So backstory is that me and this girl (Sally) have been friends since we were children and we’re now both part of a larger friend group that meet up several times a year. I would say she’s my closest friend. Sally has always been very confident, stubborn and out-spoken, and she can come off as a little rude or insensitive at times. However I know she never intends to hurt anyone so I’ve always just laughed off her comments.
For the last year or so I’ve had this weird anxious feeling every time I spent time with the group. I started dreading spending time with them and I had this sinking feeling in my stomach when I got home. I couldn’t really say why, but the feeling kept persisting. I did notice that the feeling only came with this group, not with anyone else. Then last week I think I figured out were this feeling comes from.
We met up with the group to hang out and I was pretty excited because I’ve just graduated and landed my first “adult” job and I hadn’t told anyone yet. One of my friends asks me about my job search and I tell the news – she was really happy for me and her and some of the others congratulate me – normal polite stuff. Sally then sits down next to me and asks me what’s up and I tell her that I’ve found a job. She goes “that’s the news?” in a really rude and unimpressed tone of voice and then starts scrolling on her phone. I was a little taken aback by this reaction to be honest. She then asks me what kind of job it is, I reply and she ignores this and instead starts showing me pictures on her phone. Not even a tiny congratulations. I was pretty hurt by her reaction but I thought she might be tired so I let it pass.
Later my SO was talking about how proud he was of me for landing a job so quickly. Sally was sitting next to me and when she heard this, she turned to look at me and said that I probably only got it because no one else wanted to work there. She then went on and on about how I was going to hate the commute and told about one of her friends who had regretted getting a job in that city. And meanwhile I was just sitting there like… what is going on? She hasn’t even given me a tiny congratulations but she keeps making these snide remarks. I felt awful and the rest of the time we spent together I could feel my body tensing up. I’m all for poking fun of each other but these comments didn’t feel like fun, especially because she couldn’t even muster up a “good job”.
Since then I’ve realized that this is a pattern in our friendship. I always support her, congratulate her and generally try to build her up because I think she’s smart and capable and she deserves the good things that comes to her. But this is never reciprocated. She seems to be unable to be happy for me and when something good happens to me she reacts by acting negative, unimpressed, and snarky.
It sucks because it’s hurtful and I feel like a sensitive princess for not just laughing along. But I don’t know what to do now. I don’t want to cut her out of my life but I think I need a break or some distance. My SO seems to think I’m over reacting and it feels like he doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong besides being a little tone deaf. Am I over reacting? Should I just get over it? Or am I justified in feeling hurt and needing space? How do I go about creating distance when we’re part of the same group of friends?
**tl;dr**: My friend makes snarky comments whenever something good happens to me. It seems like she’s unable to feel happy for me and I’m staring to feel anxious and nervous around her. How do I handle this situation?
23 comments
Forget what your SO says. Even if you are overreacting (which you are not), they are your feelings and you don’t need to justify them.
Here’s my suggestion: Ignore her. You should still be friends but if she says or does something that is unsupportive, ignore her. Don’t let what she say ruin your happy.
You can limit your contact, you can go nc, you can even go scorched earth, but I don’t feel you want that. You want her to be a better person. She isn’t. Ignore her unsupportiveness.
Congrats on the new job!!!!!
Easy answer, I haven’t read this all but if they can never be happy for you then you DO NOT need them in your life. You’d be better off cutting all ties with them as over time they will feel like a bag of bricks holding you down!
Find someone who supports you and is reliable!
xoxo
Call her out on it.
Or drop her and find a real friend.
I wouldn’t be friends with a person like this if this is her pattern. If it was a one time thing, I would think maybe something’s up, let’s talk, but this is just who she is, a miserable jealous (insert a forbidden word) who feels the need to shit on someone else’s happiness in order to feel better about herself. If you don’t want to cut off the whole group, just keep your distance from her in particular. Information diet, don’t tell her anything personal, don’t give her attention at all and lower your expectations completely. Pretend like you just met, be polite but disinterested in her.
Call her on it. When she makes a snarky comment repeat it back to her and tell her that you are hurt that she thinks so little of you. Ask her why she would say something so mean. If she continues to do this i would tell her she’s very negative and says such mean things and I simply can not be friends with her any more. You will out grow friends over the years. It sucks, but that is what happens.
This friendship sounds one sided. Is this really what you want?
Stop supporting her. And ignore her comments in the future. She doesn’t have any credibility to be taken seriously. She can’t be happy for herself so she can’t be happy for anyone else.
Congrats on your job!!
I had a friend like this. For almost 20 years. Dropped her last year. Long story short, Sally is jealous of you and sees you as a threat.
OP, i have (or had) a friend very similar to yours and recently dealt with the same exact situation (got a new job, shared the news and felt not much happiness or enthusiasm for me). We fell out not long after and it’s not only because of this incident but i finally accepted that this friendship is one-sided. I understood that she only ever reaches out to me as a last resort or on occasions to rub her life to me. I have been long feeling resentful towards her and anxious everytime she texts me and she said something completely distasteful to me and called it a compliment when I confronted (finally) what she means the last time we spoke. Her reply wasn’t convincing and I’m at this point too hurt to go back. So, i completely stopped speaking to her. That’s it. I archived our chats, limited my conversation to “happy birthday ” once a year.
Initially it’s hard to remain quiet as you start wondering if you’re petty but trust me, it isn’t worth putting your heart intk this friendship anymore. Simply be cordial when you meet, never share so much about your life and never expect sisterhood out of this friend. Let’s maintain our ground and respectfully pause the friendship. If it’s meant to be, let’s hope we all grow out of this phase. But until then, good luck on your new job and I wish you all success 🙂
Send her a text with the word “congratulations” followed by the definition. Let her know this is the word you’re supposed to tell someone when they have good news. Maybe hint she’d never heard of it before?
I get you don’t want to cut her out of your life, especially since you have a shared friendly group, but she’s not your friend and never has been. She’s just a rude acquaintance that gets off on feeling better than you. Time to downgrade her.
What’s the point of having a friend if they only wants to make you feel crappy?
Honestly, this sounds like a friendship I had that has since ended with someone that I considered a very close friend. I have a longer comment about her somewhere in my history, so I’ll keep it short here.
I consider myself smart and fairly successful, I’ve always had decent jobs and nice places to live, I have good friends and I’ve had good relationships. This one “friend” in particular would always find subtle ways to put me down. Never anything egregious, and not usually directly about me. Like calling the town I lived in trashy (it wasn’t), negative comments about my friends or guys I liked.
It came to a head when we were out and a guy was hitting on me and she made fun of him and made me feel silly for entertaining it only for her to turn around and give him her number. She always found ways to look down on me, in that case she didn’t think I was worthy of a guy’s attention over her. And that was the moment it became clear for me.
You could ignore her and stay friends, but ultimately, friends that don’t lift you up and celebrate your successes are not the kind of people you want to maintain close relationships with.
My best friend has a bad habit of starting his response with “no” even if he agrees with you. I’ve gotten on him over the years about it but what finally got through to him was saying “Yes and!” every time he does it.
It’s just a simple thespian concept for keeping a scene going. Even if you disagree with someone (that you want to be on good terms with at least) respond with a ‘Yes and’.
Some people have a really hard time internalizing a skillset for positive interactions with people. It does take practice.
Your “friend” is insecure & jealous of you— and over the past 10 years or maybe more her jealousy has probably grown and grown? — Lemme guess: you went to a better school than her? Have achieved more than her? Save your time and just move on / cut this person out of your life. “I know she never intends to hurt anyone” — uh, she just hurt you. You body is dreading being in her presence—“sinking feeling” ( but your mind isn’t there yet). It sounds like you don’t like confrontation — so many “best friends” end up being petty and toxic and jealous. Time to move on to a new phase of your life
Before you create distance with her, have a conversation where you tell her, “I feel like I always support you, congratulate you, and generally build you up but it’s not reciprocated.” Then give her the example of when you got a job and she couldn’t be happy for you.
You need to communicate your concerns and give her the opportunity to change before you cut her off. If she scoffs at you and doesn’t care or she makes it seem like you are the problem, then you have your answer.
Your hurt feelings are justified. Your friend sounds immature and overall not a very nice person. I think your views of her are from the past and just looking at her with rose colored glasses. Even strangers behave more kindly than your so-called friend. IMO, you just tell her straight up, then cut her out if the behavior doesn’t change. Why purposely keep seeing someone who is a net negative on your life?
Is your friend like this with everyone?
It sounds like your friend is jealous of your accomplishments, and if she is not the centre of attention, she makes other feel bad. Many people like your friend, secretly believe they are failures and when someone around them succeeds at something, they try to make the person that is having the success feel as shitty about themselves as she does about herself.
I don’t think you’re overreacting at all. Not to mention your fiancé’s reaction was very dismissive to an obvious issue. He should not witness that situation and excuse or dismiss it. He should be in your corner. I hope that’s an isolated incident and not a pattern with the close people in your life. That’s a separate conversation though.
There’s lots of reasons why someone might behave the way she has but rest assured it’s all projection of internal issues of her own. Typically generated from jealousy and a deep sense of self loathing.
That said, she is wayyy too grown to be still behaving this way. You’re also way too grown to continue accepting this kind of treatment. I can tell you first hand, keeping someone like this in your life does incredible damage to your self esteem. It’s subtle and slow but it chips away at until one day something just snaps.
That anxiousness and nervousness you feel around her is your body telling you this person isn’t safe anymore. It’s a physical expression of this friendship literally becoming toxic to you.
I’m really not trying to be over dramatic. It’s just I’ve been through this and did a few years of therapy to move past it. I was a year older than you are now. I ended 15 years of friendship with the woman who knew me better than anyone in the world. Better than my husband does. Her family was like my family. But she displayed similarly narcissistic tendencies as your friend and tore me down any chance she could. Any time I shared my own successes, joy, or enthusiasm that wasn’t shared or related to her I was met with coldness, derisiveness, and criticism. It was a constant rollercoaster with her.
It’s no way to live. For your own inner peace and growth, I suggest you distance yourself big time. In my situation, I had to go full no contact to heal and move on. Keeping people like this in your close circle eats away at you. The juice is not worth the squeeze. Time to level up and leave people like her in the past. Maybe one day she will heal and move up too, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.
I would suggest that any time she starts being negative, you speak up. “Can you say anything positive?” When she’s being tone deaf, call her out on it. I have a friend that is like this and any time he speaks negatively, I just straight up call him on it. I suspect that no one has ever done that before. I know that in our friend group, none of them have. My reasoning for doing this is twofold: how will he learn/know when he’s being intolerable and two, why should I put up with it? If he wanted to drop me as a friend, I would be fine with it, but he has yet to do so, even after many years. He knows I’m going to shoot straight with him. Interestingly, he actually asks me for advice now.
It just depends now on whether or not you want to keep this friendship or tell her that it’s run its course. If you think that it’s over, that’s okay too. People outgrow relationships all the time, and that includes friendships.
Since she’s part of a friend group, it will be difficult if you want to remain in that group. Stop reaching out to her individually. If she reaches out to you, take time before you respond, if you even do respond. In the group, treat her like a friend of a friend. Be cordial but not overly friendly.
I had a best friend for over ten years who I loved deeply. I won’t even get into why we stopped talking but after we did I started realizing like what you are mentioning. That she was always making little rude comments about stuff she wasn’t into. She was really supportive as long as I was being “cool” or we were doing what she wanted. When I met her I wasn’t cool. I was really sheltered as a child and a teen. So when I met her I was so impressed with her “coolness” I didn’t mind when she wanted me to change my clothes or only listen to “cool” music. We were attached at the hip for over a decade. But the thing is I’m 40 now. I no longer care if what I like is “cool” and “hip” I just want to be myself. I never really paid attention to her digs when I was younger because I just thought she was helping me out. But partying and being cool aren’t priorities for me anymore. I’ve got a husband and a family that like me just the way I am. It’s weird because I loved her so deeply and when we stopped talking … I felt nothing. Even now I just don’t even miss her. Every once in a while she will send me a message saying she wants to be friends, but even in the messages I can see that she is putting me down at least a little and not really apologizing for anything she did.
Sometimes we love people and we can’t even see how they are putting us down because we think the best of them. Seriously just back away from that “friendship “ you’ll be surprised how much more comfortable you are. And it’s a win /win because even if she redeems herself in some way you can always choose to let her back in your life. But back away and see how you feel.
Cut them out of your life. Also look up captain awkward website for stuff like this, very helpful.
Life is too short to deal with toxic people.
I’ve been where you are, and many of us have. People like Sally are insecure and unhappy with themselves so they put others down to try to feel better.
Delete her from your life and call out her bullshit.
Get rid of these kind of friends. Sorry to say it so blunt. You will not do yourself a favour and try to hide success stories from her in the future, and you will also not do her a favour, seeming she has always the need to compare and feeling unhappy. It s different if she says,”hey, I m really happy for you, sometimes I wish I could land a job like this, I m a little bit sad that I m not achieving what you achieve, but you really deserve it and I m glad you made it!”, instead of “that s the news??”. You say it s a pattern. So again. First sentence.