an ounce of individuality, only for her to close the gap again. Not to mention expensive.
My husband also gets wound up about it. Says things like, “dont let Sam see your new trainers for gods sake”, then I find myself hiding them for as long as possible, so I can at least be seen in them first. Not because I want to be a trend setter, but because it’s embarrassing to think that other people see us together and think I’m in on this!
Tonight I’ve had enough. There’s been yet another incidence of copying and I feel beyond angry. I get that anyone can go and buy what they want and lots of people will have the same, but this is too much. I wouldn’t mind occasionally ‘Oh MoroccanMummy I love that sweater, would you mind if I got one too?’ Of course that would be fine. But I think she knows what she’s doing because she gets the same in a round about way…it was always an accident: she didn’t realise I had that sweater, or someone bought it for her by coincidence, or she already had it first and forgot. Or she sees me in it and says ‘oh I have that too’. The follows with ‘where did you get it from?’ I’m thinking - surely you know if you have it.
If I’m being unreasonable please say. It was either get really cross with her tonight or vent here. I chose vent. If I say anything, she just tells me ‘don’t be daft, no one will think that’ or ‘it’s fun!’.
I’m ready to walk away from her friendship completely.