This feels so juvenile and middle school I feel crazy even giving it any thought, but it feels so excessive to me maybe it’s justified?

Changing names and minor details in ways that won’t impact the story really.

Anyway, throwaway account. I don’t want to even have this on my main. I f23 have a friend Carly(f22). I’ve been friends with Carly for a while, and this pattern i’m about to talk about didn’t get as extreme as it is now until recently. early on in our friendship she started adopting some of my habits- but i actually enjoyed it. friends can like the same things (especially as they get closer and start sharing interests)

i taught her how to whittle, and i was really happy someone was actually eager to learn from me. i would talk about artists i liked and she would sometimes post their songs. she started posting a little more similar to the way i do, and i didn’t think much of it. we were friends. in a lot of ways we were really opposites anyway, and i enjoyed the dynamic. she wore very floral feminine clothing, while I have always been more tomboyish. not excessively-i wear flattering and revealing clothes a lot of the time, but you won’t really catch me in a dress. I’ve just never felt comfortable. another important thing to mention- my favorite color is green and i often make green the highlight of my outfit with accessories.

i introduced her to guitar in the past year, and she’s taken an interest- which is great, i love that, but things started taking a turn when she bought one. before this i didn’t think she was behaving weird, but she bought this green guitar- the exact one i wanted and i could have SWORN i showed her online when i was thinking of buying it. i brought it up and she said she didn’t remember me saying anything about it. i let it go. around this time, she basically did a full makeover, seemingly overnight wearing clothes more similar to mine. it’s not exactly like mine, but a lot of similarities. i don’t mind a similar style, but the little details get me. the constant wearing green accessories specifically gets me. i kinda consider it my signature color, but you look at her social media and it looks like hers now too. i have a green belt i often wear, now shes got her signature green belt too. it feels so unbelievably immature to be bothered by this, but i don’t feel i can help it. i don’t own green, but i look at our social media and the green pops of color are just so similar.

she’s entirely changed the music she posts too. don’t get me wrong it’s not ALL my bands that she posts. it’s all bands that fit a certain aesthetic she’s going for, but she mostly posts the cringe radio hits.

one time i showed up wearing a few rings to her house. she said oh cool i was planning on starting to wear rings. i said i wanted lash extensions- she was planning on that too apparently. i do a photoshoot in a specific setting- she was planning that too. i start wearing this jacket a lot- she says “oh i have one like that”. i have a sneaking suspicion she said that to cover for herself because she maybe wanted to buy one and act like she’s had it all along. i know these things probably seem relatively normal, but it’s the PATTERN that gets me, not the individual things. i can’t remember a time i did something/told her i was planning on something where she didn’t act like she had been planning the same thing all along. i could get so on board with “twinning” if she didn’t act like she came up with all of this stuff independently of me. she started drinking the exact kind of tea i drink- just ordering it with no comment on how she got the idea from me. it’s just CREEPY imo, and i haven’t even gotten to the worst part.

ironically, she has talked abt multiple other girls saying “she wants to be me,” yet these girls really haven’t done anything crazy to imitate her- nowhere near the extent she’s doing to me.

She now apparently “doesn’t like loud noises”, “doesn’t like people touching her”, and “doesn’t feel comfortable in dresses”. these are all things that are well known about me to the people in my life, and couldn’t have been further from the truth about her until recently. these traits aren’t even COOL, like what on earth do you gain from this?

i’ve been around some of her other friends- she posts with her guitar and i’m not even really sure she’s learned anything on it. they seem to kind of see her as resident guitar girl or something. she didn’t take the opportunity to be like “omg did you know she plays too?” and when i referenced myself playing i feel like she got uncomfortable.

i hit a breaking point recently where i almost blew up on her. i like owls, and my parents both have owl tattoos. i’ve always kinda thought id get a tattoo of one (i could have SWORN i told her this multiple times) she showed me this new owl necklace she got, and i talked about how i liked them, then mentioned the tattoo thing again. guess whos also planning on getting an owl tattoo? :)

some relative info- i’ve tried to gently talk to her about it because i don’t know how to be stern about someone “copying you” without sounding f-ing insane. any time i make a reference to her getting inspo from me- she doesn’t give me acknowledgement that that’s what’s happening. she talked about dying her hair with a bit of green at one point and i said dude let me have this one thing, because i wanted to do that. a few days later she sense me a pic of her w green hair dye in. i replied with “are you serious,” then she changed the subject.

i feel like i keep kinda gaslighting myself. all of these little things add up, and there’s a bunch of other things she’s copied i didn’t even mention, but i still make an excuse. i think, “maybe i really didn’t tell her about the guitar, and maybe i really didn’t tell her about the owls.” i know i told other people but maybe i somehow neglected to mention it to her. maybe im being too harsh with my thoughts about this. maybe she really wants my approval? i know how childish this all sounds, it’s just hard for me to wrap my head around a solution, because she was so great in the beginning and i do see traits i love about her all the time. i wouldn’t want to end a friendship if there’s a chance im just being too harsh. i don’t really wanna end it at all tbh. so yeah. aitah?