What To Do When Your Best Friend Is Sickeningly Perfect (Part 1 of 2)
She’s absolutely beautiful, everyone thinks so. She’s utterly graceful, everyone can see that. She’s witty and charming, everyone loves to talk to her. She’s polite and nice, everyone thinks she’s too good to be true. The problem is that she’s not. She really is beautiful, graceful, witty, charming, polite and nice, even behind their backs. She’s so bloody perfect you want to scratch her eyes out. Worse still, she’s your best friend.
Maybe you became best friends at birth. Maybe you watched her come into this world, hoping for a playmate and being disappointed with the mewling baby before you. Maybe she came first and you were always in her shadow. No matter what you did, she had already done it first.
Maybe you became best friends in grade school when you both were outcasts, serving school lunch together. You both were there so you could get the extra large free lunch at the end: her because her brothers ate up all the food at her house and you because your grandmother starved you over the summer and it was hard to turn down lots of free food.
Maybe you became best friends in junior high when you both were chosen to be Cougar of the Month. Being smart girls was hard in junior high and the two of you clung to each other in your nerdy times of need. She was developing beautifully, but she was so tall that she dwarfed the boys. She held on, waiting for high school and masculine growth spurts, while you struggled with your burgeoning body.
Maybe you became best friends in high school. You happened to have a class together and she happened to sit next to you. She didn’t need any help with the class work. She just needed another smart girl next to her to listen to her talk about the one guy with blue eyes who just came back from picking pineapples in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />
It doesn’t matter how you became best friends. Everyone thinks you’re so lucky. She likes you best and tells you all her secrets. If only her secrets revealed some flaw. If only she was an ugly person inside, but she isn’t. She’s everything that everyone believes her to be and it makes you so completely sick.
Worse still, she has lots of friends. You could be replaced as her best friend at any moment. Her every moment is scheduled and planned. Her days are filled with glamorous activity. You do your best to network. You do your best to make your own friends, but you can’t let go of the idea that they only like you because you’re her best friend. You have that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach that tells you that if she decided to replace you, it would devastate you and there would be tons of girls clamoring to take your place.
No matter what you do, you’re always the dowdy one. No matter how smart you are, her scores are always higher. No matter how much you practice, she always beats your best time. No matter whom you’re talking with, she’s the one to make them laugh. She doesn’t even try to beat you and she leaves you in the dust, every time. Most of the time, she doesn’t even know that she beat you. She didn’t even know there was a competition going on.
That’s because there isn’t.
The competition is all in your head. The people around you don’t see her beating you at everything. All they see is the two of you, shining like stars. In fact, the two of you are so blinding that they might not even be able to tell you apart. Her accomplishments have become yours in their minds and your accomplishments have become hers. They are melded together with the strength of your friendship.
Your jealousy is eating away at that friendship and the more that you harbor these thoughts, the weaker your friendship will become. Learning to be friends with someone who is better than you are without being jealous is an asset that will help you succeed in life far beyond any math or grammar skills. Until you master this talent, you will find yourself faced with this situation again and again. Tune in tomorrow for methods for curbing your green-eyed monster.
jealousy is pathetic and a waste of time. let me put it to you this way. If you were as wonderful as the person you want to be, in other words, say now you were them, how would you like it if people were just out to crush your god-given talents and happiness the whole time. wake up, stupid bitch, you have talents, too, everyone has a personality and traits that are admired and appreciated by someone. I dumped my best friend for being a bitch to me because she was jealous. You know what? My face was smashed and she was still jealous of what I had. Instead of focusing and admiring her own many wonderful traits she actually went out of her way to make a disfigured person feel even more shit. I was so shocked to realise that people can be so stupid and cruel that I wanted to kill myself and that I still want to. Think that makes the bitch a winner? No, it makes her a criminal and a witch and I have the satisfaction of knowing that she will never be what i was. Never. Her retard behavior was perfect proof of this.
Comment by Sylvie — 3/25/2006 @ 5:59 am
My best friend is perfect. She always gets the boys I want. Sometimes I love her, sometimes I hate her. I dont know if i can carry on bein friends with her because she’s too perfect and I’m not perfect so why should she be stuck with me? She should be best mates with someone popular and gorgeous and smart like her. I hate feeling like this but I’ve got over it, I know it’s true and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Comment by Katie — 4/14/2006 @ 12:10 pm
My best friend is a stunningly beautiful woman. We have been friends for 10 years, but sometimes I still get so jealous although I should have grown out of it by age 26! I am average looking, a bit chubby, well liked and intelligent, but with a low paying job that I love. She is gorgeous, thin, elegant, brilliant, with a top paying managerial position that she hates. When we are together I am always the ‘fat and average one’, I swear men look straight through me to gaze on her beauty, and break their necks falling in love with her, and it wreaks havoc with my self esteem. The worst part is, she is my biggest fan and I love her dearly. I guess the problem is mine, and I have to learn to love myself more.
Comment by Ani — 7/6/2006 @ 8:24 pm
To be jealous of a best friend who is perfect in every way is one thing, but it is another, and much worse, to be jealous of your best friend who everyone believes is perfect, but who is actually not. A best friend who, despite a perfect glamourous body, wit, charm and good grades, is horrid to those closest to her- putting them down to make herself feel better. But like jealousy, this simply stems from insecurity.
Comment by claire — 1/18/2007 @ 6:35 pm
my best friend always ends up liking the boy i love and adore. and the worst part is, he ends up falling for her becuase she gets everything she wants. friends, boys, clothes, beautiful looks,i mean everything. its not fair and i hate it.
Comment by shannon — 2/20/2007 @ 10:30 pm
MY “BFF” is such a bitch!! she gets jealous of me so easily and it’s soo annoying. everytime i talk to her crush she gets mad..and the thing is that HE HATES HER AND LIKES ME. How funny. Sometimes I want to slap her, other times i like her, but that doesnt happen very ofte. She copies me so much and it annoys me SO FCKN MUCH I DONO WHAT TO DO ANYMORE. If you have a best friend that copies every single thing you eat, do, SAY or wear…it gets ANNOYING. i duno wat to do i need adviceeeee :'( PLZ HELPPP XXX-> sofiia
Comment by SOFIA — 2/27/2007 @ 2:22 pm
Sofia,
It sounds like you need some distance from your friend AND her crush. Seriously…
Spend time with other friends and avoid your friend and the guy she’s crushing on right now. I know that’s a really hard thing to do, but the distance and time away from her will probably do you both some good.
Good luck, Laura Moncur
Comment by Laura Moncur — 2/28/2007 @ 10:31 am
i have the same thing that happend to me but the thing is the guys will stop liking her eventually and well me and my friend that this was happening with isnt my friend anymore because of it just be careful because u dont want to lose a frienship over this but then u want ot be able to like a guy with out her liking him bacl
Comment by jenn — 3/18/2007 @ 12:47 pm