Signs to Look for to Know if Your Friends Resent You ...

Not being happy for you is one of the biggest signs your friends resent you. Whenever you receive a piece of good news or you enjoy some success in your studies or in your career, your friends never seem to be as happy for you as you might have expected. They say well done and congratulations, but there is a sense that they are only saying those things because it's what you are supposed to do, rather than because they actually mean them.

Something that they so like to do, however, is highlight any problem that you might be having, or criticise any choices that you make that might turn out to be bad ones. At times it almost feels like they are condescending parents rather than supporting friends, and you don’t really know why.

Have you noticed recently that they seem to be avoiding you, or that you are hanging out with them less through no decision of your own? Watch out for plans they make that involve everyone in the group apart from you, this a classic sign that they feel you have become different from them somehow, probably through your own successes that they are not yet experiencing.

A classic sign that your friends might resent you for something is if you get the sense that they are talking about you behind your back. It’s a horrible, stomach dropping feeling, but it is also one that you are rarely wrong about. If your instincts are telling you that things are being said about you, then it’s probably true.

Do you all of a sudden feel out of the loop with friends who you were previously really close to? Another key sign of resentment comes in the form of your peers not sharing details with you about their lives. If they are jealous of yours and don’t want to be associated with your success, then it’s likely that they will shut off communication on their own end too.

Resentment can breed competitiveness, and you might notice this if some of your friends all of a sudden start doing things that can be seen as an attempt to one up you in whatever you are doing. They might join the same sports team as you to try to outshine you, or sign up for student council to run against you. Anything that pits them against you and gives them a chance to come out on top.

Are they starting to lash out at you for no real reason? This is probably because they are super jealous of your current situation and aren’t mature enough to process their resentment in any other way than to be mean.