Can you be friends with an overly secretive person?

[Lena84]

I used to be friends with this girl I met through work. We clicked instantly! She was literally like the big sister I never had. Even better, my family loved her! She became like a big sister to even my siblings. The thing is, she was overly secretive about EVERYTHING! Didn't want me to know her age, about her family, past relationships... ANYTHING but her name basically. She never wanted me to come near her home. Refused to get into a car with me. Yet she gets upset when I want to keep some stuff private. She's cancelled and bailed on me at the last minute many times. Yet mad when I've done that by mistake a couple times. I got fed up with this and eventually distanced myself from her. I eventually started to miss her cause she was a good friend inspite of her strange behavior so I tried to reach out to her for a year but she wasn't having it. But she goes and hangs with my brother, whom she met through me. I'm pissed off. Because she is supposed to be my friend. When I had issues with my bro and complained to her, she was there agreeing my brother is awful. Then she ditches me to hang with him? Is that not the height of backstabbing bs? Who's in the wrong? Her or my brother? Or both? Or am I overreacting?

Updates

+1 y

Is no one listening? I never said she can't keep some things private. But if you read my whole post, you can't deny she's too extreme!! How is that normal?

[btbc92]

The basis of friendship doesn't have anything to do with your personal life. It has everything to do with the fact of the kind of bonds you shared together. Unless what you're doing is practically illegal, it really isn't anybody's personal business. However, I think the problem here that you have has less to do with the fact that she's secretive about the person, but the fact that she doesn't sound mentally stable. While she had a lot of things happened to her, and she has a right to that, she's also being a hypocrite that she wants to know everything about you. I think you have to be worried about is that she may be suffering from some form of mental illness that required some help. Not because she's secretive, not because she won't tell you anything, but the fact that she's doing things that doesn't sound normal. Sounds like to me she's trying to gain the identity of other people because she cannot handle her own Identity or she has none of her own. They're things my friends don't always share with me, just like their things I didn't always share with my friends. But I eventually share with them over time throughout the years. Overall you just got to be very careful who you call your friend. A secretive person unless they give you negative feelings and you sent something is not right about them is not the problem. The problem has to do with the fact that you don't know who you're inviting into your life. She's just overall don't sound like a healthy person in overall or red flag. After reading your other comment, you have to respect who the person is, and understand that there are certain things they don't want no. But that doesn't mean that she is entitled to know everything about you either. I think it is very clear you just shouldn't be around that kind of person.

[Lena84]

Like I said. Everyone has a right to keep certain things private. But this is extreme! Would you be cool with a friend who doesn't want you to know anything about them, but want to know everything about you? That behavior is FAR beyond just wanting some privacy

[btbc92]

Asker. All the more reason why you be careful who you being friends with. I wouldn't necessarily see it weird at all and I have the right to choose what I want and don't want to share. If you think that she's crazy as a person. Why were you friends with her? I think you're the one that needs to re-evaluate yourself. Because she's going to do whatever it is that you want to do. You sound way too obsessed with the person.

[Lena84]

Like I said, there is a certain level of privacy everyone is entitled to. But hers is too extreme? Are you saying it's not? And how am I obsessive? Did you read my whole post? She keeps me in the dark about her but upset when I want to keep some things to myself. How is that obsessive on my end? Now you're confusing me.

[btbc92]

The only thing I could tell you, if you think that she's going to do something illegal or God forbid may try to do bodily harm to you, go to the police, and get a restraining order. Leave that individual alone. She's not in your life anymore, as long as she's not interfering with your family, and whatever else you got going on, leave the person be. And learn from that experience. Neither you or that "friend" sounds like mentally healthy people.

You sound too much like a gossiper and yes you are very obsessive because I can hear you, I can read everything that you're saying and you don't sound healthy. You sound very reactive as a person, maybe a bit paranoid, and have a lot of trust issues it's not even funny. I read the whole entire thing and I'm paying attention to your behavior and it sounds like you got a lot of things going on in you that doesn't sound good. There is nothing confusing on your end. Yes a person can have things to extreme. She could come from a family of criminals for you know. Somebody who wants her death. You don't know what the individual is going through. But it was your choice have her around. I'm telling you was that respect me to go both ways, and if you know that, then again, you should have done very differently before you decided to have that person as a friend.

I don't know nothing about this person to make such a judgment not to do I for you. But one thing that you're telling me that doesn't sound good, that's getting me very worried about you is whether or not you like to gossip about people. Everything requires Trust. You expect somebody like her to open up to you, you got to give her a reason to trust you. Not just make friends with random people and then you're upset how their behavior is.

[btbc92]

Trust is key for any relationship or else there is no relationship. But some people depending on their personality, and my personality type is one of those people, we tend to like to know more about the individual before we want to open up about the other person. Because the more we be ourselves around the people that we say that we like nine out of 10 times those that we like don't like this anymore. I'm not saying you're that type of person but given from your reaction you do sound like it. And I think it's very clear that's probably why she reacted the way she did. But she behaved selfishly. If you two are the ages that you're presenting yourself, there is immaturity on both of your ends. Mature friendships don't behave this way. Friendships are like a continuum, you may be fast and learning about each other, you may be slow, you may not know anything about each other, but you can feel like you known each other for years, or you can be entirely strangers and still feel like strangers, but if you have a desire to get to know each other and be around each other and truly be friends, then nothing else really matters except your friendship. But these days you don't know who you can be a friend too. So that is just common sense. You don't be friends with people who does not share or desire to have the same or similar qualities of your own. It's others like your privacy, that's okay. I'm a private person myself. I only open up the people that I truly trust. I have my friendship for over two decades and some over a decade and a half. How do you think I have them? Because I learned the key word a lot of you do not seem to understand. Respect. Both of you sound like you don't even respect each other so how do you expect to have a friendship? Both of you are equally responsible for the deterioration of that relationship and it ran its course.

[Lena84]

HOW DO YOU DETECT I'M THE GOSSIP TYPE? By wanting to know the basics about friend who knows everything about me? And what makes me paranoid? Obsessive? You say you can't judge yet that's exactly what you're doing. You're just downright idiotic. No, she's not in my life anymore. And as of now, neither are you.

[Lena84]

Like you're any professional to diagnose and treat. Stfu

[btbc92]

It's time for you to close that chapter and start moving on in your present. Figure out what's going on internally inside of you, fix behaviors that is preventing you from having healthy relationships with others, and if you need professional therapy and counseling, go do that. Figure out yourself, so you won't be attracting those kind of people in your life again. Because the same rule applies not only when you find a partner for dating or marriage, the same rule applies when you have a friend.

If this is how you're going to respond, you're showing you have a lot of problems and you sound very toxic. And if you think I'm going to have somebody like you disrespect me and curse me out like that, I wouldn't want somebody like you in my life anyway. And for your information plenty of professional said I should be a professional to do so. You're reminding me why I wouldn't dare because you feel like you need a lot of help without stressing everybody else out. And first of all I can make righteous judgment here. Because you're not making righteous judgement. You're judging to attack. I make judgments evaluating situations about people. And you're proving my judgments to be correct which is why you have a problem.

[Lena84]

You're still not making sense due to poor writing. Try editing b4 you shoot off any opinions. What did I do to make her act that way? Open up to her in hopes she'd do the same? Really? Get lost

[SamA_nold]

I think there's a level of secrecy you can maintain with a person, which as you grow closer will generally decrease in size, but this seems very extreme. I don't know that I could keep a friendship, because I would feel like they were always hiding something from me, and if I can't trust them, I'll be living in constant worry, which isn't good for my health or mental wellbeing.

[Lena84]

Exactly! I understand everyone has a right to privacy. But that was too much. The thing is, she'd get mad when I want to keep some things private. So how can a one-sided friendship like that last?

[SamA_nold]

I'd recommend just ending it, safely.

[Lena84]

I did end it. But it's still shit for her to cut me off and now go hang with my brother.

[Lena84]

And what do you mean safely? There wasn't any danger.

[SamA_nold]

That is shit, but just remember that she is purposely trying to hurt you, to make you regret leaving her, and it is nothing more than manipulation.

[Lena84]

👏👏👏 true. She definitely did it to spite me. Total manipulation for sure. But I don't know if I'd say it's for leaving her because even after I distanced myself, I regretted it and tried to make ammends and she wasn't having it. But definitely she's pissed off at something why she's acting like shady like that.

[SamA_nold]

If she refuses to ask like an adult, let her be. There's no point in risking yourself.

[Lena84]

I know. But I'm asking how it would be her trying to spite me for dropping her when I reached out many times and she wasn't interested. But then hang with my brother. Which is awful of my brother too

[SamA_nold]

Because people do not like to accept responsibility for their actions, and rather face the fact that it was her fault, she is blaming you.

[Lena84]

So you agree? It's her fault we ended. What do you mean by blaming me though? How is she blaming me?

[SamA_nold]

It is called projection- a person doesn't know how to handle their own emotions, and so rather than seek help, they will materialize those emotions onto another person or object and take out their anger on them.

[Lena84]

Ok. But what does that have to with her overly secretive backstabbing behavior?

[SamA_nold]

I don't know. Personal issues?

[slatyb]

No, that's literally insane. Drop her.

[Lena84]

Yes!!! I absolutely HATE people making up excuses like, "you don't know what she's been through," "she has a right to keep things private," blah blah blah. Please. This is another whole level of bs