Boyfriend's female friend makes me feel left out sometimes

Oh my god, thats a long post when you already know she is no threat to your relationship. First of all you have a lot of ideas about what is appropriate when a gf gets introduced and what is not. Its not so black and white as how you put it. We got introduced to a new gf in a group years ago (when puf other friend broke up with him), but since we didnt know her we all had to refoot our chemistry. And we probably did talk about events before her, because we had to refoot with him too. So im not sure all she did was a ‘claiming’ thing.
Secondly she sounds starving boring talking about trains and stuff. I would take a note: boring there in stead of seeing a reason to post about her here.
Last: some people are just not nice or not a good click with you. So lef it go. They meet in a group setting, he is not overinvested in her, so dont bother to do more then be civil and friendly. This is so not worth your time unless there are other issues at play here

Thanks for the feedback.

I think my ideas are based on my own experiences of being left out, and also how I treat other people – I’ve always tried to make my friends’ BFs or GFs feel comfortable. I absolutely do keep the in-jokes low when meeting a friend’s (or colleague’s) GF for the first few times cos I don’t want them to feel left out or weird (or heaven forbid, them to assume there’s any interest on my side), cos I have enough experience with friends to know how insecure many can be.

No usually I love when people talk about stuff that happened in the past, when it’s explained. As you say, it’s fun to learn about stuff they all got up to. When people are good at actually explaining anecdotes – which most of our friends are. I’m in quite a few of the group whatsapps at this point in our relationship, so of course there are lots of stories that are new :D

It’s just with her it’s always something that you “had to be there” for or isn’t explained. more like “hey, remember X?” “Yeah” – her anectotes are just almost always dry and kinda pointless. It’s part of life that people will mention things from the past – we all do – the main problem is she either sucks or can’t be bothered to explain it, from the beginning, and that reminded me of exactly how said ex-friend used to leave me out.

I partly posted because my anxiety has been worse than usual (it’s being addressed, but it’s not 100% gone), so I wanted to get some more objective feedback. I really want to get on with his friendship group cos they are really close as a groyp, even though he’s not particularly close with her. To be fair, this may all be coloured by the fact I was going through a very stressful time around then, so I was already feeling super nervous to be liked by her (and everyone) and then at first I felt that she might not like me. I just don’t want my previous experiences or anxiety, or initial dislike of her to be an issue.

I think you are waaayyy overthinking things with this woman. She clearly isn’t a threat, in fact she sounds quite dull.

I’m not really sure why you are so bothered by her and conversations from months ago? Your bf doesn’t sound close to her. The examples you gave were all bit odd too as you seem to have some fixed ideas of how others should act and maybe thats because you are a more considerate person but her actions don’t sound extreme or like she is marking her territory at all – like i said she sounds dull!

I’d drop this and just keep being civil and polite x

Dont go mope about you being left out now

I wonder if you would feel the same if it was avmale friend?

This is an issue you are going to need to deal with and fix on your own. Don’t drag others who have no problem with her into it. So what, she’s different than his other friends, you didn’t connect with her as easily, it happens. I highly suggest you don’t make any waves with her, don’t talk to others about her or behind her back because they’ve had history with her, it will get back to her, and you will soon find yourself more alone if you rock the group boat.

Learn how to not let people get under your skin. Suck it up, let it go, and just be friendly when in her presence. Don’t try to fake a friendship with her. Remain neutral when the group is together, try not sit by or near her, and find a reason to excuse yourself (go to the lady’s room) and then start talking to others on your way back if you find her conversations too boring. Easy peasy.

Thanks, people.

@paige: It’s not that I expect her to avoid talking about stuff at which I wasn’t present. It’s that people usually explain an anecdote as they go along so everyone’s in on the story. I’m used to being around friends’ friends etc and hearing about times I wasn’t present. It’s actually great fun most of the time. It’s that she keeps throwing out half a line about something in a dull way – just enough to alienate half the people from the conversation without really adding much for everyone else. For some reason it triggers very specific and painful memories of being cattily alienated by a friend. I have close friends I’ve known for ages – and we socialise with their partners, too. We just make a consicous effort not to dwell on conversation that would be dull to them.

@lane I’m not dragging others into it; Id never complain about her to her friends (or my boyfriend) because that wouldn’t be fair on them. Thanks for the advice, that’s exactly what I needed to hear. The thing is, I usually get on with people – I rarely dislike people so when I do it frustrates me. Perhaps I just wanted – desperately – to be liked by his friends because I used to struggle to make friends way back.

SS, I’ve been thinking about it. I suspect not entirely – but it’s a combination of things. There’s probably a slight jealousy element, but when I think about what bothers me, its mostly that she very specifically reminds me of people who didn’t treat me well, and that makes me uncomfortable with her. My initial impressions weren’t “I hate her” but “I find her intimidating” and then her actions happened to reinforce that for me – I admit it’s half that she could be more considerate (because I really don’t have an issue with like his like 7 other close female friends, who are much closer to him and talk a lot more about stuff from the past. And half just my specific triggers. For whatever reason it touched on an insecurity I hadn’t felt in years. For some reason she just reminds me of people who treated me badly -and having gone to a girls’ school, a lot of those people happened to be female – even when I’ve been bullied at work. I’ve never felt a bitchy undercurrent with male friends in that way – not saying it’s not possible. I wondered if one of his male friends didn’t like me at first, actually cos I inadvertently offended him, but he doesn’t bear a grudge, so we’re OK.

I’ve been having a worse time with my anxiety than usual under lockdown (apart from him, sadly) for various reasons relating to the health and financial stability of my loved ones, and being onthe front line right now – to be honest I hadn’t thought about it in months and was generally starting to like her better until I was anxious about other things, and I needed to hear from some impartial strangers. I know i’m overthinking it but I guess sometimes I need to hear that to accept it.

I’m hoping to slowly get to know her and just see where things go. At worst, I want to be civil as possible – we don’t have many interests in common (nor does she with either of us, really) so we don’t have to be best buds. I just know she may potentially be in my life for a long time, so I want to not let my initial anxieties get the better of me because I want things to work, if that makes sense.

Thanks again, this is really helpful. I wanted to get this out there somewhere so I could let it go.

Mell, you gave me great advice and I shouldn’t give advice since I’m oversensitive just like you but I can totally relate and know exactly what you mean as I was bullied, left out and am people pleaser. Some people don’t even see what you see, don’t pick on this vibe so you should never confront your bf or anyone. I do believe in intuition though. Your feelings are valid. She might is a bit bitchy, possessive and not exactly the happiest he’s found you and you have a high emotional IQ and want everyone to feel welcomed. So don’t ever feel bad. Never suck up to her, don’t show her that you care, don’t get dragged into any mess. She’ll soon get bored and if not you’ll get used to her and feel more secure in the group. She is like a dog (no offence), she showed her boundaries.

@kaye I didn’t see your message before.

She just treated me differently than the other friends (male or female) and I didn’t get particularly good vibes from our initial interactions and didn’t feel welcome at first. I certainly felt a lot less welcomed by her than other people – and I went into meeting them all with no preconceptions. Maybe I just don’t gel with her partcular personality, and took things the wrong way, or maybe the way she went about things just made her come across as bitchier than she is – but that’s certainly not the vibe I get from most people in general. I don’t dislike people or find them rude often which is why this threw me a little. But perhaps the anecdotes don’t put across how things came across, since tone can account for a lot. But even so, I recognise that a lot of this is my response to my previous experiences. Rather than anything she’s done.

And no, I didn’t confront my BF – her actions are not his responsibility. And I wouldn’t expect him to change how he socialises with friends unless i had very explicit grievances with their behaviour – in which case we’d discuss that. I also wouldn’t confront her, because I have no evidence that she’s doing anything maliciously – even if she is a bit thoughtless compared to the rest of the group, once I’ve gotten used to her, I’ll feel happier that it isn’t personal and she isn’t trying to be rude or personal. Even if she is just ‘like that’, I know it’ll be less intiidating with time.