HPD's and their 'web' of contacts?

This has always been a topic of interest to me.. exactly how deep and how varied the many people the HPD 'contact list' is. I guess I never understood the many people my HPD friend kept 'hidden' away until our friendship was ending, and I was speaking to some of her other contacts. It seemed each time she met someone new, she not only kept them as a 'contact', she also went after their friends, their family, even their acquaintances... to keep in her 'just in case' list. so of course meeting one person was a great opportunity for her, because it also meant she would have access to several more people by 'adopting' the people her target knew.

my questions for the other posters: did 'your' HPD (or, for those who have been diagnosed HPD, do YOU) have an extensive network, what did that network look like, and as a non, how did you find out about it? (for HPD's, how do you hide it from others?)

or, for nons, if you weren't aware of the HPD's 'network', were you suspicious that the HPD had 'others' around but was trying to hide it from you?

I only knew of the people that she talked about, and the ones she tried to poach from me. Majority of the time, actually, almost EVERY time someone I was friends with, or family, when they met her they instantly said "She's ######6 nuts!" and they wanted nothing to do with her. I think I felt a little more forgiving/in denial/accepting of her because I used the excuse of knowing her for so long. I would overlook the seemingly obvious crazy vibes...apparently. Anyways, she would never really divulge in her network/contacts, and she also somehow made sure to let me know that her other friends/contacts didn't like me. Even if they had never met me. We were also, for a great majority of the time we were "friends", long distance. So I had no way of knowing if this is true, or why it would be. I honestly didn't give a $#%^ if someone I didn't know didn't like me, but if I had asked "why", then the reason was always something like "they are just jealous of our friendship." or something equally lame/made up. I'm sure the real reason was $#%^ talking on her part.
I do know that the loss of even an acquaintance was a big deal, and that she used many means to gain new ones. Like attending Yelp! Meet-Ups, Dog parks, constantly switching jobs (cause she was fired), um...moving a lot!! haha, if you're not in one place too long then not everyone you meet while you're there can know how crazy you were/are. OH, her favorite was meeting people at bars since she is a big time drinker.. *ahem, Alcoholic. So, she'd keep those few that were still under the impression she was great and wonderful..or MISUNDERSTOOD (her words), and then develop the friendship with them - long distance usually.

Believe me, you will probably never know of more than a small fraction of their web of contacts. As Stars says, most of these will be long-distance contacts, because they are easier for the HPD to maintain. When I traveled across the US with my HPD ex, I was astonished to find that she had a long list of friends to be contacted in every city we visited. I was hearing about most of them for the first time.

wow this sounds just like me, aha i have many friends, and i have always been voted "most popular" throughout high school and people always say "wendy you have so many friends!!" when they are admiring me and ill be honest, i try to befriend people who seem cool to everyone else because like you said it opens up an all new web of contacts including more popular and cool people they hang out with, when im arguing with a friend it only bothers me if they are considered cool and make my social status lower because if i lose their friendship then i cant use them to get close to the other popular people, i go to college and even the cheerleaders there are popular and everyone automatically looks up to them because of this, its jsut like in high school, so i always try to befriend them because when i am seen walking around school with them it makes me look really good, i honestly dont really value the friendship because i get bored of that particular person before they can even get too close to me, but i use people to constantly make my web of contacts grow, i have about 315 contacts n my phone but i have alot of friends and it is funny that almost everyone at my college knows my name altohugh i may not know them, but i am very picky about who i want to befriend, they have to make my social status look good in some way because if i am friends with the popular people i am constantly admired and i need that...

treetop wrote:This has always been a topic of interest to me.. exactly how deep and how varied the many people the HPD 'contact list' is. I guess I never understood the many people my HPD friend kept 'hidden' away until our friendship was ending, and I was speaking to some of her other contacts. It seemed each time she met someone new, she not only kept them as a 'contact', she also went after their friends, their family, even their acquaintances... to keep in her 'just in case' list. so of course meeting one person was a great opportunity for her, because it also meant she would have access to several more people by 'adopting' the people her target knew.

my questions for the other posters: did 'your' HPD (or, for those who have been diagnosed HPD, do YOU) have an extensive network, what did that network look like, and as a non, how did you find out about it? (for HPD's, how do you hide it from others?)

or, for nons, if you weren't aware of the HPD's 'network', were you suspicious that the HPD had 'others' around but was trying to hide it from you?

my network includes friends strangers contacts and associates. and anyone dumb enough to be associated with them in the slighest and to let me know about it. I can work a social network inside and out, then I'll work all of your friend's social networks too. if for no other reason then because it makes me better at it the more I do it. how it ends... is always tricky.

sometimes it doesn't and I just integrate into it. - you would call that normal. but that process has only recently started since I realized that people are human....

- as strange as this may sound, I don't know how to handle life without my web of contacts... I had it removed from me for a few years there after I dropped out of college. it was most horrible depressing thing ever happen to me, everyday it felt like suicide was a possible alternative to life. just sayin'

My Ex.cell was the most busiest cell i ever seen in my life. Keep on recieving texts and calls. Most of them she never read/Recived in front of me telling me that they are just not important. Whenever i use to call her, i hardly get her cell free and hardly my call go through in one go. It use to be busy all the time.

Surprisingly she got only couple of female friends. Her, mail box keep getting thousand of mails every day and most of them are dirty sex jokes. there is always someone in her cell phone contact who can solve any of her problem. She can get unbleiveble discounts by calling someone in airline and talking to him like they know each other for long time. She can get food dilivered to her home on priority by calling the store manager, she can even call in the bank and check how much balance in my personell account becouse the bank manager know her.

But for my information, They were all good gentlemen who help her without she is giving them any favour. How she get aquinted with them? thats her secret.

I fould out many of them becouse she herself messed up few of her plans and get caught by her minor mistakes. Though she is very smart to hide her foot marks, i guess she spreaded her network so much that it went out of control in the end.

all interesting thoughts, and thank you to the posters. since the consensus seems to be that they have numerous contacts, many long-distance, and they often try to hide this from the 'steady'.. I have a few questions.

labor and wendy, what do you both feel you 'need' from this list of contacts? does each person/group of people serve a different purpose? (such as one person for financial help, one for favors, one for emotional validation.. ect, ect.)
what is it about functioning 'solo' or even with just a few close associates that frightens or depresses you?

stars- I got that alot with my friend, too, she would claim 'so and so thinks you're weird', 'so and so thinks you're stuck up'.. and on and on. like you, I didn't really care because I didn't know these people she claimed didn't like me. but, due to their disapproving stares when meeting them for the first time, I figured the HPD had probably told them some outrageous lies about me.. because why else would they dislike me right off the bat? I hadn't done anything outrageous to attract attention to myself, nor acted mean towards them, nor do I look extremely strange, so their stares were pretty unfounded. why she told them these lies about me, I'm not sure, other than to make herself look/feel better or for the sake of having some 'drama gossip tidbit' to feed to people.

trip - I think my friend's contacts were mostly good people, too, who worked in various professional industries and who were often around to lend her a helping hand should she need it... those she would brag about to me, and act as though these guys were desperate to 'marry' her (they weren't, they were just generally nice people who give that type of help to many others, not just her). she greatly exaggerated how 'close' she was to most of these guys, as I met some of them one-on-one after my friendship with her ended, and they claimed they wanted to sleep with her at some point, but as time went on, their interest waned and they only kept in sporadic contact with her. they kept answering her random calls because they're decent people, and didn't feel like leaving someone so 'helpless' without her helping hands. but she also had some 'shadier' contacts that she kept carefully hidden - those were her drug buddies, her friends-with-benefits antisocial guys, and other generally scummy people. I would hear of those people in passing 'stories' the HPD told about her life, met a few of them (back in her younger days when she was less adept at hiding them.) keep in mind, none of the 'nice' guys knew anything of her shady life or her shady contacts.

from each person mainly i use them to make myself go up the social latter, some ppl i use because they make me look cool just by being around them and others because they can help me out, but if someone isnt "cool" or rich or anything then i wont associate with them because theres no point, and alot of times i get ppls attention by talking bad about people i hate such as saying "i hate kathryn, she seriously needs to die, i mean seriously maybe 2 people would go to her funeral but only so they can spit in the fat c*nt's face" things like that...theres no filter, and i like to have many friends but on friday nights i would prefer just staying home by myself and sleeping or get on chat sites, but almsot every weekend i sort of make myself go out and do things, but i mean i used to be addicting to partying but then i gree bored of it like everything else in life, and with my constant changing emotions alot of people tire of me before we can get too close either way

wendy.. so your main purpose for these contacts is to 'look cool' - understandable. why though. I understand wanting to be popular/liked, it's a basic human instinct, and eveyone needs to have people around them that care about them. I'm just wondering why you need it 'so much' .

in a sense, you're sacrificing 'quality' for 'quantity.' instead of developing close, lasting relationships, you're looking for a number of 'disposable' relationships to use and throw away on your 'way to the top'... you say you get 'bored' of people, why is that? are you bored because you feel like you can't 'relate' to them in some way emotionally, or because their usual activities, their personalities, and whatnot, have become boring to you?

a note on the 'way to the top' - sometimes, it doesn't matter how high you've climbed, if you're standing on the mountaintop alone. lame and sentimental, yes, but often true when it comes down to it.

also, I was wondering if this constant need for stimulation is because you're trying to avoid sitting around quitely, reflecting, and thinking about your life or your 'true self and your 'true emotions''.. it's just too hard to do? or is it something you've never done and just don't have an interest in doing?

I think the lack of emotions needed to sustain a lasting friendship are what make them move on, or "get bored" so quickly. To develop meaningful and close bonds with people you will need to share more than just a shallow surface. You have to invest time, you will have to care, you will have to listen, support...these are things the HPD cannot do if there is not gain for them. It's like "what am I getting out of this?" and it has to be some instant gratification, or they're not down.