My Pick Me Friend Constantly Puts Me Down In Front Of My Boyfriend While Pretending

The Social Shift

The next few days showed a clear shift in our friend group dynamics. Heather organized a movie night at her apartment for that weekend and I watched the group chat carefully.

Three different people asked if Zoe would be there before they committed to coming. Heather handled it smoothly by saying it was just going to be a small group of close friends and left it at that.

Nobody explicitly said they didn’t want Zoe there, but the implication was obvious. Maya texted me privately and said she’d been feeling uncomfortable around Zoe for months.

She said “watching me stand up to Zoe gave her permission to acknowledge what she’d been noticing.”

Another girl from the group sent a similar message saying she appreciated me calling out behavior that made everyone uncomfortable. I started to see how Zoe’s actions had affected more people than just me.

Nobody felt comfortable addressing it until someone else went first. The friend group was naturally dividing, with most people gravitating away from Zoe once they felt permission to acknowledge her behavior pattern.

I checked Instagram Saturday morning and saw Zoe had posted to her story. The first slide was a quote about fake friends who can’t handle strong women who speak their minds.

The second slide was a selfie of her looking sad with a caption about how disappointing it was when people showed their true colors. The third slide said something about how real ones knew her worth and everyone else could stay bitter.

My phone started buzzing with screenshots from different people, all sending me Zoe’s story with eye roll emojis. Heather sent one with a message saying Zoe was really trying the victim narrative.

Julian sent one saying “he couldn’t believe she was still playing the misunderstood strong woman card after everything.”

Even Alex sent me a screenshot with a message saying he was sorry I had to deal with this level of drama. I realized Zoe’s attempt to paint herself as the victim wasn’t landing the way she hoped.

A Moment of Genuine Fun

Alex texted me Tuesday afternoon asking if I’d help him pick out a birthday gift for his sister. I agreed immediately and we made plans to meet at the mall Thursday after his classes.

Part of me felt guilty knowing I’d originally befriended him just to get back at Zoe, but another part of me was curious to see if we actually got along without all the competitive tension. Thursday came and Alex met me at the main entrance.

He was wearing a hoodie and jeans, looking genuinely stressed about the gift situation. He explained his sister was turning 16 and he had no idea what teenage girls liked anymore.

We wandered through stores together and I found myself actually enjoying the conversation as he told me about his sister’s interests in art and photography. I suggested a nice camera bag from the photography store.

His whole face lit up saying “that was perfect.”

We grabbed coffee afterward and talked about his engineering projects and my psychology classes, and I realized I was having fun without performing or competing with anyone.

He made a dumb joke about thermodynamics and I laughed because it was actually funny, not because I was trying to prove anything to Zoe. The afternoon felt easy and comfortable in a way that surprised me.

I caught myself thinking Alex was actually a decent guy when he wasn’t being used as a weapon in someone else’s game. We were looking at camera accessories when Alex’s phone buzzed for the third time in 10 minutes.

He glanced at it and sighed, and I asked if everything was okay. He hesitated then admitted Zoe had been texting him constantly over the past few days.

She was asking “what he was doing and who he was hanging out with.”

I felt my stomach twist knowing I’d probably triggered that behavior by giving Alex attention Zoe wanted. He said her messages were getting intense and he’d been keeping his responses short because the whole thing felt overwhelming.

I watched him scroll through a string of texts from her asking if he was free, what his plans were, if he wanted to hang out, and why he wasn’t responding faster. He looked genuinely uncomfortable.

He explained “he liked Zoe as a friend but her constant need for attention was exhausting.”

I realized I might have accidentally helped him see what I’d been dealing with all along; this pattern of someone demanding all your focus and making you feel guilty for having other relationships.

He said “he’d started noticing how Zoe always had to be the center of attention and put other people down to make herself seem better.”

I felt complicated about the whole thing because I’d set out to make Zoe jealous but ended up actually connecting with Alex and maybe helping him recognize behavior he deserved better than.

Planning the Final Confrontation

That weekend Nathan came over and we started planning the couples and singles party we’d been talking about. He suggested we host it at Julian’s house since Julian had way more space and a better setup for parties.

I loved the idea and immediately started working on the invitation wording. We decided to make it crystal clear what kind of event this was.

I wrote “that people should bring their partner if they had one or come ready to mingle if they were single.”

Nathan helped me create the event page and we made it public so everyone in our friend group could see it. I made sure the privacy settings were open enough that Zoe would definitely come across it in her feed.

We picked a date two weeks out and started inviting people. The responses started coming in fast with couples confirming and single friends asking if they should bring anything.

I watched the event page notifications and waited to see if Zoe would notice. Sure enough, within a few hours, she commented on the event asking if she should bring anyone or come solo.

I took my time crafting my response to sound friendly and casual.

I wrote back publicly “that she should come however she felt comfortable and there would be plenty of people to hang out with.”

My tone was perfectly pleasant, but I knew exactly what I was doing. I was setting up a situation where Zoe would show up expecting to monopolize Nathan’s attention only to find clear couple boundaries she couldn’t cross.