Just Curious here...what do your XN's think of your current or past friends?

[reallyME]

One thing I notice with X was that, any friendship I had, was devalued and mocked.  I made the mistake of sharing someone about someone dear to me with X...the next time the dear someone's name was mentioned by me, X told me all the things that were wrong with her and how I was the way I was because of this person.  I noticed this pattern over and over again, no matter who it was that I told X I cared about...they were always ultimately "flawed" in X's eyes.

Another thing along the same topic, was that X would tell me about how her friends were "GOOD" friends that were always there for her, etc. 

With these sorts of dysfunctional people, you always feel like you are COMPETING with X.  Ugh...of course, even if you already ARE the winner, they won't allow you to believe that!  THEY MUST BE FIRST AND MUST BE BEST...

[Gaining Strength]

I have grown up with that experience.  It is very painful and very demeaning.  I would say it is a sign except inmy experience the people I got involved with didn't show this side of themselves until we were fully involved.  But it is a common attribute of people who are deeply unsure of themselves, perhaps such people are always dangerously unsure of themselves. - GS

[Stormchild]

It's actually pretty consistent through everything they do. Everything is a contest, and they have no concept of sharing or equality. So very early on you will begin to see little flickers of the need to put you down, the need to be first all the time, to have the most, etc.

The thing is, most of the time we ignore these flickers and make excuses for them, because we want to think well of the person, instead of remembering them and watching to see if they add up.

Probably because we think it 'isn't nice' to 'keep score'. But then, it definitely isn't nice for someone to pretend to be our friend, and actually be putting us down and competing with us and trying to take things away from us, while working hard to fool us the whole time!

Maybe it isn't 'keeping score'. Maybe it's just collecting data.