You haven’t seen your girlfriends in a while. The last time you promised to hang out with them, something came up, and you couldn’t make it.
So, you call them and arrange a meeting. Your girlfriend and her girls meet up and start catching up. Everyone is having a good time, and everything seems to be great.
She mentions that she has been busy lately and that everything has been going well for her. All of a sudden, they start acting differently. They are telling her that she is self-centered and that the bags under her eyes look terrible due to hard work. They start putting her down with hurtful comments.
There is a huge difference between joking around with her friends from time to time and them being mean and rude to her. If these putdowns occur on a daily basis and if they outnumber the positive words of encouragement that they give her, then there is a high chance they are doing it on purpose.
They mask themselves as your friends, and they are feeding off her pain. Their only goal is to make her feel sad and miserable.