Unlucky in friendships?

Started by scape, December 10, 2020, 09:22:05 AM

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scape

Sorry for the long post.
I would like somebody's opinion on a series of things that happened to me... I can't understand if there's something wrong in the way I react to things, if there's something wrong with the way I am that attracts this kind of drama or if I was just very unlucky in friendships so far,  and I figured I'd give as many details as possible to give you a better idea of why I'm confused.

The year my mum died I also met my best friend in school. 
After a year she had to change schools but we stayed in contact: she invited me to hang out with a group of guys she met every weekend and I accepted.
A couple of people I knew already and they were all very nice at first even though I never really got chummy with anyone but my best friend.

Fast forward a few years, my 18th birthday is coming up in a couple of months and I haven't planned anything yet. One of the girls from my friend group had her 17th birthday close to mine and asked me if she could celebrate hers on my birthday date since ita was a convenient date for everyone. She said she wanted to celebrate for a full day because she had a lot of activities planned outside in the garden and whatnot. Since I hadn't made plans yet and I had my eye on another date to celebrate my birthday I said "sure, no probelm".

After a month I asked around and a lot of people I wanted to invite were available only on my birthday date. So I went back to the girl from before, explained her the situation and asked if maybe the group of friends we were part of could move the celebrations over to my place for dinner. I didn't think it was a big deal since they would have still been with her celebrating all morning and all afternoon... She categorically refused. A lot of people from the group backed her up and said "If it doesn't rain we stay where we are, if it rains we come over to your place" (because the birthday of the other girl was mostly held in parks and a garden).
I got hurt. Luckily 4 girls (one of which was my best friend, who introduced me to the group) and a guy agreed with me that it was ridiculous and came to my birthday dinner.
I wasn't comfortable with that group anymore, so I left it along with the 4 girls that came to my birthday party (who also weren't big fans of how things were going).

Everything went well with this new smaller group for years except some minor "red flags": a girl I'll refer to as Alice liked talking about sex in a very explicit way, when she got a boyfriend talked about it even more, everytime she had to hang out with his boyfriend and his male friends would call us along saying "I need some girls" (both me and my best friend hated this, because it made us feel like she was trying to push us onto the boys - and later she actually tried to get me and another guy from my city to date, but it didn't work because we already knew each other and we weren't into each other that way, also I suspect neither of us really trusted her), also Alice's parents made some inappropriate comments both to me and my best friend's sister ....
After all that happened with the previous group I started thinking maybe I was too sensitive so I just brushed everything off.
After a while Alice started saying to us that a memeber of our group (I'll refer to her as Mia) wasn't hanging out with us as much anymore because she had found a new group of friends and she preferred them to us. My best friend and I took it upon ourselves to talk to Mia and ask her if everything was all right. We obviously didn't mind she found new friends, we were happy for her, but Alice made it sound like she had a problem with us and we didn't understant what that might have been. She told us everything was fine, so we left it at that.
At this point Alice started complaining about every little thing about Mia, for example the fact that she was often late (which admittedly I didn't like) or the fact that Mia's mother was always pushing her to get a boyfriend (which would have been concerning if I heard her do so, but I never did, and anyway it wasn't something that Mia could have had control over).
I'm ashamed to say I stated to believe Alice, mostly because I could see no reason why she would lie about something like this. My best friend did the same.
When Mia moved further away and didn't have a chance to meet us in person as often anymore, Alice told us about a confrontation she had with her via phone: she told us at some point Mia's mother, who had been listening to the convo, picked up the phone herself and started screaming at her, also Alice said that after a few days menacing envelopes started coming in in the mail to the point where Alice's mother had to call the police.
We were all shocked and just stopped contacting Mia after that.
Things went okay again for a while among us remaining 4. Alice invited two new girls in the group and they were super nice (they eventually left - I still don't know exactly why) but other than that many years went by without any major issues.

When I started going to uni I noticed things started changing a bit. Alice started treating me like I was dumb or had some sort of mental disability or something and couldn't do anything without help. Her parents and brother treated me like that too and I hated it, but I thought that since she was behind in her studies and couldn't go to uni yet maybe she was a bit jealous. I've been there, so I just let it go and hoped she would stop eventually.
When I graduated I was very stressed and didn't want anybody but my family to come to the presentation of my thesis. But Alice went out of her way to call my uni, she pretended to be me and got all the info about where and when the presentation was going to be and then told me she would show up there with the others. I was pretty mad but everything went fine in the end, so I brushed that off too.

Things started getting worse a few month after that. To make a long story short, Alice told us she broke off with her boyfriend of many years. Later my best friend told me that Alice previously confessed to her that she had liked another guy for a while (but I didn't know then). After another month or so Alice introduces us to her new boyfriend, who -we descover- is a guy her best friend (the other memeber of the 4) had liked for a while and had been trying to go on a date with (maybe they even went on a date, I don't remember).
This seemed a bit wrong to me, but Alice's best friend seemed to be okay with it so we stayed out of their business.
I also had a bit of a fight with Alice's best friend because I was always anticipating money for bithday gifts for her and she never gave it back. Plus for some reason my best friend and I's birthday gift consistently ended up being much less expensive than everybody else's. I told the goup I wouldn't be anticipating money or buying the gifts for everyone anymore because at this point it was just much easier for me to buy the gifts I wanted without having to coordinate with everyone and on top of it being constantly out of money. Alice's best friend didn't talk to me as much after that, but I didn't care.

Since Alice got together with the new guy she started talking trash about her ex and about one of our friend's boyfriend saying he was cheating on her (but she never bother to take her aside and tell her), introduced us to a few nice people (her bf, his brother and the people from her work have always been very nice) but then also to a couple of douchebag guys who also treated me like I was dumb: one time I made the mistake to anticipate the money for ice cream for everyone and since these two dumbasses didn't want to pay for theirs they just pretended they had already given me the money and I just didn't remember it (and Alice's best friend said it was true I didn't remember!).

I realized I could trust nobody in that group but I live in a small town and as silly as it sounds I'm always worried people will talk trash about me and then I won't be able to make friends with new people because of the rumors. So I decided to only hang out with them if my best friend was involved (so I could at least trust somebody's opinion) and only if it was absolutely necessary. The plan was to quietly slide away.
Unfortunately I had already made plans to go to a convention with them, I also knew my best friend wasn't available on the day we had chosen (she had told us months before) and she would go on another day with her other group of friends.

At the last minute Alice's best friend could not come ( she used to do a lot of this last minute ditching, so I wasn't surprised ) so it was just me, Alice, her parents, her bf and his brother. I hated every second of it. First she kinda talked trash about her best friend during the car ride (she called her egotistical out of the blue). Then as soon as we arrived to our destination and her bf and his brother went to the facilities she told me she had talked to my best friend to ask her if we could go with her  and her other group of friends to the convention and my best friend answered she didn't want us to.
I knew they had met a couple of weeks before because my best friend had mentioned it but what she was saying was very strange, so I just answered with a confused "okay". At that point her parents, who were listening close by, chimed in and said that "when my best friend would need help, she wouldn't find it". I got through the day somehow and finally went back home.

I asked my best friend if we could meet and told her what happened and what Alice said to me and she told me the day they met they never talked about the convention at all. Also she reminded me that she had been saying for months she couldn't make it on the day that we had chosen, which is what made me suspicious of Alice in the first place. At that point we started questioning everything she ever told us.
Later still, Alice contacted my best friend to ask her to hang out with the group. She also lied and told  her that she invited me too but I said I needed to study and couldn't come -.-'
Today Alice has replaced my best friend, Mia and I with 3 (poor) girls from her uni. She and her best friend still hang out (if you can even call that a friendship).
My best friend and I also discovered she talks about us and our falling out with other people, which makes me very angry because I can't imagine what kind of lies she's spreading about the both of us.

It makes me so sad because I could have actually become very good friends with Mia and others (and I want to try to get in touch with them, at least to say sorry for abandoning them and not asking for their version of events).
The thing that creeps me out the most is that I still don't know why someone would do something like that.
I'm starting to feel I might be attracting this sort of people somehow and pushing away the good ones.
I'm trying to stay away from romantic relationships because I fear I might end up with someone as manipulative as Alice and waste more of my time and possibly get in an abusive and dangerous situation.

Does anyone know how I could break the cycle?
How can you tell when someone has manipulative tendencies? (I mean things with this girl were okay for *years*...)
Why do you think Alice (and her best friend) did something like that?

notrightinthehead

Sounds like you learned a lot from this Alice experience. Check out the personality disorders tab for traits to look out for.  Also read up on boundaries.
I have the impression that you felt uncomfortable in many encounters with Alice and her friends. Your gut told you that something was off, and you chose to ignore the warning signs. If you had listened to your inner voice telling you that something is off, you might have escaped the web Alice was weaving earlier. In future, you will discover the warning signs  faster and listen better to your inner voice.  You can use this experience as a valuable lesson - people to avoid in future.
I can't hate my way into loving myself.