The Social Butterfly and the Caterpillar

by Nat
(Andalucia)

I'm on a year abroad, studying in Europe and live in a flat with 7 people. We're all from different countries. At the beginning of the year I was very close to one girl (French) but then I realized that we were very different.

We would do loads of things together, and soon we didn't go a day without spilling every detail about absolutely everything to each other. I became closer to her than I had any of my other friends back at home.

From the beginning she was quite the social butterfly and was always making big parties or groups out of situations that I thought could be a little more intimate. We had a couple arguments about it, because I just wanted to go to dinner at this great place but then we'd have to change venue because she's invite 8 people to come along.

I got tired of the group-thing, and didn't like some of the people she was always inviting. I also disliked the way she incorporated me into what felt like a clique, until eventually we had all the same friends and I wasn't invited without her being invited as well, and vice versa.

She didn't see anything wrong with this but I started feeling like we were glued together, and known as a "set," like a buy-one-get-one-free deal; I wanted to be invited as myself, and not as myself+her. It made me feel like people didn't like me without her.

She has this wonderful talent of walking into a room, of strangers or people we know and just starting up a conversation; these seem to stem from her asking lots of questions and seeming genuinely interested.

As for the questions she asked, I found myself noticing how gullible people are about her expressions of interest, and began questioning whether she's really interested in those gritty details or whether its just an image she tries to portray because she's quite an insecure person. I feel like she tries to attract flies with honey so she's surrounded by people, always.

I broke this trend of being glued to her not long ago, and now we hardly talk even though we live in the same flat. It gets awkward at times.

Everything she does now annoys me, especially the tons of questions she asks people about their weekend, or vacation or relationship with their boyfriends, etc. when it seems to me that all she's really doing is racking up brownie-points and keeping score of how many friends she has.

I must admit its a perfect technique in attracting potential friends, its just rather superficial to me. We've even talked about that in the past, but we weren't on the same wavelenth - eventually, we just didn't agree on anything. She called me anti-social, and I called her superficial. She called me judgmental about first impressions (which I personally think we all are) and I called her 'easily-persuaded' by first impressions.

The first conversation you have with somebody doesn't mean you'll be best friends tomorrow or that you know the person at all! She's been hurt so many times thinking people she's just met are her friends; she gets upset when they say they'll call her or invite her but don't.

I suppose I personally prefer having fewer and closer friends than being surrounded by lots of people who i've only ever had introductory conversations with. I'm not saying I don't like to meet new people - I'm just saying I like to meet people and then re-meet them to know them better but not with every person I meet.

She rakes them in every week; invites them home for dinner to our kitchen which is barely big enough for the 7 of us, and continues to expand her social circle. I don't know if I'm exaggerating, and I know I tend to when I write but I don't know what to do just to stop being so annoyed by her all the time.

I suppose its because I thought we were good friends once, but we had so many arguments, and I saw so many ugly things about her... and I'm sure she saw ugly things about me too. I just don't understand how it is that we were so open before and now we barely say good morning. I don't want it to go back to the way it was, nor do I think that's possible, but I feel like we've talked about 'our friendship' so often in the past, that it's just unnecessarily.

I don't like how interacting with her influences my mood for the rest of the day, and I think it's just because I used to be part of the clique that she created; only now, I've chose not to follow the same crowd of people all the time and the clique itself has fallen apart.

Now, they don't invite me to hang out anymore and can't seem to realize that I just wanted to be my own person and not fall for superficial smiles and conversations. Sometimes the truth is ugly, but isn't it better than putting a sugar-coat on things? I feel bad about it, even though now I have an array of new friends, but I want to know... what am I doing/thinking wrong?