Tale of the copy cat friend

I have a friend who literally copy’s everything I do. All the modules I’m doing, she’s there. My fashion choices and outfits, she has matching ones. My hair colour, YES COLOUR and it’s black mind you she follows as well. Right down to keeping hair ties on my keys and repeating phrases I use she’s plagiarised. How do I tell her to get her own fuxking personality and style

I had a friend like this back in secondary school, she literally copied everything I did from my dress sense to my "sayings" to the movies I liked etc. To the point that if i came to school with my hair up she would have a hair tie handy and wear her's up too, petty sh*t like that. It was maddening. Used to p*ss me off royally when people used to say "you two look so alike!" like yeah because she's f*cking copying me! I'm the original!

I know it's normal to a certain extent in friendships to take on some aspects of each other as a sign of mutual respect/affection etc but man this girl took it to the extreme. It's kind of cute when you're like 11 and adults say you and your friend look like twins, but when you're entering your teens and trying to find your own sense of identity it's the last thing you want.

The way I stopped it was making a radical change that she wouldn't follow, I think one of the main reason I had my emo phase was I knew she was too much of girly girl to try and copy that, then I started hanging out with the emo/goth kids and made other friends and she went to a separate college. The end. So I guess my advice is to find a style you like that you know she won't want to copy, then maybe it'll encourage her to go find a style she likes rather than just emulating other people. Good luck and hope I could help!

How old is she, OP?

You could tell her? It might be hard and awkward af but if it's driving you crazy then it might be the best way.

She’s 21

21 is quite old to be doing this! I could understand if she was in secondary school as she is still trying to figure out her own identity, but at 21... How much time do you spend with each other? Try to keep some space between you, encourage her to make new friends. Maybe she will relax and form her own identity when she notices that other people respond to her because of who she is, not by copying you.

If you have trouble, I would talk to her about what she is doing.

Ironically she’s also 2 years older than me which makes it even more pathetic. Basically she isolated herself to just her boyfriend and me and that’s as far as she’s willing to go. She does have this one other friend but she doesn’t like her as much. We spend a lot of time together basically when we have lectures, some seminars together and when she drags me out on the weekends

She’s 21

Really?! What does her boyfriend think about this? Do you have other friends you can spend time with? I think the less you hang out with each other, the less compelled she will be to copy your style.

I have a friend who literally copy’s everything I do. All the modules I’m doing, she’s there. My fashion choices and outfits, she has matching ones. My hair colour, YES COLOUR and it’s black mind you she follows as well. Right down to keeping hair ties on my keys and repeating phrases I use she’s plagiarised. How do I tell her to get her own fuxking personality and style