Friends who are underminers

I don’t keep them as friends if they pull that shit.

Flush

What R1& R2 posted is correct!

That passive-aggressive shit does not work on me. Working finance of Wall Street was stressful enough, I didn't need Bullshit people around me.

Undermining friends is an oxymoron. Dump them in the trash.

My best friend for many years used to do this. The way he would put things, he would always come out superior to me. Somehow I remained deaf to to this for a long time. When I went to school, a lot of people treated me poorly. They treated him even worse. Yet somehow he went to every class reunion. I thought he was being oblivious to our common lousy reality. I have never gone to any high-school reunion.

We had a big fight in late 1984. I stopped having anything to do with him. Five years later he sent me a letter inviting me to our 20-year school reunion. Also received invitation to our reunion from a "rah-rah in-crowd" person who sat alphabetically in front of me in school. I sent a paragraph thanking him and saying we shouldn't see each other anymore. Sent another note to the alphabetic person that I would not be attending any future events.

I've certainly known such people, but not as friends. I don't have much hesitation to cut people off when they do it, whether to me or to make someone else uncomfortable.

I have a co-worker who does this; it's really annoying but I try to remember that it comes from a place of insecurity rather than an oblivious arrogance (though there's certainly some of that in the mix too) and just try to ignore it. But it's exhausting to be around and I'm kind of shocked of the Queen Bee relationship she has with my other colleagues since you'd think they'd see through her too

I had a friend like this. He would always try to take me down a few notches whenever I said anything positive about myself. It took me an embarrassingly long time to notice. He was such a cunt.

Gay guy here. Ive stopped intetacting with a friend who did this. He eventually said something that was the wake up call. Firstly we were out at dinner and he commented on my top; (super tight black T shirt; "are u wearing that out after dinner? ". Then after dinner when we were about to go on to a bar, he said to our friends, wait for blank...arent you gonna go change?. I did; but only cos i didnt wanna make a stand and waste my night. . And i knew id be uncomfortable if i dudnt change. 2ndly he said something about my wedding that now, when i look back on that day, its his comment i heat, that colours my whole wedidng day memory. He didnt heed to tell me that. Now my hubby thinks im being cruel and thinks i shyd reach out to said guy. Luckily he lives abroad (we were visiting him when he made the T shirt comment). But i didnt make one big decision to cut him ofg, i just found myself not interested in initiaying any interaction and it rolled on and on. I am annoyed at how my self esteem was undermined by him for 20 years. And it all boils down to jealousy.

I think you should call him right now and let him have it, r9. Tell him that he's jealous that you can wear tight t-shirts but he can't because he's FAT.

It's interesting how many of you say you've had people do this to you for years before you realized what they were doing--that's the dynamic I had with someone older whom I had been friends with (or so I had thought) for years at work, and whom I thought had mentored me when i started in the position. When i was given a position at work he had never been given (and i found out later he had always wanted it), he disparaged the position to me, and for the first time my eyes were widened to how he always put down any achievement I had been given at work--he has an enormous ego and cannot bear to be outshone in any way. I learned to distance myself from him over time, and he retired a very bitter person about our place of employment. Whenever I see him at social gatherings in our city, he still has to disparage to me the place where I work.

Yes, and I sort of tuned it out because I was very competitive myself and was too arrogant to let it hurt me. But you get to a certain point in your life when you can't stand that kind of petty shit anymore.