I want to get away from friend groups/communities with this specific type of woman: where to go?

[Anonymous]

I have run in a variety of circles/SES levels in my life. I encounter these types in all of those places. I can ID them immediately. They don't bother me too much though maybe because I have an RBF and I give of no vibes of needing anything and/or I just don't care what they do or think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Above poster is probably one of these types and a big thing I notice about them is they have no insecurity or humility whatsoever. Everything in their lives is perfect. Perfect husband, perfect kids, perfect house. If your life isn't perfect, you went wrong somewhere and you bring negative energy.
I think of it as being real! Nobody is in jail or anything but my family and house are far from perfect.

Everyone has insecurities.

No, they truly don't.
I was attempting friendship with one of these a while back and every conversation collapsed because of this.
"Mikeys not very athletic so I'm trying to encourage x and y. He said recess has been kind of a struggle." "That's strange. All my kids are super sporty, because we encourage being active in our family." I literally just said that we encourage that too!
"I'm going crazy with my kitchen remodel, the contractor did x and y." "I'm so glad we made sure to buy a beautifully maintained house so we never had to worry about that. My kitchen is amazing."

If they weren't insecure, they wouldn't feel the need to 'one-up' everything you say. It's their coping mechanism.

It's weird though, right? I agree they are insecure and use one-upping to deal with it, but this is such a strange impulse to me.

As someone with insecurities, it's always a huge relief to me when someone I'm friendly with lets their guard down and shares something vulnerable. It's like "oh thank god, I don't have to pretend everything is perfect with this person." It's the opposite of threatening, it makes me feel safe enough to maybe share one of my vulnerabilities, or just be empathetic and let them know I understand what it's like to not have it figured out.

To respond to someone else's vulnerability with "oh good, an opportunity to one-up someone who is clearly struggling" is psychotic to me. Why? Even if you don't want to respond with vulnerability, why would you want to take advantage of the other person's admission in that way? This seems super disordered to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Say what?

Yeah.

Sounds like OP has got it all figured out…. lol.

OP sounds like she has too much time on her hands. Get a more demanding day job Op. you need a bigger perspective and more orbits in your life.

Said an anonymous stranger at quarter after ten in the morning on a weekday. Hmmm.

Fridays are the best!

[Anonymous]

I like authentic people, and avoid inauthentic ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have run in a variety of circles/SES levels in my life. I encounter these types in all of those places. I can ID them immediately. They don't bother me too much though maybe because I have an RBF and I give of no vibes of needing anything and/or I just don't care what they do or think.

This is my goal. I want to just not care. I want to be able to respond to someone who is like "you know you should really be doing XYZ, like me -- here, let me help" with some sarcastic remark or just a dead stare and to walk away.

I was raised to be such a people pleaser and am really trying to undo that training but it's hard. I think I'm such a target for these women. I have finally figured out enough to recognize what they are doing and at least understand I don't want to be around it. But I still struggle to stand up to it.

I want to have enough comfort and confidence in myself to flex some power at them when they try to dominate in this way, so they learn to leave me alone. Right now I still lack the confidence. Argh. It's hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These people are at every level of SES. I grew up as a poor immigrant and now live in an affluent area.

I find it easy to avoid them. I never hung out with those types of people.

How do you avoid them? Tell me your ways.

-- a person dealing with someone like this at work and in my social life and so annoyed

When I was a kid, I was a tomboy. I never dealt with these type of queen bee girls when I was young. I didn’t like them when I was a kid, in college or grad school. I worked with mostly men. I always had a handful of friends I genuinely liked.

Of course these women exist and I’m friendly with them. They are not my cup of tea and it is really easy not to socialize with them personally. I am friendly acquaintances with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Above poster is probably one of these types and a big thing I notice about them is they have no insecurity or humility whatsoever. Everything in their lives is perfect. Perfect husband, perfect kids, perfect house. If your life isn't perfect, you went wrong somewhere and you bring negative energy.
I think of it as being real! Nobody is in jail or anything but my family and house are far from perfect.

Everyone has insecurities.

No, they truly don't.
I was attempting friendship with one of these a while back and every conversation collapsed because of this.
"Mikeys not very athletic so I'm trying to encourage x and y. He said recess has been kind of a struggle." "That's strange. All my kids are super sporty, because we encourage being active in our family." I literally just said that we encourage that too!
"I'm going crazy with my kitchen remodel, the contractor did x and y." "I'm so glad we made sure to buy a beautifully maintained house so we never had to worry about that. My kitchen is amazing."

If they weren't insecure, they wouldn't feel the need to 'one-up' everything you say. It's their coping mechanism.

It's weird though, right? I agree they are insecure and use one-upping to deal with it, but this is such a strange impulse to me.

As someone with insecurities, it's always a huge relief to me when someone I'm friendly with lets their guard down and shares something vulnerable. It's like "oh thank god, I don't have to pretend everything is perfect with this person." It's the opposite of threatening, it makes me feel safe enough to maybe share one of my vulnerabilities, or just be empathetic and let them know I understand what it's like to not have it figured out.

To respond to someone else's vulnerability with "oh good, an opportunity to one-up someone who is clearly struggling" is psychotic to me. Why? Even if you don't want to respond with vulnerability, why would you want to take advantage of the other person's admission in that way? This seems super disordered to me.

I'm the PP and completely agree! Be my friend!
But the thing is everyone seems to adore this lady. She's beloved by all, invited to everything, if you mention her you invariably hear "she is so amazing. I love her." So most people don't seem to mind this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Say what?

Yeah.

Sounds like OP has got it all figured out…. lol.

OP sounds like she has too much time on her hands. Get a more demanding day job Op. you need a bigger perspective and more orbits in your life.

Said an anonymous stranger at quarter after ten in the morning on a weekday. Hmmm.

Fridays are the best!

Look, this won't work here.

We get it, you see yourself in these descriptions, it's threatening your feeling of superiority that is very important to your self-esteem. So you are doing what you often do, which is seek to undermine anyone who exposes your insecurities. But the thread is wise to this. Like we are literally taking apart these tendencies and discussing them. You can't bully people into being quiet here by claiming they must have too much time on their hands.

You can read along and try to learn something about yourself, or you can move along and forget about it. But you can't mean girl your way into silencing a thread that is about people who have figured out how the mean girls operate and discussing how to avoid or neutralize them. We are wise to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Above poster is probably one of these types and a big thing I notice about them is they have no insecurity or humility whatsoever. Everything in their lives is perfect. Perfect husband, perfect kids, perfect house. If your life isn't perfect, you went wrong somewhere and you bring negative energy.
I think of it as being real! Nobody is in jail or anything but my family and house are far from perfect.

Everyone has insecurities.

No, they truly don't.
I was attempting friendship with one of these a while back and every conversation collapsed because of this.
"Mikeys not very athletic so I'm trying to encourage x and y. He said recess has been kind of a struggle." "That's strange. All my kids are super sporty, because we encourage being active in our family." I literally just said that we encourage that too!
"I'm going crazy with my kitchen remodel, the contractor did x and y." "I'm so glad we made sure to buy a beautifully maintained house so we never had to worry about that. My kitchen is amazing."

If they weren't insecure, they wouldn't feel the need to 'one-up' everything you say. It's their coping mechanism.

It's weird though, right? I agree they are insecure and use one-upping to deal with it, but this is such a strange impulse to me.

As someone with insecurities, it's always a huge relief to me when someone I'm friendly with lets their guard down and shares something vulnerable. It's like "oh thank god, I don't have to pretend everything is perfect with this person." It's the opposite of threatening, it makes me feel safe enough to maybe share one of my vulnerabilities, or just be empathetic and let them know I understand what it's like to not have it figured out.

To respond to someone else's vulnerability with "oh good, an opportunity to one-up someone who is clearly struggling" is psychotic to me. Why? Even if you don't want to respond with vulnerability, why would you want to take advantage of the other person's admission in that way? This seems super disordered to me.

I'm the PP and completely agree! Be my friend!
But the thing is everyone seems to adore this lady. She's beloved by all, invited to everything, if you mention her you invariably hear "she is so amazing. I love her." So most people don't seem to mind this!

Ugh, it's so irritating, isn't it?

They are attracted to her status. Which she maintains in part by never admitting to vulnerability and to one-upping people like you who are emotionally intelligent enough to admit to struggling sometimes. They are also insecure and she projects this air of having NO problems or insecurities, so they latch onto it (and get used by her in the process).

I don't have an answer to this because I have this same problem, but I try to just remind myself that anyone who would "adore" someone who behaves this way is probably not someone who would make a good friend to me anyway. There are others like us, we just have to find each other and do our best to ignore people like this (it's so hard, they are often so loud and suck up all the air in the room).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These people are at every level of SES. I grew up as a poor immigrant and now live in an affluent area.

I find it easy to avoid them. I never hung out with those types of people.

How do you avoid them? Tell me your ways.

-- a person dealing with someone like this at work and in my social life and so annoyed

When I was a kid, I was a tomboy. I never dealt with these type of queen bee girls when I was young. I didn’t like them when I was a kid, in college or grad school. I worked with mostly men. I always had a handful of friends I genuinely liked.

Of course these women exist and I’m friendly with them. They are not my cup of tea and it is really easy not to socialize with them personally. I am friendly acquaintances with them.

That is great.

I really struggle with this type because when I was younger (especially my 20s and early 30s) I admired these women and basically wanted to be them, which brought me into their orbit. I mean, they are working to do this to people so basically I was just susceptible to their self-promotion. Then I got very burned by one, learned my lesson, and now seek to avoid them. But it's hard for me to be a "friendly acquaintance" with them because they get under my skin. Yes I am insecure and they trigger my insecurities. I wish I wasn't but you can't just stop being insecure via sheer will. Also because of that very bad experience with a woman like this, my self-esteem took a beating and now I feel kind of scared of these women.

I really wish I didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where do you live? You have to hang out with people a level below your own income level. We haven't moved out of our starter home for this reason. I want to HAVE money, not be around other people with money. Most of them are exactly like you describe.

This this this.

Not just income level - but "status level" (educational background, job titles etc.). And then keep your status/income level to yourself.

And then just don't engage. Someone wants to take over the PTA or the pool board with some sort of Game of Thrones style machinations? Who cares.

It's not that those types of women aren't out there - there are plenty of women who aren't mutual frenemies or minions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you live? You have to hang out with people a level below your own income level. We haven't moved out of our starter home for this reason. I want to HAVE money, not be around other people with money. Most of them are exactly like you describe.

This this this.

Not just income level - but "status level" (educational background, job titles etc.). And then keep your status/income level to yourself.

And then just don't engage. Someone wants to take over the PTA or the pool board with some sort of Game of Thrones style machinations? Who cares.

It's not that those types of women aren't out there - there are plenty of women who aren't mutual frenemies or minions.

What if you are just middle class, so the only people below your income/status level are working or lower class?

Alternatively, what if your social class and economic class don't match? My spouse and I are highly educated from "good" schools that have a lot of status, but we have middle class status jobs and a middle class income.

I'm genuinely asking. We wind up living among UMC people but being the lowest status people in that community, which is an uncomfortable situation and I think makes me a target for these sorts of women who initially wish to turn me into an acolyte and then, when they realize I don't like that, they use my low status as a punching bag to elevate themselves.

I don't want to live in a poorer community because I value education and schools in poor and working class areas tend to either be not great, or they are great but are focused mostly on helping a poor kids (which makes sense) and might not be a great place for my MC kids.

So where do a I go to get away from this dynamic, or, if there's nowhere for me to go, how do I protect myself from these women using me as a weird foil for their status games? What I want is to just float in the middle somewhere without attracting attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you live? You have to hang out with people a level below your own income level. We haven't moved out of our starter home for this reason. I want to HAVE money, not be around other people with money. Most of them are exactly like you describe.

This this this.

Not just income level - but "status level" (educational background, job titles etc.). And then keep your status/income level to yourself.

And then just don't engage. Someone wants to take over the PTA or the pool board with some sort of Game of Thrones style machinations? Who cares.

It's not that those types of women aren't out there - there are plenty of women who aren't mutual frenemies or minions.

What if you are just middle class, so the only people below your income/status level are working or lower class?

Alternatively, what if your social class and economic class don't match? My spouse and I are highly educated from "good" schools that have a lot of status, but we have middle class status jobs and a middle class income.

I'm genuinely asking. We wind up living among UMC people but being the lowest status people in that community, which is an uncomfortable situation and I think makes me a target for these sorts of women who initially wish to turn me into an acolyte and then, when they realize I don't like that, they use my low status as a punching bag to elevate themselves.

I don't want to live in a poorer community because I value education and schools in poor and working class areas tend to either be not great, or they are great but are focused mostly on helping a poor kids (which makes sense) and might not be a great place for my MC kids.

So where do a I go to get away from this dynamic, or, if there's nowhere for me to go, how do I protect myself from these women using me as a weird foil for their status games? What I want is to just float in the middle somewhere without attracting attention.

You are exactly me, I could have written this!
I made friends with the immigrant moms. My favorites are Polish. They are zero BS and as real as it gets. But the thing is if they like you, you know it and there are no games of status.
We are at a Catholic school where most people are rich and we are making big sacrifices to afford it. Lots of family money and "forces of nature" around.
If they see you have someone to talk to regularly you'll be off their radar. It's the lonely floaters that get sucked in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you live? You have to hang out with people a level below your own income level. We haven't moved out of our starter home for this reason. I want to HAVE money, not be around other people with money. Most of them are exactly like you describe.

This this this.

Not just income level - but "status level" (educational background, job titles etc.). And then keep your status/income level to yourself.

And then just don't engage. Someone wants to take over the PTA or the pool board with some sort of Game of Thrones style machinations? Who cares.

It's not that those types of women aren't out there - there are plenty of women who aren't mutual frenemies or minions.

What if you are just middle class, so the only people below your income/status level are working or lower class?

Alternatively, what if your social class and economic class don't match? My spouse and I are highly educated from "good" schools that have a lot of status, but we have middle class status jobs and a middle class income.

I'm genuinely asking. We wind up living among UMC people but being the lowest status people in that community, which is an uncomfortable situation and I think makes me a target for these sorts of women who initially wish to turn me into an acolyte and then, when they realize I don't like that, they use my low status as a punching bag to elevate themselves.

I don't want to live in a poorer community because I value education and schools in poor and working class areas tend to either be not great, or they are great but are focused mostly on helping a poor kids (which makes sense) and might not be a great place for my MC kids.

So where do a I go to get away from this dynamic, or, if there's nowhere for me to go, how do I protect myself from these women using me as a weird foil for their status games? What I want is to just float in the middle somewhere without attracting attention.

You are exactly me, I could have written this!
I made friends with the immigrant moms. My favorites are Polish. They are zero BS and as real as it gets. But the thing is if they like you, you know it and there are no games of status.
We are at a Catholic school where most people are rich and we are making big sacrifices to afford it. Lots of family money and "forces of nature" around.
If they see you have someone to talk to regularly you'll be off their radar. It's the lonely floaters that get sucked in.

PP here. I'm glad you found your people! I do think there are some people within our community who are more down to earth but I haven't found a way to deepen those friendships. I definitely feel like I have to wade through a lot of the Type A controlling people in the meantime. I have learned some lessons (avoid any committee-based PTA work but show up for "grunt work" volunteer opportunties, find ways to politely exit conversations about super status-focused topics like travel, extended family, college, and "do you know so and so or such and such"). So I'm navigating that a bit better now than when I first got here. But there are a still a couple of these women who always seem to want to pounce when they see me, I think because early on they pegged me as inferior and they like the idea of adopting me as a pet or standing near me for beneficial contrast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you live? You have to hang out with people a level below your own income level. We haven't moved out of our starter home for this reason. I want to HAVE money, not be around other people with money. Most of them are exactly like you describe.

This this this.

Not just income level - but "status level" (educational background, job titles etc.). And then keep your status/income level to yourself.

And then just don't engage. Someone wants to take over the PTA or the pool board with some sort of Game of Thrones style machinations? Who cares.

It's not that those types of women aren't out there - there are plenty of women who aren't mutual frenemies or minions.

What if you are just middle class, so the only people below your income/status level are working or lower class?

Alternatively, what if your social class and economic class don't match? My spouse and I are highly educated from "good" schools that have a lot of status, but we have middle class status jobs and a middle class income.

I'm genuinely asking. We wind up living among UMC people but being the lowest status people in that community, which is an uncomfortable situation and I think makes me a target for these sorts of women who initially wish to turn me into an acolyte and then, when they realize I don't like that, they use my low status as a punching bag to elevate themselves.

I don't want to live in a poorer community because I value education and schools in poor and working class areas tend to either be not great, or they are great but are focused mostly on helping a poor kids (which makes sense) and might not be a great place for my MC kids.

So where do a I go to get away from this dynamic, or, if there's nowhere for me to go, how do I protect myself from these women using me as a weird foil for their status games? What I want is to just float in the middle somewhere without attracting attention.

Are you the OP?

I posted before that I used to be a tomboy and never hung out with these types. I guess we are the opposite because we have the highest income. Many of those queen bee types in our area are UMC but not super rich.

I have three very social children who I guess are popular so those moms are nice to me. DH is also well regarded so those wives play nice to me. I don’t want to hang out with any of those women personally if I don’t have to.