If a friend mocked you, would you want to continue the friendship?

[Snappythecrocodile1]

If they'd called you 'boring' 'granny' behind your back and said 'I've realised we're very different' 'stresshead' and because you'd said something innocuous such as 'you didn't like spending all day at the beach' they'd twisted this and said 'omg, she said she doesn't like going to the beach wtf!' Then mimicked your voice in front of you in a high-pitched way.

Would you feel comfortable with this person and be able to trust them? It's the way they've acted like this rather than just speaking to your face if there is an issue. Mocking behind your back and calling you names isn't great.

But this isn’t a friendship?!? She doesn’t like you and you don’t like her because she makes that clear. So, if you are asking would I be friends with someone who doesn’t like me and tells me that, the answer is no.

Absolutely not. This 'friend' doesn't like or respect you. They are just using you as material for jokes with others.

This person is not your friend. In fact, they have fundamentally misunderstood friendship. Please do not allow this person into your life. Everything will be much better once you break free. This has massive school bully vibes.

Who told you they said these things behind your back?
In situations like this id always be very wary of the tittle tattlier

Sounds like the result of a frustrating holiday where you want to do different things. You don’t have to be alike to be friends but need some common ground and give and take. Was it said in frustration at a change of plan or over a period of time. Name calling is childish and not something a friend does.

What is the point of a friend who isn't nice to you to you face or behind your back?

Ditch.

I have a friend who I see weekly for a mutual hobby who is like this. She is adamant she knows best about everything. While she is bright she often doesn't research things that are important to be so confident in discussions and states her opinions as facts. I have had to bite my tongue so many times but now I feel it is interesting to observe her wittering on about something she clearly has no clue on as if she knows everything there is to know about it, because she once met someone and has 2 degrees. If you can look at it as her showing her own weaknesses (needing to be right, being argumentative, having little compassion) then you can see her and not be as affected.

@somethingnewandexcitingcan I ask why you refer to someone you don’t like as ‘your friend’ ?

There’s a lot of people on here seem to confuse a friend with someone they have known a long time.

I am not 12, so no way could I be bothered with so much childish drama over absolutely nothing.

I wouldn't even think about "ending the friendship", I would roll my eyes, ignore them and just not see them.

Yes! They do, and it's deeply bizarre. It comes up again and again.

But I think it comes from a view that is surprisingly widespread on Mn, and to me very odd -- that friendship doesn't involve individual mutual liking and an active choice, more just sort of proximity. I've lost count of the number of threads where an OP complains about the behaviour of a longtime 'friend', and as the thread goes on it becomes plain that, far from being friends, they've never particularly liked one another, in some cases have never had a one-on-one conversation in twenty years of knowing one another, and they're only in one another's lives at all because they socialise in the same big group, or their boyfriends/spouses are friends.

And there’s an even higher number of marriages/partnerships between man and woman where they don’t like each other at all. And seemingly never did.

I find it really sad that there are so many threads on here by posters about "friends", partners and husbands where these people are anything but good friends, partners or husbands.

That so many women have such low esteem that they would rather have these people in their lives than be alone is awful. I fully understand that if you are living with someone then it is more difficult to extricate yourself, especially when finances are involved.

You're right. Is it odd that it find those more explicable, somehow?

I suppose I think there are cultural pressures at play in relationships/marriages that aren't in the case of friendships -- for some women, not getting married at a particular life stage is as unthinkable as cutting your own arm off, and, of course, judging by the number of pronouncements on Mn about the impossibility of opposite-sex friendships, many women will literally not know any men of their generation, other than whoever they're in a relationship with, so they have nothing to compare with. And/or their ideas of what is normal in a relationship is based on some very poor examples. Plus when you add in monogamy, shared finances, a shared household, and the gruntwork of raising children together, there's a lot more pressure on a marriage/relationships than on friendships. And, as @RampantIvy says, it can be difficult to extricate yourself.

Friends, on the other hand, are literally just people you like and are drawn to. You can have as many or as few of them as you like, and friendships are not usually stressed by shared finances, childrearing etc. Ending friendships is easy. There seems no reason to have 'friends' you don't like.

No.

I've had people say things about me, that I'd said abc when I absolutely hadn't. Mean spirited shit stirring. So I would be very wary of the person who told you.

I would ask her upfront. I've heard the following that you said about me: abc. Is there any truth in that? And then listen.

It depends on whether it crosses my line or makes me uncomfortable.

I would calmly call her out on it.....Then take a step back.

@Snappythecrocodile1 I don’t know where all the “you clearly don’t like her” has come from as you’ve just described a situation rather than passing a judgement. But anyway. YANBU to ditch this so-called friend and never look back. Imitating someone’s voice in a mocking manner is horrible behaviour. That would be enough for me to get rid.

That’s not a friend. Ditch. Not a slow fade, an immediate dump.

Scatty biarch
Ask her...then see what she says

In what way is she your 'friend', exactly? You don't like her and your interaction with her consists of her talking bollocks and you sitting there judging her for it and contemplating her weaknesses. Why would you consider this to be a 'friendship'?

I think you can see someones flaws but also still like other parts of them. People aren't black and white entities or good or bad.

Oh dear me, this sounds like so much hard work.....

Sounds really really mean and unpleasant.

I wouldn’t socialise with these people again. And would politely decline any invitations to socialise.