Is Your Best Friend Your Bully?
Dear Rachel,
I have a friend who puts me down a lot and points out all the wrong things about me, but I have to be friends with her because I have no other friends — well best friends, that is. I want a friend who I can invite over and she won’t point out that my shirt doesn’t match or I am stupid because I am not in advanced math like her. Plus she ditches me for other people. Will I ever find a friend? What should I do?
–S.
Dear S.,
Okay, huge, huge hug from me. That’s the first thing.
Next: This girl is not your friend, okay? Friends don’t put you down a lot. They don’t point out the things that are wrong about you. They don’t tell you that you’re stupid or ditch you for other people.
This girl? She’s not your friend. She’s your bully. If you think a bully is some big dude in the schoolyard who steals people’s lunch money, you’ve only got part of the story. Truth is, girls often bully their friends. Crazy, right? But it’s true. Too many girls put up with terrible behavior from their friends because they keep calling them “friends.”
So what are you going to do? First of all, I want you to talk to an adult or friend you trust about what’s happening. Don’t go through this alone. Second, I want you to stop calling this girl a friend, at least in your head. There is no such thing as a part time friend. It’s 24-7 or nothing. Feel me?
Third, you need to start friend dating. That’s right, friend dating. Just like people who get dumped romantically need to play the field and meet someone new, the same thing is true when you need to make a new friend. Put yourself in situations where you can meet new girls. Join a new club or team. Sit down at a new lunch table. Ask a girl you like if you can be partners on a project. Chat or text someone you want to get to know better. Trust me. I’ve done it – I’m doing it right now, actually. It’s not always easy, and sometimes you get duds – just like real dates. But sometimes you click, and it’s awesome.
Should you tell your NOT-friend to stop treating you like that? Sure, if you want to. You can give her a chance to change. But I don’t have a good feeling about her at all. I think you should move on and find someone who can respect and love the awesomeness that is you.
Remember: part time jobs are okay. Part time friends: NEVER.
Take care, good luck, and let me know what happens!!
Rachel
I have this bestfriend who I have known for eight years now and all of a sudden she tells me she doesn’t want to be my friend any more. Starts to give me hate and calls me names. Ignores me at school, tells me not to talk to her. She been hanging around with the popular group and some of them like me but some don’t. I think it counts as bullying what shes doing to me, but I’m not sure. What do I do, need help because I’m only twelve and girls are dramatic and attention seeking at this age. But I don’t know what to do, any advice?
There is a girl I used to be really good friends with but then she kept saying that I ditched and I said that she is so ugly how do people get this idea that people dont even say it and then shes like quit giving me dirty looks and i said im not giviny you dirty looks so just put a sock in it and i go thru a lot of things and she said I get treated like dirt and im like you alwaysnare saying how much your parents are always spoiling you and im like if you were in my shoesnyou would know what I go thru
I’m from Ireland and am just going in to second year in secondary school. I’ve had this friend since 2nd class (6yrs) and have known her for nine years. Lately, however, she has been extremely mean to me and always thinks she is the queen bee and that everyone loves her. She bosses my whole group of friends around and seeks attention 24/7. She has also been bullying me for most of the years I’ve known her but I was to blind to see it because as a child i was more of a tomboy and only really had one girl friend and the rest were guys so when she was mean i just thought that it was normal to put up with that and therefore i got so used to it it took me five years to figure out just how mean she is to me by making a few new friends and looking at their friendships and how unmean they all are to each other. My “friend” tells me to shut up at least once a day and if i say something she would say omg nobody cares stupid. She is so bitchy to people and always gossips about others behind their backs to me, which makes me think about what she might say about me to other people. She manipulates my judgement and if i see a nice dress and say i think i might get that she would straight into my face go, no that wouldnt suit you, its to tight…and then go and try it on herself, even though (this may sound bitchy) im slimmer than her. She is starting to do the same thing to my other friend but even though she said she notices how mean she is she still wants to be her friend. I really dont know what to do. I feel like if i unfriend her, im putting everyone down. Her mam is bestos with mine, her brother is really good friends with my sister and my cousins and if i leave her ill be leaving the rest of my friends… What should i do?!
Please help,
Love Keeva xx
My friend in a group of friends that I’m in has been picking on me, ever since she’s been hanging out with this other “newly found” group she’s been acting like I am a worthless piece of trash. She picks on me and then snickers about it to a nearby “friend” . I know I’m not worthless and that the right thing to do is just give up on her, but I feel like each and every one of my friends has a piece of my heart and when I lose one her piece breaks away and a part of me is gone. That has happened to me before and I was and still and sad about it. I know I shouldn’t be friends with someone who makes me cry and feel horrible about myself almost every night. That’s not all though, when I come home my 15 year old older brother (I’m 13) calls me a fat, ugly, Jew. I am not fat nor ugly and not a Jew. I know it’s a joke to him but I don’t think right know that there is any one that I can run to and talk to. That is why I ended up here, hopeing that I could find someone who could help me, that I can be myself around.
Please help
hey everybody,
I have a friend who is sometimes mean to me and she sometimes ignores me and she also sometimes gets mad at me for saying or asking more than once( the only reason i do that is because i did not know if she hear me) i don’t know if i should still be friends with her, she also hangs out more with another girl and “we” almost don’t hang out anymore…..
what should i do!!!
please help……
I’m best friends with a boy, which makes it more difficult to understand each other. We argue a lot via bbm for BlackBerry phones. And the closer we became, the more stressful it became. So more arguments happened. Last night, he deleted bbm because we were arguing. I feel like I can’t be his friend when he always makes me cry and never listens to me, he just makes me hate myself. What should I do?
just stand up 4 urself.
My boyfriend has a female best friend (fbf) for the past 15 years. He is very involved with her kids as their fathers are not. He gets up early to put his fbf’s kids on the bus for school and he sets his work schedule to help pick up her kids from day care and watch them until she gets home from work. I am not aware of any quality time that they spend together, only the time he spends helping her. I work two jobs so my time with him is limited. As a result, I have to plan my time with him. I feel like his fbf will intentionally be late when he has plans with me to cause him to be late and cause tention. For the past year of my relationship with him, his fbf has been cold with me yet pretends to be nice in front of him. A couple days ago, she made extensive personal attacks on me via very long text messages. His fbf said that I was putting him in a position to choose between us even though I told him to keep being friends with her – just not to include me in their “get togethers”. I felt like his fbf was bullying me and trying to sabotage my relationship with him. She then sent text messages to my friends to try and turn them against me, which didn’t work. Then she sent my boyfriend a text that she didn’t want to be his friend anymore because he didn’t want to take sides. She then had him turn in his key and refused him time with her kids or her dog that he’s been taking care of for the past couple years. I know he loves me, but he also won’t stick up for me or himself to say that this attack and manipulation tactic is hurtful, unnecessary, childish, and will affect her kids the most. I know he is devestated by this whole ordeal but I don’t know how to make things right. Another mutual friend told me to give it some time and then extend an olive branch to try and smooth things over with her; however, after this situation, I don’t know if I want to subject myself to further abuse from her. Nor do I trust her. However, I really don’t want my boyfriend to lose contact with her kids because he loves them so much. Please help.
Hi everybody,
this is my first year in middle school and I have some really good friends. This year this new girl moved here and we met and became friends. There’s a problem though. She always is angry at me, and when she is she bullies me, and only apologies when I start to cry. I want to not be friends anymore, but I don’t wanna get bullied. What should I do?????
-Katie Frazier
Hi
I have a BFF she is ditching me for my ex BFF and she didn’t even like her before but suddenly them to we’re BFF .
She always has goes at me and then I say why do you do that and she has a go at me saying why cant you take a joke .
And when I hug someone else she has a go at them and me
And when I walk of with someone else she goes to me thanks for ditching me
What shall I do ? Please help xxxxx
Dear Hollie,
I have gone through this. If your friend is ditching you, she’s not your BFF. At this point you need to walk away. This can be hard if you’re at a small school. Don’t let her hold you back from making other friends.. If she isn’t backing down its time to tell an adult. You can always find other friends. Sometimes you can’t save a friend from the ex BFF.
Carmela.
Hi everyone,
Last year I was the new girl at my high school (I am a junior now). Before moving here I was living abroad and so I really don’t mind moving — it’s quite easy for me to adjust to new places! I wasn’t worried about it at all, and I made good friends quickly. However, the very first girl i met when i moved in was really… pushy. She put me down on the clothes I would wear (I wore a camisole to her house once on a very hot summer’s day and she told me I looked like a “slut”), how I acted and told me repeatedly that I needed to get a boyfriend (and fast!). Of course, I was the new girl — I didn’t want a boyfriend immediately! I didn’t even have any guy friends! After about two weeks of her dragging me behind her everywhere she went and basically making me feel like a pathetic follower, she dumped me for a group that looked down on me and made bad decisions (like smoking). I was happy about this, and moved on to others. a few months later, she approached me and asked if we could be friends again. I suspect that the reason for this is because these other “friends” of hers dumped her… not many people like this girl at school, which made me feel bad for her in the first place and why I didn’t move on from her sooner. I told her carefully that we had gone our seperate ways, but of course we could still be friendly. Now she has offered to drive me to school every morning, and she has told me that she “can’t wait to become good friends again!” What do I do? I’ve already been in a weird half-friendship before (which isn’t really a friendship at all) with her, which I hated, but I don’t want to be mean because she doesn’t have a lot of friends! Please someone help…. (:
Dear Abby,
I’ve been in a basically the exact same situation you’ve been in, dealing with a sort of “half-friend” for part of my junior year. This girls seemed so nice andcool and I really wanted her to like me. We started becoming closer friends and even joined school gymnastics together. After about a few months though, her true colors started coming out. She would start ignoring me or acting mad and I’d have no idea what I’d done wrong, then she’d switch back to being nice to me the next day! She would also say really hurtful things like calling me a loser or bitch, and then walking away, assuming I would get the “joke.” Truth is, this is an extremely sticky situation for anyone to deal with and no one wants to reject someone who doesn’t have many friends to start with. But what I soon realized was when it comes right down to it, I need to respect myself and stand up no matter what the consequences would be for this so-called “friend. Although sometimes this may feel like you’re being rude or mean I promise that you’re not. If u have love and respect for yourself then you’ll see that it’s not fair to put yourself through this unhealthy friendship and that when you come right down to it, it is NOT your responsibility to have to be a friend to this person who is nothing less than a bully to you. That doesn’t mean you have to start completely ignoring that person, but it’s important that you know where to draw the line in this friendship and keep your distance. That is exactly what I did and eventually the girl went off and found another group to cling to. In the end, you may even be showing her a good example, that if she treats friends this way, she soon wont have many friends as a result. Sorry this was so long I kinda start to babble! Hope this helps you! Oh and I wouldn’t take the driving to school offer if I were you! I would just say my parents are driving me sorry or else I’m walking. Good luck!