Flabuless and I were chatting the other day about a common happiness saboteur, the friend who is only a friend as long as you are not doing better than her. For example, saying in your relationship with said friend that currently you are the fat one with the lower paying job, and she is the thin one making more money.
Now, you decide that you are done being fat, and so you go on a major weight loss crusade. You shed a whole lotta pounds, and now that you have a smoking new figure you go and get your hair styled, you buy a new wardrobe, and you start wearing makeup and jewelry again. With all this positive change you also gain more confidence. And because you have more confidence, you quite your crappy low paying job where no one appreciates you and find a new gig at a new company doing something you love and get paid twice what you were making before. Life is grand!
On the surface, your friend says to you, "Oh, I'm so happy for you. You're doing so good. Good for you."
Now, these are the words coming out of her mouth to your face, but her actions, her actions are communicating something quite different. Here are some of the things the saboteur friend does:
- She knows you are on a no carbs diet yet she'll stop by at night for a surprise visit with your favorite cherry pie or a dozen chocolate chip cookies from that bakery love so much. She knows that you won't be rude and refuse, and if you're up front enough to say "You know I don't eat carbs" she'll say something like, "Um oh yeah, I just know you love these so much so I got them for you." She's actually hiding her saboteur tactics behind niceness.
- Behind your back, she criticizes you to your other mutual friends.
- She starts picking fights with you for no real reason, using guilt to make you feel bad.
- You call her up to share good news or to vent about your bad day and you find that she no longer answers the phone like she did, she takes days to return your calls, or when you do talk she frequently changes the subject back to her.
- The friend starts talking more and more about how much money she is making, that she got a promotion, that the executives in her company are noticing her more, etc. She wants to go shopping and starts buying more expensive shoes and clothes, things that she knows you can't afford. She's probably running herself into credit card debt, but she'll never let on because she's determined to look like she's still better than you.
- She goes on and on about all the guys that are hitting on her, and about all the dates she can't get straight. Her social calendar is totally booked, and so she doesn't have as much time to spend with you as she did before. And forget about going out on Friday night like you used to because girl friend won't put herself in a situation where you might be the one getting more attention than her.
It's tough when you start feeling like your friend really isn't a friend. When it starts hitting you that things were fine only as long as she was doing better than you, it hurts. You genuinely thought you two were BFFs and that no matter what, you'd be there for each other through good and bad. Sometimes friendships can stand change and some cannot. If your friendship cannot stand that kind of change, then maybe it's time to find new friends who support you and want to grow with you. Life is about abundance not jealousy.
