How do alpha female types end up with everything revolving around them?

[AlessandraLuna]

I know a couple of these types and to be honest I find it quite baffling as to how they manage to get most people running around after them and sucking up to them. This type of person never seems to be a nice, decent, caring person either, and instead is self absorbed, bossy and bitchy.

I have currently started a new job and the office Queen Bee is part time. When she is there, it is as if most colleagues think to themselves that the Queen is there and how can they best serve her, and everyone is running around catering to her every whim and hanging on her every word. When she is not there they all moan about her but when she is at work no one dares to upset her.

There is also an alpha female mum from my DS's school year; she too is not a nice person and people moan about her but she is treated like royalty and no one would ever dare upset her.

How do this type of people get away with it? I have noticed that they only associate with people that basically kiss their arses, and then move onto new arse kissers after a while. I wonder if they just give off vibes that they are more important than everyone else?

Please share your stories and insight about your experiences.

I agree winky, there is a big difference between being genuinely popular for positive reasons and being a Queen (or King) Bee.

I know someone like you Queen and she is lovely. Everyone loves her, she gets invited everywhere, she confident and funny and kind. She isnt manipulative, cruel and demanding as the Queens/Kings tend to be.

Sorry, queen, I'm all of those - confident and smiley, chat to everyone, kind and generous and will do anything for a friend. I am a happy and confident good friend, always pleased to see people and make them feel important etc.

But I am not tall and I am not well off.

I also don't play games with people re the knitting group woman. I am not a bitch. But I have noticed that if I have an off day and I'm not quite as lovely as usual, people flock.

I think the word OP is looking for is "narcisist".

I work with a young woman like this. Physically she is unquestionably attractive but she uses this attribute to her advantage, making her manipulative and shallow. She is always the last to arrive at the office in the morning and always the first to leave. She has had one failed relationship with a very decent young chap - a mutual colleague since moved on - and is now in a relationship with one of our supervisors. She surrounds herself with her cliquey sycophants and has little time for anyone who doesn't fall for her 'charms', me included. I have tried so many times to get on with her but she is just hard work. It makes me both bemused and angry when I see how much shit she gets away with and how she spends the day doing as little as possible. She has also just gained a minor promotion when what she really deserves is a hefty kick up her arse. I have almost given up trying to get along with her after several years .

I think I know the type you mean. The one I am thinking of has a lot of influence but is just a bully. That's why people keep on the right side of her.

Even the bosses try to keep her sweet. It's easier for them that way.

Personally I think they are bullies and the people fawning over them are too scared to do otherwise.

I think the fault often lies with the adoring masses. They may not create the monster but they give it oxygen. There has to be some advantage to them in order to want to buzz around their Queen Bee. Influence is the usual one.... often paired with money or good looks... and I think they believe that, if they get close enough, some of it will rub off on them.

One thing you notice with Queen Bees is that they are very adept at declaring various flunkies in and out of favour. By making membership of their one-woman fan club exclusive and conditional and they succeed in creating enough insecurity & competition in others to make them nicely malleable and 'pick me dancing' their hearts out.

I first met this behaviour in my primary school and, because I'm really not bothered if someone likes me or not, had a lot of opportunity to watch how the resident Queen Bees operated .... from a safe distance :)

I think a lot of these women ( and I probably have moments where I am like that) DO a lot. they organise things, they check up on people, they help out, so not all bad.
But this annoys people, normally IME people just like her who feel their noses pushed out of joint

I only know one person as you describe OP and everyone is at her beck and call because she is actually the boss. I am about to leave (2 weeks to go yay) because of the controlling way she manages, so they don't always get their own way.

Outside of work I know one person who always gets her own way but she does it by being lovely and just gently jollying everyone round to what she wanted from them. That said, she does a lot of favours for others too, so no-one minds or thinks she's taking advantage.

I think most of us know somebody like this, OP. It's strange, they're strange and they do seem to exert some kind of brainwashing influence over their subjects almost. Best thing to do (I think) is just recognise them and then pointedly refuse to bend to their will, don't just fall to and do what they want.

There are a couple of wannabes on MN too. Recognisable from the groupies who fall over themselves to tell the QB that they 'love them' on the thread, posting across other posters not engaging with that fawning crap. Ignoring them too is the best option.

I don't know why some women do this? Poor self-esteem and a need for validation from a crowd just has to be at the root cause of it, surely?

Can you pinpoint what your QB does/has that makes her stand out, OP?

I know a QB (my very much ex best friend) who works a little more insidiously - if things don't go her way, she'll start dripfeeding to her other cronies about how this person has pissed her off, giving vague details about the supposed 'crime', then eventually goes on Facebook, finds any mutual friends she has with this person and messages ALL of them saying 'I've noticed you're still friends with this person, sadly I cannot remain in contact with anyone who is their friend, so please delete either them or me. If you're really a true friend, you'll make the right decision.'

She's a horrible little brat, very much of the deeply deceptive 'delicate princess/speshul sneauxflaek' mould, with almost textbook Only Child Syndrome - she believes that ALL the attention and ALL the praise should be on her, at ALL times. She's changed jobs numerous times due to other employees 'bullying' her, ie. not going along with what she wants.

Two years after being ousted from her inner circle, she STILL obsesses over how I 'mistreated her', still stalks my Facebook from a supposedly deactivated profile, and still gets her new circle of sycophants to give me abuse. To be perfectly frank, it's a relief to be rid of her!

I think some people are 'natural' leaders and just get things done, an awful lot of people complain and faff about but don't actually do anything. I've been on numerous committees (esp. PTAs ) and am probably moaned about for being bossy assertive.

But why do so many people 'fawn' all over other people ? . People will only become the 'Queen Bee' if other people let them. You only have to see the drivel that people watch on tv, the celebrity culture etc etc - that's what I think is more worrying.

AnotherGirl... I had a FB 'friend' who did exactly that. I'm sorry to say that I fell for it but then deleted her off. I don't go on FB now, it's just like that all the time.

LyingWitch - it's just sooooooo much drama, isn't it? It's always that bit more annoying when you realise you've been had by a QB too!

It is, it really is, AnotherGirl. It makes me very intolerant to them now. I have my super-charged electronic zapper at the ready!

I avoid them or did when I was doing school stuff they are usually quite dull underneath and busy themselves to feel important. There was one at sons school who thought she ran the show She told everyone she had seen me drunk at 8am when in fact I had just had my dialysis treatment and was a bit wobbly so in the afternoon I who rarely spoke in the playground told her to f off and everyone clapped

You could be describing my sister. If she doesn't get her own way she throws tantrums and screams (no exaggeration) until everyone around her gives up and does what she wants. Slowly, over time, people learn that if they want to avoid the tantrum they'd better jump on command. And so she wins over more people, her sense of entitlement to being treated thus grows, and then it's worse for the next lot of people she encounters.

It's easy, in her case, to see where it came from. She was an only child for ten years until I came along (almost 40 years ago now - she's still not forgiven me!) and thus the centre of our parents' world for the whole of that time. Not long after I turned up our father died, which, naturally, had an affect on my sister. She started playing up, and my mother, a young widow with two children to bring up, didn't have the emotional strength to fight back. She had one boyfriend who was really good for her and would stand up to her, but her next one was happy to fawn all over her and she's had that in relationships ever since.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean but one of my sils is horrible. She says outrightly rude things to people, moans all the time and isn't very nice to be around. Yet everyone in the family seems to flock around her and are really nice to her face (a lot nicer than they are to me and I'm nice!!)

I don't get it. I've never understood it. I get a bit upset if i think about it because I've tried hard with them over the years but have never been made to feel included in their family. They've never made the effort with me they do with her. I really don't understand it at all actually.

There are a couple of these at school. They do have the biggest cars, and the darkest shades, and appear to be "terribly important".

The thing I noticed most was actually how desperate they seemed, to be to be in control of everything and everybody. They struck me as rather weak, lonely and sad, and just trying too hard.

Quite unlike the genuinely positive and popular people, as has been said by pp's.

I've seen a few posters have mentioned 'only child syndrome'. Do you really think this is true? I say that as the worried parent of a baby who will most likely be an only child .

My son is my only child but not the only child in our lives and so I am always baffled at the negativity on here! He is as far from these descriptions as possible lovely sweet young man with lots of friends and no tantrums!

Only Child Syndrome can actually apply to anyone, only child or not. Its comes from being utterly indulged throughout childhood to the point where you dont realise that the world doesnt in fact revolve around you.

There do tend to be more OC that suffer with it (or rather, make the rest of us suffer!). But it can happen to any child with ineffectual parents who are too scared to say No.

I think there's a massive assumption that alpha females are ALL queen-bee types.

Some are just the confident, assertive women of the world. I would assume that the queen-bee-types have not mastered confidence or why do they need a pack of cronies to back them up? And why do they need to be seen to be important? And why would they need to stir things up?

True alphas just are. They might be the one that quietly does things (well) in the background; they will one you ask to help because they just magically get things done.

You won't notice them unless you put them in a position of needing to assert themselves. Then you'll know.

I don't think being an only child matters at all. I do think that the attitude of the parents (and mostly the mum) really matters as they often have the majority of input to the child's upbringing. If they see their child as a person in its own right, a person to teach consideration, decency and enjoyment - and in turn that's what the child does too - it doesn't matter whether the child has siblings or not, it will be a delight and the legacy will continue to future generations.

If the mother is selfish, self-absorbed and lacking in self-esteem, she'll try to get that from her child, her friends, everybody around her and she'll use 'violence of spirit' to get it. People know though, they do, it's not a covert crime, it's obvious. She can't stop herself from doing it because that's all she has, it's the sum total of her being and external validation is everything. It's very sad really.