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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I haven't experienced this with a sister but I have had people in my life who copy everything I do. Not sure about your examples but I had a friend once who would literally buy the same clothes I had. She also started referring to my closest friends (who I had known for a decade and she'd met like six months prior... through me) as her best friends. She also mysteriously started sharing anecdotes from her past that weirdly resembled stories I had told about college or my childhood. She would even mimic my social media posts, posting things that resembled almost word for word something I'd posted months or even years before. It was creepy and frustrating and like you, if I said anything about it, people told me that imitation is a form of flattery or that I needed to get over it.

They were right about getting over it but wrong about the flattery. People who do this aren't flattering you. They are insecure and afraid of failure, so they find people who can do the trial run for them. Then, once they see that others (parents, friends, people on social media) respond positively to something, they copy it, sometimes even doing a more refined version (after all, its easier to improve on a previous draft). It's messed up and has nothing to do with their affection or admiration for you. It has to do with their own perfectionism and they are simply using you as a conduit.

The way I got through it was that I became more discreet about certain things in my life. If I was working on getting a new job or picking up a new hobby, I didn't post about it on social media at all and I only discussed it with people who I knew wouldn't talk to my copycat about it (this actually took a while to figure out). I shared things with close friends, but otherwise I only told people about stuff once it was done (like announcing I'd gotten into grad school or that I'd gotten a new job).

At first this was hard because I felt like I was being forced to to act differently just to escape my copycat. But with time, I found that I preferred to be more discreet and that it gave me more room to do things for their own sake and because I really cared about them, and worry less about being validated by lots of people. I found my interests shifted a little bit, and for the better. I posted less on social media because I was less worried about looking like I was having a good time than actually having a good time.

I'm sure this would only be harder with a sister, but I think the basic principles are the same: be more discreet, try not to share things when they are still in progress, and focus more on what YOU like and try not to focus on what other people think about it. Even though my copycat was not a "normal" part of life (I genuinely feel sorry for her), I do think she forced me to essentially just become more mature and thoughtful about life.

Best of luck to you![/quote]

That friend sounds very troubled but is completely unrelated to op’s situation. One sister of mine knits-I liked her hats and asked her to teach me how and now I also knit. My brother got really into scandi noir after I told him about a series I was reading. Those are normal and it would be bizarre for me to take offense at my brother or feel I had wronged mister.  Those examples are much more like what op described than your single white female scenario. [/quote]

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