rubbish female friends:(

firstly if my posts are getting repetitive,I'm sorry but I'm REALLY struggling this week and its only Monday morning
To cut a looong story short i've got two female friends, one is lovely and the other is very sly and selfish...basically I'm feeling more and more cut out of their friendship as the sly friends is always arranging things for her and my lovely friend to go to...
we've only been friends with the sly friend for about a year and in that time she's accused the lovely friend of something REALLY bad, AND not bothered with the lovely friend when her husband was in a coma...
Last week me and the sly friend had a huge argument as i told her she's really selfish...(she is, she'll only arrange nights out where she'll be the centre of attention, has girlie nights where it'll just be her and my lovely friend, on the few nights out we have had she's gone home when she's not had any attention off men etc etc), and she basically turned it around to be ME that's selfish....and now my lovely friend isn't sticking up for me any more, even though she was really upset at all the bad treatment sly friend was dishing out...
It just seems like i can't do anything right?!please tell me how i can handle this

Out of curiousity, are you Australian? The use of the word 'rubbish', mainly.

FunkyBuddha said:

Have you tried making plans with Lovely that Sly would be unable to attend? Fight fire with fire.

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yeah and it always gets scuppered...like me and lovely decided we had a new hobby, and then sly arranged something for the night before which made lovely unable to come.....and then if on the odd time we do make it out, i get messages saying we are cutting sly out


p.s, I'm British.xx

Ah, my mistake. Please accept my apologies.

You and your good friend need to stand up for yourselves and make it clear how your uncooperative friend is making you feel; and if she doesn't wish to play fair, then there's no reason for you to do so as well. Setting boundaries and all; are you familiar with that? While its usually most immediately applied to romantic relationships, I believe that it can be useful for all relationships, including those of amity and friendship.

IgnoredOne said:

Out of curiousity, are you Australian? The use of the word 'rubbish', mainly.

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That's a more British phrase than Aussie.

IgnoredOne said:

Ah, my mistake. Please accept my apologies.

You and your good friend need to stand up for yourselves and make it clear how your uncooperative friend is making you feel; and if she doesn't wish to play fair, then there's no reason for you to do so as well. Setting boundaries and all; are you familiar with that? While its usually most immediately applied to romantic relationships, I believe that it can be useful for all relationships, including those of amity and friendship.

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The thing is Ignoredone, the lovely friend is all for a quiet life and won't ever say anything, and why would she, she's not the one who's getting cut out....she also seems to of conveniently forgotten all the crap Sly doled out, and we only spoke about it a month ago at the most...I'm thinking of cutting them both out, then i won't get hurt anymore...
When i got upset and called Sly selfish to her face(she cancelled a day out we were going to and wasn't even going to tell me,then rearranged with Lovely friend), she was only upset that someone had DARED to call her selfish

CAS said:

IgnoredOne said:

Out of curiousity, are you Australian? The use of the word 'rubbish', mainly.

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That's a more British phrase than Aussie.

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And after living in London, you'll think that I'll remember that. Its amazing how my mind can be like a sieve at times now. I suppose the fact that my last experience was with an Australian who used it much as how Americans might use the phrase 'crap' made an impression on me; in England, it always seemed that it was mostly the word for 'trash.'

Anyways, I digress.

IgnoredOne said:

Ah, my mistake. Please accept my apologies.

You and your good friend need to stand up for yourselves and make it clear how your uncooperative friend is making you feel; and if she doesn't wish to play fair, then there's no reason for you to do so as well. Setting boundaries and all; are you familiar with that? While its usually most immediately applied to romantic relationships, I believe that it can be useful for all relationships, including those of amity and friendship.

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Boundaries are used with anyone you have any type of relationship with.

I tend to agree with Ignored on this one.
You can't the person, you can point out the fact that she's selfish, but it won't change the fact in most cases. I don't believe going behind her back and making it more or less a competition between you and sly for lovely will make lovely feel too good.

FunkyBuddha said:

Have you tried approaching Sly in a nonthreatening manner? She could be feeling the same way you do about her if Lovely is her only good friend.

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yeah i have, i said that people always make friends with me and lovely friend and then i get pushed out like I'm not needed, and it just fell on deaf ears, well she pretended she was listening and understanding, but wasn't

do you think its me with the problem?

twinklestar said:

The thing is Ignoredone, the lovely friend is all for a quiet life and won't ever say anything, and why would she, she's not the one who's getting cut out....she also seems to of conveniently forgotten all the crap Sly doled out, and we only spoke about it a month ago at the most...I'm thinking of cutting them both out, then i won't get hurt anymore...
When i got upset and called Sly selfish to her face(she cancelled a day out we were going to and wasn't even going to tell me,then rearranged with Lovely friend), she was only upset that someone had DARED to call her selfish

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Well, if she wants to be a selfish idiot, that's her choice and her obvious consequence is that she'll find herself not being able to be your friend. You'll just have to setup things with the people who you do enjoy and who enjoy your presence as well - the more amenable friend in this case. You've told the selfish friend how you feel, and if she isn't cogent enough to realize that its wrong, then yes, you just need to cut her out of your life before it can cause you more pain.

i can't NOT invite people though as I'd feel really bad, even to sly friend!

and i honestly don't feel like there's a living soul out there that enjoys my presence, i've been pushed out of every friendship i've had

twinklestar said:

i can't NOT invite people though as I'd feel really bad, even to sly friend!

and i honestly don't feel like there's a living soul out there that enjoys my presence, i've been pushed out of every friendship i've had

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Emotions are wonderful things, but you cannot let them influence you into make decisions that could hurt you. It does sound like her presence essentially hurts you, which means that not inviting her will ultimately be better for you in spite of the initial sense of guilt.

I don't believe the latter is true, though self-esteem issues can often make one feel that way. But I assure that you're valuable to many, and like all people, have something to contribute of value and knowledge if only someone is willing to put in the time for it.

IgnoredOne said:

twinklestar said:

i can't NOT invite people though as I'd feel really bad, even to sly friend!

and i honestly don't feel like there's a living soul out there that enjoys my presence, i've been pushed out of every friendship i've had

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Emotions are wonderful things, but you cannot let them influence you into make decisions that could hurt you. It does sound like her presence essentially hurts you, which means that not inviting her will ultimately be better for you in spite of the initial sense of guilt.

I don't believe the latter is true, though self-esteem issues can often make one feel that way. But I assure that you're valuable to many, and like all people, have something to contribute of value and knowledge if only someone is willing to put in the time for it.

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its true, those two friends are like the only two i've got, I'm always the last to be invited somewhere or thought about

twinklestar said:

its true, those two friends are like the only two i've got, I'm always the last to be invited somewhere or thought about

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You can always meet new people, time and resources permitting.

IgnoredOne said:

twinklestar said:

its true, those two friends are like the only two i've got, I'm always the last to be invited somewhere or thought about

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You can always meet new people, time and resources permitting.

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have tried ignoredone, trust me, i've been to groups,clubs and courses and tried really hard and made no new friends, have run out of ideas now

twinklestar said:

have tried ignoredone, trust me, i've been to groups,clubs and courses and tried really hard and made no new friends, have run out of ideas now

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you need to find where your interests lie and then find people with common interests. Without knowing more about you, its difficult to elaborate further. In my own life, I had a great deal of difficulty making friends at first until I realized that I needed both a degree of self-confidence as well as something to offer.

lovey isn't sounding so hot here either. I've no time for friends who wont watch your back when honeysuckle is going sour.

Limlim said:

lovey isn't sounding so hot here either. I've no time for friends who wont watch your back when honeysuckle is going sour.

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yeah over the past couple of days i've realised this...me and lovely have talked about this as great lengths, about how selfish and conniving she can be and how much sly hurt her feelings when her husband nearly died and sly didn't even ask once how he was...and then after sly did it again last week i rang lovely and she pretended not to have a clue what went on....

I'm realising that people would actually rather be friends with a conniving,selfish person than me and that hurts

and sly also knows she's won too