A competitive friend suddenly cuts me off

[lola32]

I've got a childhood friend, literally I've known her since the age of 2 or so. Over the years we've developed a weird relationship. There were periods when we were really friendly, but I also confronted her in the past over her habitual lying to make herself look better (I mean things that were so clearly made up I was embarrassed for her.) She's always been hyper-competitive with me, inclusive of actually taking on hobbies and entirely changing her life plans to "out-do" me.

She deleted me off Facebook a few years back - never explained her reasons but I can only presume it was because at the time I was seeing an extremely good looking guy who also happened to be quite well off, and he liked posting loads of happy pictures of us. She was at the time married and "very happy" according to what she's been communicating via lengthy (and slightly cringeworthy) posts on Facebook.

Okay fast forward several years, she adds me back on Facebook and starts chatting, being super bitchy, other times extremely friendly but mostly constantly bragging and sending lots of pictures of her house, kids and emails / uni transcripts to "prove" how well she's doing in life.

I never really cared much about competing with her nor do I have a penchant for making myself look better or lying. I told her I've bought a small house by myself (smaller than hers but she bought with husband and at the time of crisis so effectively her house costed less than mine) she knows I completed my degree 10 years ago and got a first but I guess she feels she's doing a "better" qualification since it's more maths based. The last communications I got from her was some pictures of how she's single handedly re-painted her kids bedroom, so I congratulated her on being hands on resourceful (while privately thinking it was slightly weird for her to do this while her husband was "away with his mates" but okay.)

After this I've heard zero from her and she stopped replying to any forms of communication from me. I find myself scratching my head what the problem is this time? I have to say it feels a bit crap because it seems I was duped somehow - thinking that we could reinvigorate the friendly relationship we once had, to only be dragged into her "life olympics" and now dumped because... I don't know, she feels she won? Or she feels she lost?

We have some mutual friends and I've been told previously that her family has been close to breadline for years since he stopped working when her first child was born, plus (bitch alert, sorry) just looking at her and her family the clothes all look like stuff straight out of a charity shop. Please note I never comment on any of this to her and she's not aware that I know re her financial situation.

I guess I'm looking for opinions as to her sudden no contact and how to best deal with the situation. So far I've just been ignoring it but I have to say it annoys me and sometimes I feel like I should say something to her.

Yes yes yes to Pagwatch - summed it up perfectly with the comment about you actually listing the ways you're winning.

If my friend sent me a uni transcript I would think for a minute that she was competing.

In fact, I did rather well in a postgrad course 5 years ago. Last year my friend got some fabulous marks and comments for her PGCE. When she sent me a photo of those, all I thought was "YAY! You're fabulous".
Hmmmm, perhaps all along she was competing with my 5 year old grade A...

Hmmmm... and back on Planet Sane...

Have you considered that even if she sends things as entries in these "Olympics" it's because you set up the competition to begin with?

Maybe her getting back in contact was her giving you another chance. Maybe her husband came home to her in tears over your pissy little decorating email, and said "honey, please - don't get drawn into this again. It looks wonderful, it doesn't matter that we can't afford decorators - why don't you just block her again? She's a competitive cow and she hasn't changed".

Why can continue with this friendship - it is exhausting?. Both of you sound competitive, trying to outdo each other. You seem very similar to each other.

You sound as bad as her

You both sound a little the same in a strange way, as you notice all this and it seems to irk you.

I don't really see the dynamics of a 'competitive' friendship like this working.

Sounds nauseating

I would say let this friendship go. It sounds like a lot of your interactions are her boasting and/or lying to you, so neither of you are getting a healthy friendship at the end of the day.

I don't think you sound judgmental for noticing inconsistencies between her stories and what you see in real life.

I'd say the problem is that for some reason you make her feel bad about herself. Or you annoy her.

Some people do that to me. Through no fault of their own I look at them and fee inadequate. I don't ''compete'' with them at all though, that's not me. I'm the least competitive person I know. Also, some people aren't doing anything wrong but their, in my view, flawed perception of them self, or reality, can annoy me. So I withdraw and ignore or unfollow.

How do you even tell clothes come from a charity shop?
Do they sell a special type?
Or are you just a massively judgmental bitch? 🤔
Enjoy living in your smaller (but more expensive!!) house

Your Op does make for an extremely odd read.

You are not sounding very nice and you know it and are now trying to justify/defend/minimise it. The pair of you sound better off not being friends- you don't bring out the best in each other at all. Not sure why you would be friends.

You both sound competative and that doesn't bring the best out in either of you.

I think over time you've both developed a need for this 'friendship' as a way of appraising how good your own life is going and routinely use each other as your yard stick.

@Ellisandra

Okay I don't think you've read what I actually said. My pissy email? There was no pissy anything to begin with. I said I was happy for her.

Some of you said I'm competitive - of course I don't mind some competition, if she privately thinks she wants to do something to be better off than me, or I want to do something to be better off than her - sure! If it brings on personal development that's great. What makes me just so tired was the messages that seem hostile and are only intended to invoke appreciation and praise with little intend to actually have a normal chat. It's just done so heavy handedly, and the form these chats take seems like she's being very forceful.

You both sound vile tbh who speak about each other you nothing more han frienemies

I agree with the other posters - you sound like you're the competitive one.
And the comments about charity shop clothes ffs. How spiteful.

People do message each other just to have a little boast if they have achieved something though.

That's quite normal.

Your reaction to see it as competition and then list the ways in which you are actually better is weird.

It doesn't sound like you bring anything good to each other's lives so best just leave it at that.

im reading your replies and getting even more confused about exactly what your issue is?

You don't like each other, are probably competitive and she's dropped the friendship.

What's the issue?

@OrangeJulius Thank you. I know I can use a language and anecdotes that don't read well, but what people took as being judgemental or competitive I was just trying to pinpoint that what she says and what she presents to the world does seem to be inconsistent and it irks me when she tries to dump her supposed superiority on me - when in fact I believe we are both at a very similar level. Some things she's clearly better at than me, and other things I'm better at. It shouldn't really matter. Overall we are in a similar place in life.

If you knew me in real life you'd realise I'm not boastful at all, and actually don't like confrontation and perhaps that's why she feels she can get an ego boost from chatting to me.

Celebrate the ending of a stressful relationship, which you both created.

Your pissy email: my point was that you are making assumptions about her motivations and feelings, and she will be doing the same about yours.

What you think is a bland vaguely pleased for her 'well done' could - to her - be a pissy email.

You said in one post that you said 'well done'. But in an earlier post you said that you congratulated her on her hands on resourceful (and at the same time made some weird but clearly shit dig about her husband/marriage). You didn't say in your reply "it is weird that you did it when your husband was away" but can't you see that whatever you do say can be loaded with what you're actually thinking?

Which is exactly why most posters have been at your OP - unintentionally, it gives a really bad impression of you.

If my friend said "well done" to my painting, that'd be grand. If I was "congratulated on my hands on resourcefulness" I could quite easily be finding that a pissy email.

Can you try steering the conversation in a more real direction. Make a commitment to try. Ignore the temptation to compete. Ignore the temptation to boast or brag (however it's dressed up). Communicate only feelings, thoughts, concerns for a while............ You've known her since you were two! Compliment her on her humour or her bravery or something that doesn't cost money to buy. Do you suggest meeting up any more?

My mother had a friend who competed and she managed to completely change their dynamic. Her friend would say ''we're back from a cruise, best holiday of my life blah blah'' and my mother would reply ''well, we didn't leave kildare but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right''. It took her a while to train her friend to BE REAL but it worked.

@PaganGoddessBrigid Perhaps that's what it is. Maybe it's just something one can't put their finger on irks her about me.

What many posters don't perhaps see is the mere fact I'm writing this post means I care about the relationship we once had and I actually find it quite stressful to be repeatedly dumped over - I don't know why. I can only assume what's happening from what I see. I believe that my deductive faculties are pretty sound. If there are other reasons she's not making them known to me. I'd be open to work on my communications if there's anything I'm doing wrong.

I did try to have normal conversations with her and succeeded on a few occasions but I can see she's most interested in talking to me when it involves some competition or bragging.

Perhaps, as many have said, we'd both be better off actually not communicating and thus she's made the right call.

People come and people go. True friends can have "upsets" differences of "opinions" etc and they can work it out if they really care about the other person and they are "mature" enough. If not they were just acquantences anyway so it's not worth the bother. True friends are as rare as rocking horse shit. But no one friend is the be all and end all. We each have different things to bring to the friendship. I have been shat on from great hights from people with whom I thought were friends, and who I would have done anything for. I used to get hurt, but now I realise it's just life and move on. Life is to short to waste time.

Ellisandra your post is really interesting. We are all subconsciously leaking our real thoughts into all our communications and I guess some people will pick up on those nuances of language she some won't.

*and

I agree that your post doesn't sound too kind, but it's an inevitable response if someone is very competitive with you. I would just stop contact with her and even if she starts it up again I wouldn't respond except to say that you're not someone who can be picked up and dropped like that.

You both sound as bad as one another. Her clothes look straight out of a charity shop. Nice. The pair of you aren't good for each other. Let the friendship go.