That friend who just won't stop rubbing it in.

[Londonactive]

Just that really.

Got told to get the fuck out of a man's house the other day when I didn't want to have sex with him. Called my friend as I made my way home. A few days later I cried to her about how badly men have treated me for years and years ( 6 months out of a very abusive and depressing relationship, she knew a lot about this).

She hasn't stopped going on and on about how amazing the new guys are that she's seeing. They all want a serious long term relationship with her and constantly take her on fancy dates, buy her gifts and call her none stop.

I have a biopsy tomorrow, she calls me this even saying 'she has a problem.' I was expecting an actual problem to which she responds that the (amazingggg dream) man she is seeing has declared his undying love for her, wants her to be the mother of his kids and she's 'not sure how she feels.'

I literally cried my eyessss out the other day (to her) about the awful men I keep meeting, and how I'm panicked because my biological clock is ticking and I keep meeting men who are really at the bottom of the dating pile. She knows I have been through A LOT.

People are entitled to be happy, but read the room. She has sooooooo many friends and even has one staying from abroad one who is extremely happy in her relationship, why not speak to her? Why me?

Thoughts?

She's lying, if they're so amazing why hasn't she settled with one.

She says she has commitment issues...

Oh, and I have to hear about every singleeeeee guy who stops her on the street and thinks she's 23 (not 30) and beautifuuuuul.

It's literally every single day, we can't speak without it. Do other people's friends do this???

I smell bullshit
But if it makes you feel any better OP, all the men I meet are awful too.

Just say, "oh fuck off do they!"

Find better friends. She has put you into the role of the person she makes feel bad to make herself feel better. You sound like a good friend, I hope you find both a wonderful man and some friends worthy of you.

I would never dreaaaaaam of listening to someone cry one day, and bragging that I have the thing they don't have the next. I can't help but think it's intentional because I know she isn't that stupid

People who are actually happy don8make a point of constantly telling you how amazing their life is

I smell a rat. And it sounds like she is intentionally trying to make you jelous. I would be distancing myself, she sounds like a right attention seeker

Like fuck multiple random men stopped her in the street and guessed her age. She's full of it. And I'd not be taking her too seriously about her legions of eligible men falling over themselves for her. She sounds massively insecure actually.

Why is she doing it? Probably to feel good about her self. But she's doing it at your expense which isn't very nice or the actions of a good friend. I would distance yourself from her or at least shut down relationship talk.

I'm sorry you've had so many awful experiences with awful men OP. Had many awful ones myself in my teens and 20s, it really knocks you. Hugs x

Thoughts? Stop listening to her drivel and focus on working out your own issues. Men have been treating you badly for "years and years", and you also have a friend who treats you badly. You desperately need help to figure out why you keep gravitating towards people who aren't good for you.

I believe her pants are on fire.

She is tactless, and probably always puts herself first. She is making it up about men falling at her feet, to make herself appear successful and attractive. Bet she is super dull deep down. You got to ask who she is trying to kid here? You or herself. Content, self satisfied people never need to speak like she does, as they are just bobbing along dealing with the highs and lows of life. She is just toxic friend that needs ditching. You will feel better about yourself. Stop telling people like her about your private life. If you hand some people a bat, they shall beat you with it. Certain types cannot help themselves so keep your painful life problems to those you can trust, or say nothing at all. I learned the hard way that the 3 wise monkeys mantra is true.

Some amazing posts here!!!

I agree completelyyyyy, just like rich people aren't the ones who go around drowning in Gucci talking about how much money they have. When you have it, you know, so you just keep it to yourself.

I feel like she competes with me it really urks me.

When we have been out together there have been times that women have gone on and on about how 'beautiful I am' to which she responds 'jokingly' 'what about me girls?'

She knows I have body dysmorphic disorder and she's forever telling me how drop dead gorgeous everyone says she's is. I personally don't see it, but you would literally think she is a supermodel the way she goes on and on.

As to why I attract these type of people? I have reflected upon this, and I think it's because I have very deep insecurities from a relationship I had when I was 18, the man who took my virginity was a class A dickhead. It's almost as if people now smell the lack of self esteem on me and I attract arseholes who feed off of it.

Also, as s teen/early 20 year old, I always hung around with the 'best of the best.' the prettiest,most intelligent etc. All of my friends are consultant doctors now and the ones who were attractive were always labelled the prettiest girls in the entire borough etc. It's given me a skewed perception of what normal is.

I am also a mess because women have always been very very complimentary about my looks and men have said the most awful things. I recently had a guy call me pleasently ugly, but then continue to pursue me romantically. He came back and said he had reflected and realised that 'i wasnt that bad so he might as well see what happens.'

This is very confusing when female strangers will regularly tell you how beautiful you are and men have called me every insult imaginableeee. It's like I don't know where I fit 😕

Compliments are nice, but the only opinion about your appearance that matters is your own opinion. Anyone who insults or compares is a piece of shit - and very likely lacking confidence in their own appearance.
Ditch her. Hang out with people you like, they don't have to be beautiful or intelligent. Take a little break from dating to build your confidence.

My post sounded totally wrong, what I meant was that thats just how my friendship group ended up it wasn't intentional. And it was extremelyyyy unhealthy

Block and delete. She’s not your friend.

Also fwiw, 99% of the time someone claims to look several years younger than they are, they are either flat out lying or don’t realise that whoever told them this was trying to flatter them. It’s not uncommon to look good for your age but looking a decade younger is rare.

I knew someone who used to do this op. He was really wealthy but used to chat away to friends with money worries about how it was such a responsibility having a trust fund and how he couldn’t really relate to job loss concerns as his father has told him he could retire at 45 given the balance of the trust fund etc etc.

Took me awhile to realise that actually he enjoyed the power trip this gave him to be the “have” lording it over the “have nots”.

Years later guess what? Turned out all the money stuff was lies. He didn’t have a trust fund at all. His dp found out and told me - she was furious.

Back to your situation - this person isn’t a good friend. She’s getting a kick out of comparing whether she realises it or not.

I also don’t believe everything she’s telling you!

She’s a liar.

Friendship has its ups and downs but should be a generally positive experience. It sounds like this isn’t, so why are you bothering? I can never understand how people end up in this weird, sometimes codependent friendships, that make them miserable. Just stop talking to her.

I had a friend like that. She was lying. Eventually all the lies she'd told various people got found out and yet she still lied about it all, and I cut her off. Life is much nicer without her.

She's tactless at best, trying to keep you in your place at worse. In short I think you'd better stop considering her a friend and think of her as an acquaintance.

Take it as evidence that you are not good friends, and she's more of a frenemy.

If you want to keep her around, don't confide in her any more. You need someone who has your back for that.

It sounds like you may need to work on your boundaries with men (and friends). (With the "pleasantly ugly" bloke, I hope you told him to fuck the fuck off immediately?) Don't give people like that chances, anyone who puts you down needs to get swerved.

As to why I attract these type of people? I have reflected upon this, and I think it's because I have very deep insecurities from a relationship I had when I was 18, the man who took my virginity was a class A dickhead. It's almost as if people now smell the lack of self esteem on me and I attract arseholes who feed off of it

You've had some great advice.

The thing is, we all attract people like this. The difference is that people with high self esteen don't entertain it. Have you heard the shark cage analogy? Well it's not only men who will bang at your bars - some women will do too. And it's usually women with low self esteem themselves. It just manifests iin a different way.

She's not your friend. That's the first thing you need to understand. You've got yourself a good, old fashioned 'frenemy'.

She deflects compliments to your with "What about me girls" because she's jealous of the attention you're getting in that moment. And I can pretty much guarantee that she is not stopped by multiple men telling her how beautiful she is. That just doesn't happen.

She is aiming to make herself feel better by bringing you down.

And, while it's true what a pp said that other people's opinion f you doesn't matter, it's what you think that counts but when your appearance is constantly commented on by others both negatively ad positively, it does begin to feel like it is more important than it is and you start to doubt your own opinion of yourself.

Personally, I would create distance. If you can cut her off completely, I would. If not, then let her drop to being a member of the friendship group and not the one you confide in.

You don't attract people like these men and your friend, but you do keep them when others would have told them to fuck off.

Person A (let's call her Alice) has a high self-esteem and believes they are worthy of love and respect. Person B (Bea) is their identical twin but was separated at birth and grew up with low self-esteem and feeling 'not good enough'.

Like a Sliding Doors scenario they meet the exact same people dating and socially.

When Alice spots red flags they trust themselves to know how they deserve to be treated. They have strong personal boundaries and aren't afraid to walk away pretty early on if people cross them because they trust that better friendships and relationships will come. As a result, Alice only has people in their life who they feel they can trust and that add something to their lives. If you really dug deep they'll be able to remember a few random encounters or short lived friendships/relationships with people who they didn't click with or where there was a weird red flag of some kind that made them back off. These have made an occasional amusing story at the pub told to their group of lovely mates.

Alice has a lovely relationship with a decent guy and a small but perfectly formed group of close friends. Alice is grateful but doesn't even think about whether they 'deserve' this or not, because having good relationships is natural to them.

Bea also spots red flags but because of their low self-esteem they doubt themselves - "maybe what that person said wasn't that rude", "maybe I'm being over-sensitive", "maybe that guy was just having a bad day and I was being annoying".

So multiple red flags pass by which are noticed but buried. Sometimes the red flags are brought up by Bea, but the other people sense she can be gaslighted into feeling that she's the one with the problem and can even sometimes make her apologise for it (which they do, because they are emotionally unbalanced for their own personal reasons).

Deep down, Bea doesn't feel fully 'good enough' and worthy of being treated well, maybe they didn't have a great relationship with both parents which means they don't have a solid basis of how a great relationship (platonic or romantic) should feel.

This means Bea's life is full of the assholes that Alice walked away from. Bea has less nice people in their life because their time is being wasted on the assholes, leaving less time and room to meet and grow new friendships and relationships with decent people.

Bea wonders what's wrong with them that they attract so many horrible people and, because they have low self-esteem already, interprets this to mean that there is something fundamentally 'not good enough' about them...like they always knew.

I had one like this

She messaged me about 18 months ago

'you just cannot seen to meet a man and you are desperate to settle down and have kids - everyone else can and you cannot. Haha what do you do wrong'.

Please read my recent post for context as to how badly I have been treated.

After this message I ghosted her -
Found out she was telling everyone all about my reaction but no reason why I did it.

Never want to see her again. And she was very similar going on and on and on about her new fiance from Bumble who asked to marry her after six months. I never met him which was very weird.