My friend insults me and keeps copying me, and pretending to like the things I like?

” Friend? ”

Time to move one here.

@Neodarwinian You’re so so so right. But I am an idiot. Somehow I always give her a chance, and we’ve been close for 5 years now. I just think that she is different and I can be myself around her, but at the same time I recently realized that she isn’t giving me anything at all.

I do live with her now though. So I can’t just move on… Or can I? How?

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

I mean all I wanna know is what’s up with her. Why she does or says the things she does. So I can have a better understanding of her as a person, and act according to that to protect myself.

@lovelessness

” I do live with her now though ”

Tough one.

Counseling perhaps? Perhaps you will have to move out if this does not yield to mediation.

Why deal with her at all? I show toxic people the exit door.

She lives with you? As in you’re roommates? You’ll need to deal with that.

To me, this sound like how my brother and I communicate.

we’re so close that we use deprecating humor against each other. It’s an unspoken understanding between us, that the mean things we say to each other are just verbal pokes in the ribs, not to be taken seriously. For a Fluther example, see any exchange between ragingloli and ucme.

maybe she just doesn’t realise you’re not in on the joke?

Have you tried discussing this with her; explaining how much it bothers you and maybe trying to communicate your distress?

@rojo Well sometimes I make remarks like, “how do you know that song?” ( she would play these songs that I would listen to all the time that none of our friends know of)

Or, I would tell her to find herself, follow what she truly loves and feels passionate about (so that she won’t do all the things I do and takes credit for it!)

Once I wrote poetry at night, and i showed it to her, then ext morning i looked at her laptop and a couple of minutes she had written one too! AND SHE NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT IT! And she never writes poetry, I always do. So I asked her, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?!” and she was like “Why would I…?” in like this careless tone without even looking at my face. Waaat?!

So I mean I try, but It would be too awkward for me to bluntly say to her, stop copying me you b.

uh…

just FYI, you don’t own poetry. most people scribble a little bit at some point in their lives.

@lovelessness You’re on a path to disaster, basically living with someone who you don’t like. If she’s doing all this, you have to tell her it upsets you. I lost a friend by being honest with her, at least twice now, but it is what it is. You can’t be friends when only one of you is happy and the other is getting hurt consistantly.

@lovelessness
_“Once I wrote poetry at night, and i showed it to her, then ext morning i looked at her laptop…....”
I was expecting your next sentence to be “I see my poetry word for word.” but it is “and a couple of minutes she had written one too!” My guess is maybe she looks upto you? Imitation is the sincierest form of flattery.

You seem really stressed out by her. Why do you care so much about her opinion if she offends you? She wrote poetry after you, who cares? Don’t spend your life worried about her. You don’t have to be her friend anyway, even if she lives with you.

@Seek_Kolinahr @dxs Because, she takes credit for it. She plays the songs I play, without even telling me. I tell her everything, my ideas, what I did today that was interesting, and the next minute I know she’s making a project about something I did and doing it for experiment. She’s so sneaky. I joined theatre, she joined too without even telling me she auditioned.

The weird part of poetry is that she doesn’t do that. She would tell everyone else BUT me that she wrote something inspired from the same thing that I was. She basically takes credit.

And tha’ts what bothers me the most. I don’t care if she copies me all the time, but if she starts taking credit for being how I am and pretends like she is original around my friends, then it bothers me so much. Because she is being liked for the things that she stole from me.

I did an art piece on her notebook for fun, and the next minute she brought it to her class saying she made it and she told the class about all the philosophical meaning under it. (Exact same things I told her)

@KNOWITALL I’ll be honest with her… But I’m afraid that would mess with us living together. I don’t want that tention around…

I just wish I could understand WHY she is being like this. She could be her own person, why would anyone want to copy someone else and not respect the person’s originality? I can’t seem to comprehend the mentality under this. It seems very lame to me.

@lovelessness Oh, I’m sure it will, it did for me. No one likes to hear they make other people miserable, but sometimes the truth hurts.

I have a long convoluted story I can tell you if I need to, but rest assured, if you don’t say anything you will need to get away from her eventually or you’ll simply explode in a rage. :(

@KNOWITALL That’s exactly what I think will happen… This can’t go on forever, especially since we’re adults now, and both in the art industry. Things could get really irritating for me. I somehow hope she will handle it well…

Get a new friend.

Anyone who has seen Basic Instinct can tell you that that bitch might eventually [spoiler alert] stab you to death with an ice pick.

….“I did an art piece on her notebook for fun, and the next minute she brought it to her class saying she made it and she told the class about all the philosophical meaning under it. (Exact same things I told her)”
Now I see what you mean there.

Yeah. Stealing your artwork is a whole different story. You didn’t mention anything at that level earlier. It’s probably too much of a hassle to move, right? If you have a separate room with a door, then you could close it all the time. Don’t show her your artwork, either. You don’t have to give her the could shoulder, but you can definitely avoid her in many ways. Like what @KNOWITALL said, explain stuff to her, too.

But when it comes to “Like I got a new tattoo, and everyone loved it, and I asked her if she liked it and she was like “honestly… I like the one you erased better” (with smiling a lil bit)”
Do you think you would liked it better if she lied and told you she liked it?

She’s jealous of you. She somehow feels inferior to you in several ways, and since she cannot be you, this is the next best thing, in her mind anyway.

Ask your folks if you can go to counseling (with her or without her). I have a feeling this could escalate (get worse), which is something you do not want.

With @snowberry. At least attempt to talk, then seperate yourself in all aspects. She is wanting to BE you
-scary.

If that’s what your friends do, how bad are your enemies?

I’ve yet to see this petty side of you @lovelessness. This really comes as a surprise to learn you are not more supportive of someone who admires you enough to try and be like you… or competitive with you. That’s what the best of friends do… They compel one another to better themselves through emulation and competition.

The “comments” she makes sound more like a good friend razzing another. I’m surprised you take it so personally.
____________

And I’d like to point something out to you…

@lovelessness
“The worst part is, I would do anything to not introduce her to my closest friends.”

If that’s the worst part, then you are responsible for it. The worst part is your doing.

That doesn’t sound very friend like.

“Oh, your teacher had a crush on you, that explains why you got an A on that class”
That could very well be her joking around or it could be a serious comment, we don’t know.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I strongly disagree with you in everything you’ve said. You have no idea.

@flo She was dead serious… I told her that it was mean for her to ask, and I actually got upset and we argued about it.

So, don’t call her friend because I don’t think so friends are like this. Just ignore her.

lovelessness But is it possible he is giving you an A because he ahs a crush on you? That is not insulting if yoy haven’t been flirting etc.

@flo “Oh yeah that explains why you got an A” in an insulting and careless tone, especially in a subject where I’m particularly talented and interested in, and I know that she is also starting interest in, is kind of annoying to me. I haven’t been flirting, but he likes me as a person and we work in projects outside of school. It is just a bit off for her to make a comment like that out of nowhere. I know her well enough to know that she is just trying to make me upset or find a way to comfort herself because she wants to be just better.

@lovelessness ”...but he likes me as a person and we work in projects outside of school.”?
Would you like to elaborate?

@flo Yeah, we sleep together etc. Ugh no! In university it is common for art students to interact with their teachers outside of school. He is the founder of an organization I am very much fascinated with, so I’m going to intern there, that’s why we talk.

@lovelessness Whether it is common or not, I think is beside the point. It is not unreasonalble for your peers to think you’re getting preferential treatment from your teacher.

I would look at @RealEyesRealizeRealLies post.

We are not looking at for her side of it, that is the thing.

@lovelessness It might be best not to ask people if they like something new (haircut, anything really) about you. Let them be the ones to come out and say what they think. If you ask them, almost everyone would say yes. I have never known anyone to say that they don’t like it, even if they think it is hediuos.

If you actually confront her about it (gently), I bet she’d be too embarrassed to keep doing what she’s doing. If you told her in a less kind way, she’d be less likely to feel obliged to stop.
You can’t realistically expect anyone to know they’re doing something wrong if they’re not told (especially since you yourself will eventually have blind spots, as will anyone, since the human experience is way too broad a thing for anyone to naturally be able to identify with enough points of view to thrive in every situation they’d like to). Also, doing the behavior might be what they consider to be already having tested whether the behavior is unacceptable or not, and when that’s their method, they’ll just keep doing it unless told not to.
You should also make a point of asking yourself if you’re doing something wrong without knowing it, and that’s what’s inspiring her actions. After all, if it’s so easy for what she’s doing to be offensive but for her to be unaware of it, you should wonder if it’s really that hard for you to do the same, even if it seems like you already have thought about it. I don’t mean that as an insult, I just mean that it’s a question everyone should make a point of asking themselves before looking to others when something goes wrong. The only truly reliable way to be sure what you’re doing isn’t the thing that’s wrong is asking someone else, but we forget that sometimes.
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It looks like proprietary knowledge may be at risk if you keep letting her copy you, which is a better reason to complain than just her copying you in general. About the latter type of copying, though:

That kind of thing annoys me too, but I can’t really find a reason at the end of the day why it actually is good to be annoyed at being ripped off. What I would do with the knowledge of having been recognized as the originator of a certain idea would pretty much be think to myself “good, they know”, but that’s about it. There’s nothing constructive about it. I know that there’s a such thing as being unable to control that response to being copied, though, or at least not having the means at your disposal to make yourself feel a different way, at least without serious work, so I’m not being judgmental.

And at the same time i know what it’s like to have worth and feel marginalized, it sucks. Copying you could be a desperate attempt to cope with such feelings. Could any of that maybe be how your friend feels? You should ask.
When confronting her, you should make a point of assuming that what she’s doing has a good reason and that any harm done is unintentional, and to really make her feel properly respected and treated fairly, that you’ve in ways failed as a friend for not getting what was going on sooner (which is technically true, but I can see why it’d feel unfair for you to have to say it about yourself).

Again, none of this is meant to be insulting to you. My recommendations usually involve introspection, because I know it’s usually a thing that’s underused. And not just underused, but thought to be in use when it’s not. I don’t assume I myself wouldn’t still be capable of doing such a thing, so I’m not talking down to you.
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I don’t assume that you haven’t already thought of my advice or that I must know better than you. I put down what I put down on the off chance it might help, but I don’t, of course, know the situation as well as you.