BP: Have you ever encountered a manipulative woman? How did you deal with her?

[deleted] · 2015-07-19T20:32:40+00:00

Pretty much everyone is manipulative to some degree, but I can think of two people who were really manipulative in the sense that they'd consciously try to stir up drama, lie, bend the truth, rile people up against each other, the whole nine yards.

One was a man in his early 30s, one was a woman in her early 20s, dealt with both the same way once I found out: Told them I don't have time for their shit and cut them out of my life. Wasn't easy at the time, but I can't even begin to imagine how many hours of drama and wasted time and emotions that must have saved me over the years.

10/10, would tell them to go fuck themselves again.

Xemnas81 · 2015-07-19T22:41:35+00:00

I've had female co-workers and friends try to manipulate me. I've found that the more traditional a woman (the least feminist women), the worse they are for this.

They use crying to get you to cover up for their mistakes or give them more rope, then try to stab you in the back later on.

I try to avoid such women now. Not proudly feminist? You're under suspicion, lady.

[deleted] · 2015-07-19T20:15:27+00:00

I had a friend in high school who was pretty manipulative. She acted bitchy to both her friends and her boyfriend. I simply stopped talking to her after a while because I was tired of her bullshit .

I heard that she's not so mean now , so one can only hope that she has improved.

[deleted] · 2015-07-20T00:05:16+00:00

I worked with someone like this, and she systematically worked through the entire office staff with her behavior, and that included myself. Initially, I didn't think anything of it (she was using me to drive her home from work) as it was on the way to my place anyway. About a week after she started relying on me, I decided she was just poor at time management and kind of oblivious to the effects of her behavior on us getting out the door in a timely fashion, and I began giving her a fifteen minute heads up prior to walking out the door. After another week of her delaying us leaving for an even longer period of time, I realized it was a power play, not a need, and I told her that if she wasn't ready to go when I was walking out the door, then I'd leave her behind. This went on another week, because she started "having to say goodbye" or "needing to go to the bathroom" right when I said I was leaving. I let it go on a few days, then left her there. She tried to make me look like an asshole in front of everyone, and I shut her down publicly. She tried one last time to work me this way, and I declined to take her home outright.

Found out after I left that job that she'd done similar to almost everyone there, getting money out of several people, getting "services" (free rent and transportation) out of the most giving person in the group, and even managed to get a fucking Fullbright Scholarship on the basis of her lying. Everyone was done with her totally withing a few months, though, and we were all glad to see her ass leave.

cats_or_get_out · 2015-07-19T20:04:38+00:00

I'm related to a few of these types of women. She will never come out and ask you to do something for her. (That is the adult, mature way to handle a problem.)

She will drop hints, cajole, whine, cry, to get what she wants. She truly doesn't believe that she can get anywhere in the world without gaming the system. She falls at businesses to get money. She sneaks in belittling, emasculating jabs during conversation. She lies all the time.

How do I know this woman? One such woman was my grandmother. She had a string of men that would give her things (gifts, trips, etc.). She had three sons by three different men and would manipulate her grown sons into dumping the girlfriend, giving her money, etc.

She died this year. She was not a good person though she could be charming and witty when it suited her. Even knowing all this, we all struggled to resist her manipulation.

[deleted] · 2015-07-19T22:24:22+00:00

My former best friend is the most manipulative person I've ever met and quite possibly a sociopath. It took me years to realize it because it was hard to admit someone I loved so much could be so heartless and awful (we were like sisters growing up and were friends for 20+ years.) Finally a situation occurred where it all came crashing down and I could no longer ignore that she'd been lying to pretty much everyone in her life for years. I don't want to go into details, but it was fucked up. I told her I could never look at her the same and that I wished her a life of happiness, but I couldn't be a part of it anymore. Haven't talked to her in about two years.

OfSpock · 2015-07-19T23:39:03+00:00

Several. I cut them out of my life. Except for the relatives, which was trickier.

As for my grandmother, I watched her dangle her love and approval in front of my mother for years, wait until she got what she wanted and then criticise her. We had it out one day.

Grandmother said to my mother "She hates me (pout), she didn't say good morning to me, she hasn't spoken to me all day, she doesn't like me at all, she .... blah, blah, blah," clearly expecting me to rush over and reassure her that I did in fact love her.

Me "That's just not true. I said good morning to you when I came into the kitchen while I made myself breakfast." (I'd seen her 10-20 times since then and not spoken to her)

That was the last time she tried to directly manipulate me. She still did it indirectly, by bitching out my mother whenever I annoyed her, but I went off to Uni soon after and Mum put her in a nursing home. And drove me there when I was in the car already so I could visit her. Once, in nine years. I didn't attend her funeral.

[deleted] · 2015-07-20T03:01:30+00:00

One of my best friends was raised by a bi-polar manipulative women, my friend could be manipulative sometimes too(in part because she'd been raised that way). I love her like a sister but at times I just have to call her on it, sometimes gently and sometimes not so much. It is hard for her, she inherited her mums crazy a bit. We grew up together and during our teens there was a period of about 6 months where we couldn't be friends, my dad had just died and I couldn't deal with her shit and mine at the same time. She got over her stuff and I did too and we're friends again now.

You have to be willing to cut people out of your life. You don't always have to do so, but it is really important to set boundaries: to say "your behavior is unacceptable and I'm not going to hang around if you continue".

Some people actually don't realize they're being a dick and they "wake up" when they get called on it. Some people have mental disorders(bi-polar, borderline personality) and will continue to be dicks until they get help from doctors. Cut them out until they do.

wuboo · 2015-07-19T21:00:01+00:00

Cut ties, move on. Once it was a friend, another time it was a family member.

Raiil · 2015-07-20T00:05:58+00:00

I had two (now one) massively manipulative women to speak of. I mean, there was petty high school bullshit, but the teachers at my first school had pretty much zero tolerance. One girl tried to pass me a nasty note- the teacher took it, read it, and laughed her ass off. My social level grew a lot that day....

The two actual instigators were my paternal grandmother and currently my aunt (her daughter). My grandmother was a stuck up, racist asshole widow who lived on the constant, non-questioning adoration of her children. My mother is an ethnically and culturally South Korean who had the temerity to marry her eldest son, so you can imagine how well that went down.

My grandmother did everything in her power to make us kids hate our mother and her/our culture. In the end, all it did was make us feel sorry for her, but she did a lot of damage to my family in the meantime. Effectively, all four kids gave her the sort of 'bless your heart' treatment. Grandma being racist? Meh, no one's surprised. Grandma on the rampage over the fact that we don't like her super greasy food? Ask to go to an Asian restaurant. Grandma talks shit about mom? Talk about how gorgeous, skinny, and talented mom is. Eventually, it became a stalemate and she figured out that I and my brother were merely tolerating her, and she eventually toned down enough where I could be in the same room with her for more than half an hour.

She's dead now, but her daughter's attempting to take up the mantle, especially with her drama-llamaing on facebook. The younger two kids just ignore her. If I use sufficiently big enough words, she stops trying to talk down to me. And my brother has taken his troll game to a whole new level with her, and there's nothing she can do about it because she's pretty outclassed. She's been married and divorced twice (the first for good reasons, with an abusive husband, the second because she fucked around on her husband) and it's really not a good idea to try to moralise around either of us when you have that sort of black mark on your record.

They both pride themselves (well, prided in grandma's cases) about being good, salt of the earth Christian women who just want to heal the world. Which really just adds more fuel to the fire.

VermiciousKnidzz · 2015-07-20T05:47:05+00:00

i dont know that i've ever noticed someone try to manipulate me, if someone starts hitting on me i tell them i have a girlfriend and they stop and its all good. i've had a number of men hit on me that won't stop even after i tell them i'm not interested. men feel 100000x more entitled to hit on people imo.

mc0079 · 2015-07-20T14:24:05+00:00

Everyone manipulates to a certain degree. But if I feel I am being "overly" manipulated or taken advantage of, I cut that person off. Whoever it is.

Xemnas81 · 2015-07-21T11:23:10+00:00

It seems that the BP reaction to this is to accept that some people can be really shitty and manipulative, but one should not go around assuming guilty until proven innocent or you could end up hurting some really good people with your suspicions. Whereas the RP is to take it the other way, and place burden of proof on them continuously to prove their innocence because "AWALT' 'treat all guns as loaded' just in case.

This would suggest that RPers fear vulnerability, as I do myself.

Title	BP: Have you ever encountered a manipulative woman? How did you deal with her?
Author	gavinok
Upvotes	2
Comments	18
Date	July 19, 2015 7:32 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/3dv35a/bp_have_you_ever_encountered_a_manipulative_woman/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/bp-have-you-ever-encountered-a-manipulative-woman.280897 https://theredarchive.com/post/280897

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