Im tired of my friends bizarre copying of my personality
Me and him have been friends for over 15 years. For clarity, I am a woman and hes a man. We’re like defacto family. The older I got the more I became aware that whenever I talked to him about my new interests or things I’ve done, soon after he would become interested in these things too, using them as a way to get with other women. It has gotten to the point that these women thing I’m copying HIM to try and get him interested in me, then later he gets dumped because the interests and his personality come crumbling down.
I was flattered at first, don’t get me wrong, its nice that friends appreciate your interests and want to get involved as well, but its going far beyond flattery. I dye my hair – oh look so does he! I shaved my head, so does he (when he stated he never would). Me and my best friends make a DJ collective – guess what? Hes now made his own despite never DJing in his life and always claiming DJ’s ‘suck’. I go get new tattoos from a particular small stylized artist – so does he (after having none). I start wearing a small brands clothes (granted I got them for free), you bet hes gone to buy them. I learn to kayak – so does he, I learn to skydive – so does he, I start cross country running – so does he, quit driving and start cycling – hes now a fixie bike aficionado. I develop a pretty weird interest in carnivorous plants, rinse and repeat lol. I start going to this small cafe near my house (no where near him) every other day, post it on my story, now he’s obsessed and goes there without me and then posts it on his story. Me and my roommates got big into baking our own bread and then he sets up his own baking instagram. Ive caught him a few time when hes been over him rummaging through my Vinyl collection, taking photos of each, and then him buying them. Same with some of the fashion pieces I have (though not the dresses and skirts) and even with some commissioned art pieces that I have. All without asking – including going into my room. Ive even caught him once as I was going to meet him and a few friends him looking at my Instagram, screenshotting pictures and zooming in then googling the brand names etc. In group conversations, when things have gotten political or whatever, his opinion will be vastly different to mine, to then him taking my opinion and later using it to flirt with girls? He buys the games I play, books I read, magazines I read, etc. I’m a photographer and when I finally got successful and began working for myself, he bought a camera and started his own photography Instagram. The list goes on and on…
My breaking point has to be last year, I became vegetarian. Its something I worked really hard to do as I was not brought up vegetarian like some of my friends have and took a while to progress into, figuring out recipes, replacers, how to get all my vitamins in, I suffer a bit with anaemia so it was a big change. I didn’t announce the change or anything as I didn’t think much of it since most of our friends are veggie already. He has said many times that he would never do it because of his health issues which would mean he could end up in hospital. We have a friends dinner together and another friend asks me if I want meat, I tell them I don’t eat it anymore. He is now vegetarian a week later…
I had a chat with him about this last year after the veggie incident. I asked him if he liked me, he said he did not. I then tried to carefully discuss his behaviour, laying out the scenarios I’ve been uncomfortable with and he got defensive and angry at me, claiming I was trying to find any reason to blame him and that having an interest in your friends interests is normal. I agreed that I was flattered at first but this feels like its beyond an interest and bordering into an obsession. I told him that the girls he dates always end up disliking me (some being outright rude to me) because they think I like him because of it. Some days I wont see my other friends If I know hes coming with a girl because its extremely uncomfortable and they treat me this way even if Im with a guy. He then had the audacity to tell me that maybe I should stop copying him then!
After that conversation, I have taken a massive step back from him. I have no idea what his goal is with this behaviour. I won’t cut him off completely because he is a childhood friend but I think that he needs to be held at arms length. Ive restricted my stories from him and I very rarely host with that group of friends at all, and if I do, in smaller groups without him. I think the other friends have noticed this but I don’t care anymore. If they ask I’ll tell them the reason and deal with the fallout then. Ive talked to a few of them after a few drinks about it (too uncomfortable to do sober lol) and they are aware that he seems to follow a lot of my interests and personality and havent seen him do this to anyone else. His best friend (but not him) is coming over this evening with a few others to pregame for an event and Im going to try and sus out if anything has been said or anything has happened recently.