Life Stealers

On my way to work this morning I was tuned into Cosmo Radio (yes it is my radio station and I love it much to Adrian's dismay).  They were discussing the new movie that is coming out with Leighton Meester and how it is similar to Single White Female and it got me thinking..... how many of us have experienced this Single White Female phenomena on some level in our lives.


Let's be honest, the Single White Female story is the extreme story, or the Hand that Rocks the Cradle story.  But I feel that it is a more common occurrence than on a less intense level then most people realize.  This goes beyond imitation as the sincerest form of flattery, this goes into that level where the over step those bonds.  It's those girls who start off imitating your style, your likes, your dislikes, they start using inflections in their voice, make friends with our friends and then start to turn your friends against you, or start to seclude you from everyone so you become dependent on them.  These are the girls that are now known as frenemies. We have all had to deal with them, and we will always have to deal with these girls.  


The last time I dealt with a girl like this was in high school.  This girl was a very nice girl but even then she seemed lost in the tides of high school and she latched on to my core group of friends.  She definitely began to single white female me early on.  She would buy clothes that were similar to my style, and I didn't have a distinct style, it was just classic pieces with some trendy pieces, but she would buy shoes and clothes that I had bought.  I remember a huge embarrassment in high school one day because she came to school wearing the same outfit.  Then she began to make friends with all my friends and she began to flirt with the boys I liked.  At one point, she even got my boyfriend to cheat on me with her.  I am sure she tried to convince him that I would be ok with the idea.  I so was not ok with it, but she cried and apologized and we maintained our friendship.  It was after high school that we stopped being friends, it was one thing too many and I couldn't continue to have her in my life.  It just wasn't safe and I couldn't tolerate it anymore.


I know other friends that still have friends that could possibly be trying to SWF them.  These girl friends will tell my friends that the style choices they are making are ridiculous or affecting them negatively but then they will go out and adopt those fashion trends for themselves.  In one way they are imitating my friends fashion choices and that can be very flattering, but at the same time they are cutting down these fashion choices in the hopes that my friend will quit using them so that it does not seem like something they are copying.   I know other friends that have friends that ingratiate themselves in their lives then work from the inside to turn other friends against the other friend.  It happens even now in adulthood, but the question is why?


Well I put some thought to it and I have come up with a hypothesis.  It is my hypothesis that people who pull SWFs on other girls are girls who have not found their identity.  They have an idea of what they want but have not been able to realize their full potential as the person they think they should be.  Then before they fully realize who they are they see someone else that seems more glamorous or gets more attention or appears to get everything that they want so they work to emulate that person in order to get what they want.  Usually it ends there, most people are sociopaths or psychopaths, however there are some who cross the line and try to take things further.  But it is my belief that these people do not have a strong sense of self, but are more fluid and are forever changing different parts of their personality.


If you know someone who is like this maybe you should get out before it goes to far, maybe the friendship is not worth it.  It is definitely not something you can talk to them about because they will not see themselves as this SWF.


If you are the SWF and see yourself doing this my only piece of advice for you is to take a few moments to yourself and answer the following questions.  "Who am I?" "What are my greatest desires and wants?""How do I like my eggs?"  If you can answer those questions easily and you don't change from those core answers no matter who you are with then you are find, but if you have trouble answering these questions then you may need to take more than a few moments and really find your true self.  Because it is that true self that people are drawn to, not the chameleon you portray to try to make others happy.

Comments

  1. Haha great insight as always jen. I was thinking of it from an animalistic perspective maybe the bottom feeders humans just instinctively blood suck the alpha humans for survival-eggs- fried crispy and lightly basted

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  2. you had a swf experience? crazy!! hopefully it wasn't at carlton...haha. i don't understand why people imitate instead of innovate, so sad. i mean it's one thing to share a similar style but to copy everything it beyond ridiculous. i must say though i am looking forward to seeing The Roommate....

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