my daughter is 20, attractive, an Ivy Leaguer, ski team member, and straight A student. She has always been successful and has a large circle of friends.
Here’s the problem: she can’t always get along with them. Over the past few years, she has repeatedly gotten into a situation where she feels one friend (not the same one) in the group is turning the others against her, or that the group of girls is going somewhere and this girl won’t invite her, that her friends like this girl or that girl more or have more in common with her, and that they will not hang around with her as a result. Now it is happening with a girl she had been best friends with for two years. She get’s terribly upset and depressed over this. Having seen it happen four or five times now, it seems to be a pattern. She does not want to talk to a doctor or anyone else. Any dopers out there with any ideas or suggestions?
Maybe it’s her paranoia that drives them away.
Seriously, it sounds like she has a self-esteem problem. Has she asked the friend directly what the problem is? Sounds like you have suggested therapy. Why is she resistant?
Maybe it’s her paranoia that drives them away.
Seriously, it sounds like she has a self-esteem problem. Has she asked the friend directly what the problem is? Sounds like you have suggested therapy. Why is she resistant?
Perhaps your daughter is extremely clingy/needy/demanding?
Just based on this part of the OP
…that the group of girls is going somewhere and this girl won’t invite her, that her friends like this girl or that girl more or have more in common with her…
Why is she locked up in a “popularity contest” mentality at the age of 20? Why can’t some her friends be closer to people other than her without it being a big deal? To me, she sounds like she is very insecure and asks people to “prove” their friendship.
I used to have a friend like this. Three of us were all friends from college. I share certain interests with the third party that I don’t share with her. It used to send her into frenzies whenever I and [3rd party] would do something without her.
Your daughter seems to have a propensity for choosing friends who maneuver, play favorites, and play friends off of each other. Not all people are like that, thank god. She should be very careful to steer clear of anyone who does this sort of thing. It’s terrible to one’s self-esteem, and destroys trust and prevents true friendships among others.
The hard question I have to ask is, Is there any chance your daughter does those things? Does she complain about one friend to another, when one isn’t around? Does she try to make others look bad to secure a better place in the social group? She needs to make sure she doesn’t participate in these things or enable other to get away with such behavior around her. She should try to shut down negative talk about friends at every turn.
I have an acquaintance who is beautiful, intelligent, successful, slender, and admired. She is popular and at any given time has a full social calendar and literally dozens of friends. However, her past is strewn with friends who aren’t speaking to her anymore, and she laments how “no one is loyal anymore” and how no one knows the true meaning of friendship. But what she doesn’t get is that she is the one who drives them away with her manipulation and gossip and finagling. She is fairly good at seeming like she’s doing it out of friendship, but it’s utterly destructive.
I hope your daughter is not like her. If she isn’t, then the key is to make sure she avoids anyone like my acquaintance.
Just want to agree that this can result in scary, mean, destructive behavior. Last January the friend of which I spoke got involved with my boyfriend of 5 years. When confronted she informed me that it was “my fault” because I had not been a “good enough friend” to her. And I should feel SO bad for her because of all the pain I had caused her over the years. And it was unfair of me to call her a backstabbing, sanctimonious whore. ( ). WHATEVER.
I haven’t spoken to her since then, and ditched the boy as well.
). WHATEVER.