‘My best friend has this exhausting habit of constantly copying me’: Woman cuts off her friend for copying her every decision

Author image for Olivia Arocena
Olivia Arocena • Writer and Editor
Nov 10, 2026 6:00 AM EST

That fine line between admiration and copying every single thing you do

There is something definitely uncanny about watching somebody you love, little by little, turn themselves into you. It's worthy of a horror film. At first, it might feel flattering, but if it progresses, it very quickly becomes unsettling.

They suddenly buy the same boots you've been wearing as your staple for years. One day, a few months later, they cut their hair suspiciously similarly to yours. Soon after that, you catch them listening to every record your favourite band ever released. You feel bad, but you also realize, because you are a functioning adult, that those things don't belong to you, but it nonetheless feels uncomfortable.

Borrowing inspiration is part of intimacy, but those of us who have lived through copycat friendships know that inspiration is one thing, and directly copying is another. It's very easy to know when someone has drawn inspiration from another person and incorporated the reference into their own world; and the same way, when somebody doesn't have that much of a personal world going on and copy-pastes everything they see looks cool on somebody else, it shows.

I always think we don't have to worry about copycat friends, because people who copy in that matter haven't got that much personality to offer, and the act speaks for itself. To put it in blunt words, they don't have anything to back it up with. If you leave them alone for enough time, the mask will drop eventually. What I would heavily recommend, though, is to gatekeep every cool thing from them from now on.

If we're trapped in one of these copycat relationships, we should do something to reclaim a sense of individuality asap, and keep it as far away from the other person as possible. To question where one ends and the other person begins is a horrible feeling, and we should leave it to movies like Mulholland Drive.

We should take a step back and stop living in a thriller ourselves, and if that involves confronting the other person, so be it. Sometimes that's the only way to end something like this!

Ultimately, the goal of friendship is not to look like each other so much that differences cease to exist, but to complement and inspire each other mutually (among other things like doing things together and listening to the other person's thoughts and desires).

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  • Cheezburger Image 10675934464
    via Go to Land O'Lakes, Inc.'s profile Land O'Lakes, Inc.

  • AIO My “bestfriend” copied my hair yet again and I’m just done.

    I need to vent because I am losing my mind. My best friend has this exhausting habit of constantly copying me. She only started doing her hair after she met me and we became friends 9 years ago. For a long time,
    via FreshGarden7854
  • we both had the exact same shade of red hair. I had red hair when we met and have consistently dyed it red to keep it up over the decade and she randomly about 4 years ago started doing her hair red suddenly was
    via FreshGarden7854
  • obsessed with friends of mine and their job then things just got even weirder. She always seemed so genuinely happy when people mistook us for each other, but it started deeply weirding me out when she
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  • began taking my clothes. and dressing exactly like me too. she has never once met my family as they're in another state but she went as far as to adding my family off my Facebook as
    via FreshGarden7854
  • her friends and started talking to them and weirding them out too. Things took a truly bizarre turn when I got pre_nant. She became completely obsessed with my pregnancy. She literally
    via FreshGarden7854
  • started referring to my unborn child as "our baby" and kept calling it her "little miracle." It was incredibly uncomfortable. Two months ago, I finally had enough of the copying and the lack of boundaries,
    via FreshGarden7854
  • and our friendship blew up. The final breaking point for the friendship was when she stopped coming to hang out or even talking to me unless she needed to use my house or needed to eat.. i told her simply I wasn't comfortable with
    via FreshGarden7854
  • her continuing to use my shower when we never hung out otherwise and talk and when she was here to shower she would immediately leave after instead of spending even just a half hour or hour talking first... she blew up
    via FreshGarden7854
  • on me with a lot of balls t im fairly certain she was projecting to protect herself from accountability. Then, she went out and dyed her hair red the literal day after I redyed mine yet again-while we weren't even on speaking terms!
    via FreshGarden7854
  • Because I desperately wanted a big change, some breathing room, and a personal fresh start away from her identity theft, I went out, bought dark blue dye, and threw it right over my red hair. It ended up settling into this really cool,
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  • moody, multi-toned black/purple/burgundy shade. It finally felt like i was myself again.. Fast forward to last week: we went to lunch to try to talk things out and see if we could fix the friendship
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  • after the two-month blowout. Ever since that lunch, she has been constantly texting me asking if we are okay, and I have just been replying with "idk." Then yesterday, she sends
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  • me a selfie out of nowhere. She went out and dyed her hair to perfectly match my exact new color-the same dark, espresso- purple undertone. It exactly matches mine AGAIN.
    via FreshGarden7854
  • I was so ped off that I replied directly: "It looks just like mine when I changed color." Her response? A completely dismissive, sweeping-it-under-the- rug, "Yeah lol." No
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  • explanation, no apology, just laughing it off like it's a casual joke to avoid accountability. I literally sacrificed my lighter red hair and risked a messy home color correction just to escape
    via FreshGarden7854
  • this twin dynamic, and she immediately invaded my space again before the ink on our reconciliation was even dry. She clearly wants this weird, codependent illusion without actually respecting me as a separate human being.
    via FreshGarden7854
  • Cheezburger Image 10675934720
    via EliseWilcox

    When your friend copies everything you do.

    Not actual story subjects

  • I didn't give her the big emotional reaction or the drama she was probably looking for, just told her "ok" but I am officially checked out. I'm currently looking for a professional salon to strip this color and go a rich, deep emerald
    via FreshGarden7854
  • green. It's a complex, multi-tonal vivid color that she won't be able to easily replicate with a cheap drugstore box dye at home. Am I overreacting by wanting to completely cut
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  • ties with her again and drastically change my hair again? It has literally only been one single week since we started talking again, and she is already falling right back into the exact patterns that make me feel so uncomfortable
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  • and violated. am I overreacting? UPDATE: I want to make it clear that I am cutting her off. I'm just now trying to figure out how to go about it with the
    via FreshGarden7854
  • least amount of blowup and backlash as she has proven to be a vindictive being in the past. Thank you all for your help in understanding just how horrible this situation truly can turn to if not handled
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  • and ended. Thank you also to the ones who made me feel not so alone in this. for those of you who are here just to make somebody feel bad about themselves or just to point out my "petty s it" problems, I'm truly sorry that your life
    via FreshGarden7854
  • isn't in the place you want it to be and I wish you the best and truly hope that you find happiness and peace in yourselves and lives. I know it may sound stupid to some that in the world we live in today this is the kind of thing that
    via FreshGarden7854
  • bothers me in my life.. I'm sorry about that but my life is honestly really great. I truly have no worries aside from this and I'm sorry that I am thankful for that. I do understand that others are struggling with
    via FreshGarden7854
  • bills and food and just life in general and I'm sorry that you are going through that, if that is your reality. At the same time though, I can't apologize for being in a good place and being genuinely happy in my own life Either way things.
    via FreshGarden7854
  • taken care of and honestly kind of perfect. No, my fiance and I are not rich but everything is handled and we face things together as a team. We don't have to worry about a roof over our heads or food on the table or even if
    via FreshGarden7854
  • bills will be paid but at the same time we dont really have extra money and just live our lives in happiness and love. I love my life so why not be happy?
    via FreshGarden7854
  • z-eldapin Why have you never used your words. 'It looks exactly like mine' is not the same as 'why do you feel the need to copy my style'.
    via z-eldapin
  • sarusagi You're NOR, but you need to cut her off. The aesthetics and the twinning is one thing, the things she said during your pre nancy is a WHOOOOOOOOLEEEE other box of giant red flags.
    via sarusagi
  • pardonyourmess 19h ago Uh oh. You're engaged? You should watch 'single white female' And be glad you've cut her off!! Nor
    via pardonyourmess
  • ラブル
    via Elise Wilcox

    Accepting your friend is copying you

    Models for explanatory purposes only

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friendship relationship advice friends relationships toxic relationship relationship drama
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