I think my best friend might be the problem
I (18F) think that my best friend, Belle, has narcissistic tendencies. We have been friends for 6 years and I love her so much and she's one of my oldest friends. When we have good times they are amazing, but the bad times are horrific. And not just for me I have noticed her behavior with other people in our close circle of friends as well. Here is some of what she has done:
Belle constantly goes after men that I am interested in/are interested in me. She has messaged or snapped at least 7 guys who she knew had reached out to me and I was interested in. 1 instance in particular, I was messaging a guy who our other friend had introduced me to and we messaged for a couple of weeks and tried to make plans but they usually fell through. Around a month later, Belle had showed me this guy who's DMs she slid in and it was the same guy. I told her that I had briefly talked to him pretty recently and that I would find it a little weird if she pursued things with him. She then started sending voice notes screaming at me saying “this is insane, you don’t own him, it doesn’t count, you’re being an idiot, I don’t want to talk about your feelings, this is ridiculous, I’m in my bop era,” and a lot more hurtful things. I was very calm and chill with my approach and her response was extremely condescending and volatile. A few weeks before this instance, I had brought up how I felt she did this with other guys who I had been seeing or talking to and she called me crazy saying I was being dramatic and that she was not having that conversation.
Over summer, I had went to work as a counselor at sleep away camp and she talked shit about me to our other friends saying that I was on a power trip, being bitchy, and a bunch more. She had never brought these feelings up to me and I had only found out through a girl in our friendgroup who I am very close to. During this summer Belle had told a girl Lea in our friendgroup that I was a terrible friend and that she wanted to drop me and again never brought any of this up to me. I was hearing about this through our friendgroup grapevine and I asked her about it multiple times and she swore up and down that we were 100% okay and that if she had a problem with me she would tell me. Then we had a conversation after months of not hanging out one on one. Long story short she found out that Lea told another girl who told me the stuff she was saying and she claims she never said it and then she called Lea and screamed at her for a while and said extremely vile things, including insulting her and her family.
Shortly after she screamed at Lea, Belle said they were good because she screamed at her and felt better and then she started treating Lea similarly to how I was treated that summer. Her and Lea are still friends but they fight a good amount and when they do Belle screams at her and name calls her. One fight they had was because Lea wouldn’t come to her house straight from school because Belle felt anxiety from taking migraine meds. Lea had her final grades due the next day and said she needed to get all her assignments done and Belle screamed at her calling her a shitty friend saying that she doesn’t make time for her and when Lea tried to explain her side and defend herself Belle would get mad saying she did not care about what Lea had to say. Later that night she called Lea and screamed at her again and said very hurtful things.
One night we were out and she saw this guy she had made out with a couple weeks prior but he said he didn’t want to continue things because of their age gap after he found out when she had previously lied about it. She saw him out and he was extremely intoxicated and didn’t even recognize her and she made out with him and then later that night said it would’ve been really wrong if roles were reversed, which rubbed me the wrong way.
Anytime anyone confronts Belle over anything she immediately gets defensive, combative, and extremely cruel. She always says she doesn’t care and refuses to hear anyone’s side but her own. On many occasions where she has gotten upset at someone else she just screams at them and calls them names and then will act like nothing happened. I am one of her 3 “best friends” and there’s never a time she isn’t fighting with one of us.
Maybe narcissistic tendencies is extreme but what do you think Reddit?