I’m really trying to understand and figure out how to navigate this situation. I posted about it before, but I don’t think I explained it very clearly.
I’m a very quiet person and I don’t really share my thoughts with people unless I’m close to them. This has happened with two different people I was close to and shared my views with.
They would often agree with my views when I shared them, and then later present those same views as their own to other people. Sometimes almost word for word. I didn’t think much of it at first because I thought if someone genuinely agrees with you, it makes sense they might naturally use similar wording.
But then when we argue, they suddenly confess to having the complete opposite view and belittle me for the exact same beliefs they were previously repeating to other people.
This makes no sense to me because why agree with me, act like you share these same views in front of other people, and then later admit you actually think the opposite?
I want to believe they’re just trying to figure out their worldview and struggling with identity or something, but I can’t help feeling disturbed by it. It just feels so sinister to me.
It feels like they wait for me to share my thoughts on things, and because they know I don’t share my thoughts with anyone but them, they copy those thoughts and present them as their own to other people. But privately, with me, they admit they actually believe the opposite.
The thing that really bothers me is that it starts to feel like they’re pretending to be me in front of others while showing their “real” selves only to me. Like they borrow my personality/worldview socially, even though they don’t genuinely believe those things.
And just to be clear, I’m not forcing them to agree with me or constantly debating them. Sometimes I’ll just casually share a thought while we’re talking, and they’ll strongly agree and build on it themselves.
I know this probably sounds dramatic or paranoid, but it genuinely bothers me because it starts to feel like my identity is being copied or stolen in some weird way. I wouldn’t care if they actually believed the same things as me. What bothers me is that it feels like they use my views to deceive other people and create a version of themselves that isn’t real.
The whole thing is especially confusing because my views are not even popular in our community. Their real views would probably make them MORE accepted socially. So I genuinely don’t understand why someone would pretend to share my worldview if they don’t actually believe it.
Has anyone experienced something like this before?