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jesyka
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Member Since Jun 2020
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Default Jun 12, 2023 at 02:29 PM
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Motts View Post
Thanks, @jesyka. Yes, i think she definitely has some mental health issues. I knew her for 2 years (we met through a mutual friend) and I even took a Zoom class from her, where she publicly appeared very normal, along with the handful of times we chatted on the phone. There was literally no indication to me prior to booking my trip to visit her, of her incongruous behavior and the state of her house.

I've been listening to a lot of podcasts over the past week about female friendships. Some of the podcast hosts (women) state that there is a difference between an obstacle and a challenge, and that women shouldn't call each other 'toxic' when there are 2 levels of boundary violations (challenge being the lesser boundary violation, and the obstacle being a deal-breaker level of a boundary violation).

All I know is based on my past personal experience, that if you are friends with someone, you don't act the way that she acted -- even if she legitimately thought we were good enough friends (not having met in person, just via Zoom) where she could be comfortable enough to spend hours on her cellphone fighting with her mom, while she has a house guest (me) -- wasn't just a challenge, but was an obstacle for me.

The more I think about it, the more I think her behavior last Saturday was a friendship obstacle and deal breaker. A preview of what was to come had I stayed friends with her. I don't want those kind of female friendships in my life. I already have issues making/keeping friends for different reasons. I just want to have healthy female friends in my life. Healthy in the sense that the conflict between us normal conflict that is repairable because both of us respect each other's boundaries enough to acknowledge when we make a mistake.

Just today, two more Facebook friends invited me to visit them (and vice versa from my end - I invited them to visit me, too). Both women invited me to stay at their homes. To which I said no, that I would find a hotel to stay at (i.e. boundaries).

It's like you wrote, that just because you know someone, doesn't mean they can't be weird and unpredictable. And this woman definitely was very unpredictable. As much as I will miss the potential of the friendship, I won't miss what existed, which was the dynamic that she and I triggered each other. My sense of balance and calmness triggered her lack of boundaries. Her lack of boundaries triggered my need to feel emotionally safe around people, based on my past experiences with some very toxic people in my life who emotionally abused me.

When I analyze this experience, I realize that by agreeing to stay at her house, I showed a lack of common sense and a lack of boundaries for myself; that I was too trusting. I assumed her public persona was the same as her private persona. I learned I was wrong. Was it all for show or was it real? I'll never know, and I need to stop wondering because the bottom line is: she chose to act that way around me the first time meeting in person for her own reasons. Reasons I'll never know.

I don't know why this experience still bothers me, but it does.
Please don’t blame yourself for what happened. Obviously she was able to fool you until you stayed ar her place. I have been fooled by people to many times before.

I have actually made worse decisions than you. Long story short, I once stupidly agreed to share a hotel room with a platonic male friend & his g.f when we went out drinking. It wasn’t planned. It was his idea.

I think he actually planned things. He knew I didn’t have enough money for my own room. I didn’t actually get to know him in person during the 2 or three years we were friends since he couldn’t go out that much then since he had to take care of his dad who had dementia.

He was so pushy & disrespectful the whole night. He kept trying to get me to reveal something I told him in confidence to his g.f.

And him & his g.f were watching me at one point. It was bizarre. I tried to brush it off since his das just died. I’m sure he was trying to get me drunk & hoping that I’d have a threesome with him & his weirdo g.f, lol, ugh!

I had it with him & told him so, so he got mad & left me at a bar. I slept in my car. I didn’t want my husband to get mad at me.

I stopped being his friend. He seemed fine before that. Always stay at a hotel and get your own room. I know better now too.

Some people are good at putting up an act. Don’t believe everything tell you either. That lady probably lied to you about a lot of things.

I don’t understand how a lawyer could act like that. Or live like that. Maybe she’s no longer a lawyer or she never was a lawyer at all?

Anyways, I also have a hard time keeping & making friends. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s because I’m shy & introverted. Maybe it’s because most women my age are to busy with work, kids, and they have enough friends or family to keep them busy, idk.

Some people are just selfish too. They make everything about themselves, so it’s not just you. It seems like if you don’t have anything to offer a person in the way of social status, favors, or anything like that, then they aren’t interested in neing ‘friends’ with you.

Thankfully nothing happened. It’s good that you were anle to stay calm.
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