You know how they say "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery-" Bullshit.
I hate this saying, and even if it holds some level of truth, it doesn't make it okay for them to act like that. I want to know if I'm the only one who has been dealing with those annoying ass friends lol. If you do, please feel free to share your story!! I'm really interested in reading your own experience, and in knowing how it makes you feel and how you work with it! We gotta support each other (●'◡'●)ﾉ
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Here's my experience, if anyone's interested (it's a pretty long and hasty rant sorry sdkfd):
So there's this girl, who's been my best friend for more than 7 years, and we have grown to be extremely close. When I say close, I mean really reaaally close. She's extremely emotionally attached, which already tells a lot about why she acts certain ways. She really looked up to me and at some point in our friendship we even respectively had a crush on each other but it didn't develop and we just remained best friends. Anyway, ever since we became friends, I couldn't help but notice how she would constantly copy me. She copies a lot of aspects of my identity and style, basically. My looks, my hobbies and likings, the way I talk and behave and a lot of the things I do to express myself. It was really low-key at first and as I've always been a pretty competitive person, I just assumed it was me being paranoïd and not understanding that it was okay for friends to act like that. But as time went by, it just became more and more obvious and I grew to hate that part of her. Of course, she doesn't want to COMPLETELY become me or sth, but I think it's more like she finds my "lifestyle" really cool and she really looks up to me and wants to act like I do because we're so close she has grown to develop the exact same tastes as me even if we were originally quite different. She defined herself as more of a "follower" than a "leader" (which would be me in her opinion), and I strongly believe her acting like that reflects some sort of self-esteem and search for identity issue, but she doesn't realize the infuence I have on her is literally THAT gigantic and is toxic for me as well.
As I said, I'm a competitive person. But that means I'm also a very assertive person, whose identity is strongly reflected on the way I look and behave on the outside. And naturally, I couldn't stand seeing my identity stolen from me by my friend.
For example, I love fashion, I put a LOT of care in the way I look, and we talk a lot about it. Lately, this has been the thing she copies the most, so I have a pretty extensive list of things that annoy me about it lol. When I tell her about a certain item I've been obsessing over but can't manage to get my hands on for various reasons, she's deadass gonna show up the following week wearing the same thing or at least a really similar item. When I talk to her about my favorite niche stores where I plan on buying things, or when I show her my cart etc., she'll almost immediately go to these particular websites and check out similar things there as if it's nothing. And one day she will come to me saying "woah, I bought so much lol" and when I ~excitedly~ ask her to show me what she bought, she's showing me items I also bought/wanted to buy etc. And it happens ALL THE TIME. You get the picture. A lot of the time she manages to get them before me (perks of being well-off I guess), and it just makes me feel discouraged because if she's wearing it, there's no way I'm gonna buy it too because I don't want us to fucking look like twins and I don't want to give her the impression that it's me copying her either. And I feel shitty because of that, because in a way it's refraining me from doing what I want and expressing myself freely. Because I'm all about being me and standing out from others (which to an extent is dumb too, I realize it lol. I mean I'm trying to be more chill and stuff, but I'm really not perfect either ad I can get slighty arrogant/proud sometimes. That said, I'm not exaggerating on the extent of her behaviour at all and I'm being as objective and honest I can be).
Another example: I've always loved drawing. I actually taught her how and encouraged her to draw. Of course, when learning to draw, imitating is a must. It was still kind of annoying considering her overall behaviour but I accepted it. But even now that she doesn't really have anything to learn from me anymore, I still catch her being really reaaally heavily inluenced by me. Whenever I try out new techniques and styles, she does the same. Finding an artstyle is a real struggle and another attempt at expressing yourself, this time through art. And yet I still often find her subtly copying what I do, it's really infuriating.
And in general: when we discuss something, whatever the topic, she's also imitating me. When I talk to her about my likings, when I speak my mind on various debates and issues, when I talk to her about a particular topic that has sparked my interest lately, at first she's gonna be listening intently and then agree or subtly disagree with me. Because before speaking to me, she has her own opinion. But then the subject drops and we talk about something else. And so a few moments/days later, we get to talk about it again and she's saying the exact same thing I told her a few instants before, almost verbatim. Words for words, goddamn it.
To a lesser extent (because it's more natural when you're friends I guess and I've found myself sometimes doing that too), she picks up on all my speaking and texting habits etc.
It's scary how she tries to align her behaviour with mine.
So when it happens, I always try to low-key tell her, let her know that "I said/wore/wanted/talked about that particular thing". But then she just acts completely oblivious, acting like she forgot, or she deadass just ignore what I said as if she didn't hear me. Which is utter bullshit, considering the fact that she's an extremely intelligent person, with the biggest memory I've ever seen. She always manages to remember amazing details and stuff on random topics but convniently forgets the same things over and over. And at this point it's not just me being paranoïd, because I'm not dumb at all either and I can see when someone is bullshitting me, be it consciously or not.
But then the worst thing about this, is when she recieves compliments on the way she dresses or draws, on the things she says etc. when all she did was literally just steal them from me. I always feel kind of oppressed, extremely frustrated and robbed. Because she gets the credit for my entire identity and how I built it myself and it makes me want to fucking fight her, but at the same time how ridiculous would it be i I said it was actually me doing it first and giving me credit for it. Because I don't own those things. I own them as a whole as part of my identity, but nothing except myself can stop other people from usurping my style and identity, there's no copyrights, no trademark or whatever, nothing.
So I've always kind of shut up about it because of that, and also because she's my best and only real friend whom I'm really close with, and because I really didn't want to lose her and hurt her feelings. I know she doesn't necessarily think her doing it is wrong, and even I often doubt she realizes she's being overly invasive and toxic, so I've always told myself to deal with it and try to make her understand progressively etc. But turns out I can't fucking do that. There's always a point where the pressure is too much and you have to spill everything before it's too late, and I just reached it. It was just after I caught her bullshitting me as always.
I just gathered my all the courage and the self-cotnrol I had and told her everything. I calmly exposed the whole situation and I especially stressed the fact that I didn't want her to feel bad etc. I was honest and frank without being too mean (at least I tried to and I think I did pretty well), and I was actually feeling rather proud of myself for managing to talk to her about how I felt (it was via text and way less detailed than what now though, since we can't really see each other as often as before -which doesn't stop her from being a copycat lmao). But then she just straight up denied it and responded with a passive-agressive tone and I kind of snapped lmao. I just told her everything, I told her to cut the bullshit and look back on her behavior before accusing me of "wanting to spit at her", because from her own words, she really felt like "yeah, we're friends so oc that means we have the same tastes and of course as friends we influence each other but I wasn't that much influenced by you tbh you just helped me develop my identity duh" UM I THINK TF NOT. WHEN DID "HELPING YOU DEVELOP YOUR OWN IDENTITY" MEANT ALLOWING YOU TO COPY WHATEVER I WAS DOING? She just DEADASS SAID that it was HER IDENTITY and DENIED the fact that it was 95% JUST COPYING MY STYLE AND BEHAVIOR SJSKS I'm getting really angry just by remembering it and I don't want this to become just a big petty venting message sorry lol.
Anyway I just decided to be straightforward and now she won't respond to me LOL (I said that it didn't change the fact that she was still my best friend and that I didn't intend on cutting off our friendship or anything and all I wanted to do was making her think about the whole situation, which I 100% think and meant, although I understand me throwing a bomb like this at her may have made me lose her friendship skjfj).
And although I'm feeling sad bc I may have lost my closest and realest friend, and bad for being so selfish (because I kinda know it's rooted in her mentality and probably has to do with her own self-esteem, her very attached personality and her unconscious), I also feel so liberated and just free in general, because it was one of the things that made me realize our friendship was tainted and couldn't progress any further since from the start we're so different and I was making so many efforts in vain trying to make it work, I just realized I would keep feeling miserable if I didn't talk to her about it, even if it meant hurting her to an extent. And I truly think it was worth it to be selfish for once. I want to help her, and I don't want to hurt her nor lose her, but I had to make her realize beforehand and if she won't talk to me then okay, it's not that deep and fuck it, I'm gonna do what I want and be selfish if I want to, FOR ONCE. I don't know the english term, but in french, the saying "charité bien ordonnée commence par soi-même" sums up the situation lol.
I probably sound like a gigantic bitch right now because this is such an extensive rant but this whole situation lasted for seven years and really fucked with my self-esteem and the way I perceived myself for years. It made me kind of hateful and bitter when if I listen to people I should consider this as some form of flattery. I really felt oppressed and frustrated and it participated to make my depressed ass feel even more like shit, and I still kinda think I'm being a selfish asshole for ranting about it because it's so not a big deal to a lot of people. But feeling like you're being stolen what makes you who you are, what makes you feel a little bit proud of yourself, something that you've been building for years which basically determines your worth and your entire identity, is terrifying. And I really feel like this friendship, even if hard to break, was in a way manipulative. We would constantly be in a game of push and pull, we would act like hypocrites and constantly hurt each other and it wasn't worth it. That's why I decided to be selfish. I know she's probably struggling with self-esteem issues too to act like that, I know she also probably considers herself as the victim of this whole mess, and as a friend I genuinely want to help her find her own colors and help her be comfortable in her own skin, and I don't want to accuse her of anything because in no way I hate her, and I feel like shit for thowing this at her face instead of helping her right away, but even if I know I'm hurting her feelings and being an asshole to her right now, I am tired of trying to be docile and turning a blind eye on everything. I'm nota fucking saint and I'm not strong enough to be any more kind and understanding, and most of all I need to regain control over my self-esteem FIRST. I want to feel confident and comfortable with myself again first. And I'm still willing to fix the mess that is our friendship right now if she wants to, but I feel like keeping on being selfless isn't the right way to deal with it for me.
(as you can probaby tell english isn't my first language so I apologize for my broken grammar :')
