That’s OK. It’s hard to have someone ignore you if you feel bad if someone doesn’t like you, but that’s OK. Just keep your cool, be polite and no more, no less.
My take is that she’s repeating the abusive pattern she experienced within her family.
Maybe she had to stick around and take it, when she was younger—because she didn’t know she could call CPS or wasn’t willing to lose the “love” of the family. In any case, because you’ve taken what she dishes out, you become the lightning rod for a bunch of bottled rage.
Notice that she doesn’t do it with other people…she knows that if someone doesn’t care about her, there’s no way they would tolerate it. By promoting you to “brother” status, she’s saying you’re family and what she grew up with as a family…well, you don’t want to be part of that.
What she needs is megadoses of therapy, and not from you. Any chance at a friendship or anything else with her has been ruined because she has been conditioned to know she can treat you like shit. That will surface and submerge repeatedly.
Run, don’t walk.
More of her trying to manipulate. Don’t fall for it. She’s trying to see if you’ll come crawling back.
That’s good, but you have to keep this up. Don’t fall back into your own routine. You need to keep her at arm’s lenght (or farther) from now on.
Another Update
Well today was really something!
This morning I came into work, and made a sale, but she started to nitpick at me saying I wasn’t doing the script right, then on the next call, started to interfere how I was handling an objection (This whilst in the middle of me speaking to the customer) and I was getting increasingly angry, and I got more upset with her because it lost me the sale. Anyway, I start arguing with her, saying if I required her ‘help’ I would ask for it, she retorts back that she only wanted to be helpful and starts to be condescending and that I should stop taking things too seriously, there’s a back and forth goin on for about 5 minutes, until the manager steps in and tells us both to be quiet. I swear to G*d that she only started an argument with me to make me feel bad and to make her feel better.
Now because of that, it was finally the last straw, I ate lunch on my own, and she came following me, she said ‘Are you still mad about this morning’ I said ‘yes I am’ and she said ‘So I suppose you don’t want to speak to me’ I said ‘Yeah, that’s right’ and she came back with the reply ‘You need help seriously’ and then stormed off and didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.
These kind of arguments had been going on and off for the past couple of weeks, which helped me understand how she was manipulating me, here’s my theory.
I know her routine now, she’d wind me up, get me all mad, and once she’s satisfied, creep around me until everything was back to it’s normal self and then rinse and repeat, I think I know now she knew I was trying to be independent of her, and she was doing everything she could to try and keep me under her thumb, would that be the right line of thought behind her actions?
What I don’t understand is that she must of known on some level I really didn’t like her anymore, yet still played this psychotic game anyway, why?
(I have 100% ended the Friendship, not that there was much left of it anyway.)
Why does she play this psychotic game? Because you play it too.
You are hitting the balls back over the net. Drop the racket.
Seconded. She’s still getting to you. Don’t let her in.
It sounds to me as if she’s manipulating you just for shits and giggles. There’s nothing she actually wants from you. It’s her way of getting kicks, and if you argue with her, reply to her, or even show a reaction to her bullshit, she “wins” her little bullshit game for the day.
Oh, and by the way:
Bad sign, Ryan. You don’t want that kind of attention from the higher-ups. End this. Now.
I don’t want to get on your case. You seem decent enough, and I used to be 23. I remember how weirded out my friendships and relationships used to be until I found my center and learned to say no. Like Heart of Dorkness, I went through that embarrassing I’ll-Date/Befriend/Acknowledge-The-Existence-Of-A-Total-Hosebeast phase just because I was scared of being alone without friends. Nowadays, I wish I had more time alone from friends. It’s not that bad, and if you manage to get out of it, you’ll look back on those days and laugh instead of cringe.
Just remember that there are worse things than being alone out there. Like this tripped-out freak you’re sparring with, for instance.
Don’t be surprised if she doesn’t want to let you end it that easily. People with her mindset usually think they’re a gift to you and that you’ll come crawling back.
Don’t give in. Don’t escalate anything, but don’t accept any apologies or anything, either. You need a little spiel, something to the effect that you work together and that’s all. For the sake of professionalism and peace at the office, you can rise above your differences but the relationship is purely business. If she persists, parrot the same spiel until she drops it.
My hunch is that she’ll respect you for it, but don’t take her back as a friend under any circumstances.
Another Update
Well, so far so good, but some weird stuff has been happening, I went on my Facebook and the person tagged pics of me and her and it showed up on my profile, so I deleted them off, what’s that all about?
This may seem self centred and I hate to admit it, but I have too, but I was expecting more of a reaction to kicking her out of my life, like some sort of major tantrum or drama, but there’s been none, I don’t talk to her, she doesn’t talk to me, I guess I expected more of a reaction because she’s been such a fuckin’ drama queen for most of the last year for her to do nothing, well it just seemed weird to me. I know I shouldn’t be complainin’ that’s a good thing, I just wanted to know what people’s thoughts on that are.
Also, this sounds crazy, but since I’ve been ignoring her, I’m gettin’ feelings of guilt and wanting to talk to her again (I won’t do so) but I’m just wondering, considering I was her ‘Friend’ for a year and a half, those kind of feelings are normal right? I feel like I’m talking like a drug addict who needs his last fix.
On the plus side however, when I was at work I actually left more relaxed, as I didn’t have this annoying bastard whining down my ear every time I spoke, and also less depressed somewhat.
(Just to let you know, I’m only updating and opening up about this so I don’t stupidly crawl back into the same situation again, I want to remain focused, not naive, and I appreciate all the help here :))