Can you trust those friends still in contact w/the HPD?

Just to recap my situation...

Since another neighbor told me that my HPD neighbor was badmouthing me, I've confided in him about her. I wasn't sure about doing this at first, but he seemed to understand exactly who/how she is in a way that few others do or are willing to admit. I don't get why anyone who knows this keeps her as a so-called "friend", except maybe to appease her and avoid becoming her target? I tried staying friendly with her, even after realizing she and I would never be real friends, but that backfired on me in a big way. I think word got back to her that I thought she was histrionic, so she told everyone that I was "backstabbing" her. I only said what these other people probably already know to be true, but sometimes the truth hurts. Mind you, she and I have never had a fight, an argument or confrontation of any sort. She asked me for a favor, and I politely declined. So she stopped talking to me, and from then on we then simply ignored and avoided each other.

So my questions are these...

The other day, I had a conversation with the neighbor-who-told-me. He pulled me aside on the street to tell me that he's sick of the HPD's antics and ignoring her now, too. Then today, I overheard him having a conversation with her on the street outside my window just as he and I did. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but of course, I started to feel paranoid anyway. How do I know I can trust him? Should I ask him about this?

I wouldn't expect or want anyone to take sides with me as I'd always tried to avoid doing this myself with her in past situations with others. I was afraid it would only worsen the drama, and I didn't want to get involved or to become a part of it. As I said above, this backfired on me anyway, just by having these "friends" in common. Do I have to distance myself from them, too? What should I say if her name comes up in conversation from now on with my neighbor or others who know how she is?

Damned if do, damned if I don't.

Tough question that I face myself.
My HPD ex told everyone I am a psychotic creepy stalker. She being a beautiful fun woman, etc, and me an ordinary middle-aged man, people either naturally believe her or figure that if they have to invite only one of us to their party, they'd rather have her.
How to deal with it? I would say, resist the urge to badmouth her back. This will only play into whatever image of you she has created. Ignore her, do not let on to other neighbors that she is on your mind. When asked about her, say something innocuous or even praise her.
But also: do not let friends of hers know any info about you that you think she could misuse.

Great question. The answer in my opinion is no in all cases, but particularly those of the opposite sex.

CptSaveAho wrote:no in all cases, but particularly those of the opposite sex

Well, a female HPD's gal pals, even if they are educated, kind-seeming women, will cover and lie for her even more readily than her male fan club will, in my experience. The men in the fan club honestly don't know what she's like. Her gal pals do at least know she's unfaithful as hell, but they cover for her. It's their (mis)understanding of feminist solidarity, or some such thing. We all know that shows like Sex and the City objectify the opposite sex in a way that would be considered grossly vulgar and beyond the pale if the actors were male.

My HPD ex's gal pals in my presence would play along with her good girl act. "She talks about you all the time." As if I couldn't catch the eye-language going on when they thought I wasn't looking. What's worse, her female relatives would do the same, lying sweetly to my face, as she had coached them to do, about who they had all been out with the evening before.

Even the one gal pal who admitted to me that I was being snowed would only go so far towards the truth as to chuckle indulgently about the "girl fun" my HPD ex got up to when her boyfriends weren't around.

All this makes me think that they will naturally remain loyal to her after your break-up, even if you do succeed in enlightening them as to what she did to you. Don't trust them.

yeah I have to agree with compton.. can't trust the gal pals either. I say this as an HPD's ex gal pal. LOL. I did cover for her on many occasions. why? because I believed her actions were innocent misunderstandings, or she was simply lost and misguided, and I wanted to protect her agenda. f-ed up, I know, but I was really brainwashed by her when we were 'close'.

I really believed in the persona she sold to me, that she was genuinely caring and that she 'made a few mistakes' here and there. so I was willing to cover for her 'mistakes.'

and yeah, the men were usually under the impression that she was some type of Madonna, though most of the (straight) women she interacted with knew she was actually a whore. with the exception of the lesbians she dated, they also thought she was some type of Madonna.

I can say I often lied for her because I believed the men she was involved with were 'rapists' or 'abusers', and they would 'do something terrible' to her if they found out the truth of who she was running around with. she painted most of her romantic partners or people she slept with as psychopaths. she only painted me as a psycopath after I ended the friendship.

Hey, no question that you can't trust the gal pals either, but they are not drooling at the chance to rat out their fellow bro's for a shot at approval/sex from the HPD.

My HPD has family and friends that are on my side, but a few sluts that are squarely on hers.

to add, I think compton is on to something with the feminist agenda and 'females protecting females.' even some of my non HPD friends have done this in the past.. cheated on their partners, then had their gal pals cover for them. something like 'chicks before dicks' simliar to the 'bros before hos' code of ethics. and captain, not every one of her female defenders is a slut, some are perfectly normal but just brainwashed by the HPD.

but yeah, lalaland, you can't really trust anybody she's in contact with, because you never know who's brainwashed by her and who isn't. if she's in constant contact with someone, it's pretty safe to say they're brainwashed. those she keeps in sporadic contact with might be slightly more trustworthy. the only ones that you can be sure aren't promoting her agenda are those who were extremely close to her, found out she was nuts, then permanently stopped contact with her. talking to those people is fascinating, you see how she put on a different persona with them.

in an example of this, my now-boyfriend was a former contact of hers, and with him, she portrayed herself as this crazy party girl who would do threesomes at the drop of a hat. a hilarious attempt of acting gone wrong on her part, because she misjudged him as being the type of guy who was into that when he was actually looking for a more serious, domestic and intellectual partner. hahahah. she misjudged him because he was 'rougher' in his younger days and came from a huge city, so she thought surely he must want a hoodrat type. NOT.

@compton
Ugh, I feel your pain...but rest assured that some of us have heard your ex's stories and do not believe a word she says, nor do we very much care.

Funny you should mention "Sex And The City" …my HPD neighbor talked about sex right away all the time, and I used to say to myself, “She seems to think we’re going to be SATC buddies”, dishing all the details about men over drinks. She was also all about shopping, shoes and sex, though as far as sex goes, I thought she was all-talk because I heard the same story at least three times. I'm not like this, and I realized soon after moving in that we would never really be friends. She invited me out for drinks, as I've noticed she usually does to seduce new supply, but I declined. I knew she would do all the talking, and I thought, "No amount of alcohol could make this tolerable, nevermind enjoyable, for me."

She started sending me these long emails about her relationships and asking me about mine. I thought this was strange since we literally live wall-to-wall, but it was better than being held captive at my frontdoor. I also thought she was just being friendly, but I reread one recently and realized she was fishing for information, wondering if I was romantically involved with or interested in this straight-male-friend of ours. Long story short, she flirted with him, he sexted her back one night, and the next day she humiliated him for it. He then started ignoring her, and as far as I understand it, she tried to get him fired from the organization for which she and I both volunteered.

If this isn’t too confusing, I was dating a friend of our straight-male-friend at the time, and she accosted us one night at my frontdoor, complaining about the straight-male-friend and saying how "he should've at least invited her out for drinks first!" This sounded more like rejection than sexual harrassment. The guy-I-was-dating then said to me, “I think she invited this all on herself.” I immediately thought, “I know I’m supposed to side with her as another female, but somehow I think he’s right.”

I hate rehashing everything here, but my point is this…not all females are “gal pals” who will side with the HPD. Some of us do see her for who and how she is, and a few of us really resent her for “crying wolf”. I’m still not sure that our straight-male-friend knows that I never sided with her and only tried to stay out of it. He and I never really talked about what happened because I think he was too embarrassed, though he told me once that they made amends so he could keep his job. From comments he has made, I do think he sees her for who and how she is, but I don't think he understands HPD, that she will never change. He knows that she and I do not speak to each other, though I wonder if he thinks this is just a "catfight", women being bitchy, and that once day we will make amends ourselves. That's never going to happen as far as I'm concerned, not in this lifetime anyway, and I've made it clear to him that I want nothing to do with her.

He actually calls her a “friend” now…I still can’t understand this, but I have to assume that for him, it’s “keep your friends close – and your enemies closer.”

This is a fantastic question. I've often wondered this myself as I had introduced my ex-friend to some friends of mine. All of a sudden after I end the friendship with her, two of them act like I'm some psycho bitch who effed her over. I mean, I don't really care. One she is dating, and the other is just an idiot. I tried to warn him, but....we know how that goes.

I noticed they even deleted me from FB and she went so far as to block me. I only noticed cause a mutual friend asked me about something on her profile and went I went to look it said the user could not be found or whatever...

So, I think the answer is NO. Anyone she keeps a tight grip on, probably thinks you're the devil now. And believe me, she's talked about you. She loves nothing more than to have a reason to play a victim.

After thought: there is only ONE guy who remained my friend. He had been my friend for many years only met her once or twice, and he was there and saw the note I wrote her. He initially felt bad for her and was sorta on her side telling me that it was probably a (HPD's favorite word:) "Misunderstanding", but after awhile he noticed that she had lied to him too about some stuff and he finally realized that I wasn't totally wrong about her after all.

Just to clarify...the neighbor-who-told-me is gay, so there's no romantic competition here. There's always triangulation going on with the HPD, trying to get others to side with her, even though as I said before, she and I have never had an argument, so there are no sides to take!

As for the straight-male-friend mentioned above, he and I had a falling-out and stopped speaking to each other for awhile, though it was for good reason, and we've since reconciled. I think that she was just following his lead when she stopped speaking to me because she had no good reason for it, and now that he and I are speaking to each other again, I think she wants to reconcile with me. As far as I'm concerned, there's no good reason for us to ever speak to each other again!

At the time of our falling-out, I told him out of frustration that she was histrionic, maybe because I knew he would then tell her just to spite me. What he didn't know then was that I was relieved when she stopped talking to me. I also hoped that it really hit home, like maybe she's heard it before, and hurt her. So the "mean girl" in me - yes, I've found out that I have one as a result of knowing this HPD - almost doesn't care if certain things back to her or what she thinks about me.

Yet when the paranoia sets in...I suppose I really do care what others think. I also hate feeling this way and being this kind of person. It's not who I am, and no matter what I do or don't do, I'm just playing into the drama. The neighbor-who-told-me seems to understand exactly how she is, and he even encouraged me to keep ignoring her, so I'm going to assume that he's only talking to her to keep the peace.