Another possible narcissistic female friend!!!!!

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#1 May 26 - 7AM
kollontai77
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Another possible narcissistic female friend!!!!!

Hi everyone

I'm a mature age female student in my third year of film school. This places me in an awkward social position, surrounded by school leavers who regard me as old in my late 30s. So I found common cause with another female mature age student in my same year, and we became fast friends. As we lived down the road from each other, we would drop in on each other (mostly she dropped in on me!) and vent about the frustrations of working with such young, and unformed students. Any time I wanted to drop out, she would say "Don't leave me with THOSE people!", and I'd stick it out. We could spend hours talking to each other, laughing, with similar views of the world, and generally enjoyed each others company.

Things have gone pear shaped this year. After returning from a student trip to Hong Kong, I came back scrambled and increasingly depressed. Meanwhile, we had to work together on a music video. As the director and producer, she took on most of the work, and wouldn't even let me get involved, barking at me like a field sergeant that she was the director, and I'd do as I was told. The shoot date was just a few days after I'd returned from a 2 week trip.

We pulled through, but I felt more like a camera operator than a cinematographer, as she wouldn't involve me in the planning - it was "all in her head" and she wanted it just the way she saw it. I had some problems with focus, so some of the footage looked soft and was unusable. We had to cut around it in the edit suite and that was very difficult.

Now she is continuing to arrive on my doorstep, chew off my ears for hours, venting about petty frustrations, but says that she doesn't want to work with me again, either at uni or afterwards. She's looking for professional people who get it right first time. She dismisses any efforts I make at educating myself on my errors, saying she has no time for people who are still learning. She is going around the class telling everyone she did everything and I had nothing to do with the film's success.

Meanwhile, another student is trying to make friends with me, and wants to work with me. The mature age student is filling my head with fears about the other student's manipulative nature, warning me that I will be sorry if I get involved with her. The other younger student reckons my mature age friend is a "bitch" and that no-one likes her. That I do have shooting ability, and that no-one has ever said bad things about me in the class.

I am feeling increasingly depressed, manipulated and disrespected here. It comes right on top of the other friend (the cabinet woman) I wrote about 2 weeks ago. I feel as if I've attracted a bunch of using, narcissistic piranhas who lack respect for me.

I really don't know what to do. I don't want to make any enemies here, but this mature age student isn't behaving like a friend, or a respectful collaborator.

May 29 - 5AM
kollontai77
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I've decided to not let her

May 29 - 2PM (Reply to #5)
talktothehand
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kollontai

May 30 - 6AM (Reply to #6)
Used
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TTTH

May 26 - 6PM
thebigpayback
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reply

May 28 - 12PM (Reply to #2)
Lookforward
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I would second this. I have a

May 29 - 11AM (Reply to #3)
Goldie
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Excellent responses