Ex-Bestie Who Literally Tried to Single White Female My Life

Grab your favorite beverage—coffee, tea, or maybe a massive glass of wine—because you are going to need it for this one. Welcome back to the blog, y’all. Today, we are diving deep into a chapter of my life so utterly unhinged that if I pitched it to a reality TV network, the producers would hand it back to me and say it was “too unrealistic.”

We all have that one ex-friend who teaches us a harsh lesson about boundaries. But let me tell you about my ex-friend. She didn’t just cross boundaries; she demolished them, set them on fire, and then tried to literally steal my identity in the ashes.

Here is the wild, exhausting, and strangely hilarious story of the friend who was so psychopathic and obsessed with me that she systematically tried to take over my life.

I should have known things were going to be weird from the jump. This girl—a Black woman who I genuinely thought was going to be my sister from another mister—had the exact same name as my actual sister. Not only that, but she also had the exact same birth month and birth year as my sister. At the time, I thought, “Wow, what a fun coincidence! We are destined to be family.”

The universe wasn’t giving me a cute coincidence; it was flashing a giant, neon red flag.

We were friends for five solid years. And when I say I was a good friend, I mean I was the blueprint. I did any and everything for her. I would drop whatever I was doing to help her out. I would give her my last dollar without a second thought. I thought she was my ride-or-die. Little did I know, she was just plotting a hostile takeover of my life.

Before we even get to the men (oh, trust me, we will get to the men), let’s talk about the absolute sheer audacity this girl possessed.

There was a time when things were really tight for me, and I was relying on an EBT card to get by. I had managed to save up about $3,000 worth of food stamps on it to make sure my family was fed. Guess what my “best friend” did? She stole it. She flat-out swiped my EBT card and sold it for cash on the street to make a quick buck off my survival. Who does that?!

But wait, it gets so much worse.

Her ultimate betrayal happened right under my own roof. I actually caught her sleeping with my husband at the time. In my apartment! I was so furious I had to call the cops just to physically have her removed from my home. And the absolute kicker? To this day, she holds a grudge against me for calling the cops on her! Ma’am, you were in my bed with my husband! What did you want me to do, leave a mint on the pillow and make y’all breakfast?!

Let’s rewind a tiny bit to how the “official” fallout between us happened, because her excuse for hating me is hysterical projection.

I had a very short fling with one of her brothers. Now, because I actually respect the girl code, I went to her beforehand and asked if she was okay with it. She looked me in the eye and said, “Oh yeah, totally fine! Go for it!”

Tip for the ladies: When a toxic friend says “it’s fine,” it is a trap. It is a giant bear trap covered in leaves.

I had the fling, and almost immediately, she flipped the script. Suddenly, it was not fine. She used it as her villain origin story to hold against me forever. But honestly? The brother fling was just her excuse to unleash her true obsession.

Clearly, her revenge plot was to collect my exes like Thanos collecting Infinity Stones. Because getting rid of me wasn’t enough; she needed to step into my shoes. Not only did she sleep with the husband I had to call the cops on, but she also slept with my ex-husband (my daughter’s father). Then, because the “Tina’s Leftovers” buffet was apparently still open, she moved on to my son’s father. She didn’t just sleep with him—she went ahead and had a whole baby with him.

Let’s talk about my son’s father for a minute, because the dynamic between these two is a psychological thriller, and it’s actually really sad.

If this man had a backbone, it would be made of overcooked spaghetti. He is an absolute wimp who lets another female completely control him. He has zero thoughts of his own and goes to her for every single piece of advice.

Their entire chemistry is built on a foundation of mutual hatred for me. They are both completely stuck on it. Every single day, she contacts him just to ask, “Have you spoken to Tina today?” On the rare occasions his single brain cell fires up and he admits he feels like reaching out to fix things, she immediately swoops in and talks him out of it.

But it gets darker. She uses him to control my life, and worse, she uses him to control whether or not he has a relationship with his own son. She actually sits there and validates his deadbeat behavior. She tells him that he was right to walk away. She whispers in his ear that he shouldn’t care about his son, that it’s “best” he doesn’t have a relationship with him, and—get this—that his son “will find him when he grows up.” Who tells a father to abandon their child like that?!

She is actively molding him to be just like her: running away from all accountability and responsibility. She makes him behave and act however he wants without facing the consequences. She explicitly tells him that he doesn’t need to fix anything with me, that he should continue to disrespect me, treat me like trash, and treat me like a nobody. She commands him not to talk to me, making him ignore my attempts to co-parent all while he is out there entertaining a bunch of other women.

But here is the absolute most tragic part of her little power trip: She thinks she’s hurting me by keeping him away. She thinks she’s winning some sick game against Tina. But she’s not. The person her actions are actually affecting in the long term is my son. And frankly, she’s destroying the father, too, because he is too stupid to see the reality of his choices.

At the end of the day, when my son grows up, I am not the one he is going to blame. I’m the one who stayed. I’m the one who showed up. When the dust settles, my son won’t be pointing the finger at me; he will be looking directly at his father. My son’s father is the one who will have to look his own flesh and blood in the eye and answer for absolutely everything. He will have to explain why he chose a bitter, obsessed ex-friend’s advice over his own child. Good luck to him when that day comes, because no burner app or blocked number is going to save him from his own son’s questions.

It’s downright creepy how enmeshed they are right now, though. He literally handed over the passwords to his emails and texting apps. She ordered him to block me everywhere, so he did. She told him to disable his social media accounts so I couldn’t reach him, so he did. If he must contact me, she dictates that he has to use weird burner texting apps, and she literally coaches him on what to say to maximize the disrespect.

Here is where the situation crosses the line from annoying to genuinely terrifying. For someone who constantly runs her mouth claiming she “doesn’t care” about me, she absolutely refuses to let me go. This isn’t just about her being petty; it is a deep-rooted, psychopathic obsession. She desperately wants my life.

She wants a connection to me so badly that she uses my son’s father as a human leash. I haven’t spoken to her in years, yet I still take up permanent, rent-free residence in her head. She has actually gone around telling people that my son is hers, and that my son likes her more. It is chilling. Who tries to mentally claim another woman’s child?

And the stalking? It is next-level psychotic. She hacks my emails just to keep tabs on me. She creates endless fake social media accounts to watch every single thing I do online. But she doesn’t even stop there—she actually uses his family members and her family members to stalk me on social media, too. It’s a whole group activity for them. Shouldn’t she be busy raising the baby she just had with my ex instead of organizing a neighborhood watch for my Instagram?

Her obsession doesn’t stop with me; it bleeds into my son’s father, too. She is trying so hard to prove she’s “the one” for him that she is morphing into him. He likes Mercedes Benz cars? Boom, she goes out and buys a Mercedes. She copies his mannerisms, his habits, his style. She is desperately doing everything like him so he can see how “loyal” she is. The funniest, most tragic part? He doesn’t even notice. He’s completely oblivious to the fact that she is bankrupting her own personality to mirror his. She has no identity of her own—she’s just an empty vessel trying to fill herself up with pieces of me and pieces of him.

I eventually found out that for the entire five years we were “best friends,” she was badmouthing me behind my back. She went to all of her family members and friends, feeding them lies so they would hate me when I hadn’t done a single thing to them. She even reached out to my family members to spread rumors, trying to paint me as “unhinged” and “crazy.”

Why go through all that effort? If you care enough to stalk my life with a small army of fake accounts, reach out and talk to me like an adult. Stop using other people as pawns to hold onto some weird, toxic connection to me.

She wants me to reach out so badly just so she can start drama and have something to talk about. Need proof? In January 2025, after years of not speaking, after stealing my EBT card, getting kicked out by the cops, sleeping with my exes, having a baby with my son’s dad, convincing him to abandon our child, and running a smear campaign against me… she sent me a text.

“Hey, just asking how you’re doing. Hoping you’re fine!”

I had to laugh. The audacity is actually breathtaking. You are controlling the father of my son, hacking my inbox, stalking me with your relatives, and hiding behind burner apps, but you want to casually check in and see how my Tuesday is going? Make it make sense!

For the longest time, my intentions were pure. All I wanted were answers. I wanted that one final conversation to clear the air, to find out why she did all of this, and to just move on. I wanted closure.

But sitting here writing this, I’ve realized something incredibly empowering: The block and the silence is the answer. That is the only closure I will ever get, and it’s the only closure I need.

The fact that they have to run and hide behind disabled social media accounts and blocked numbers tells me everything I need to know. I don’t need to hear their pathetic excuses.

Let the puppet and the psychopathic puppet master have each other in their weird, obsessive, Mercedes-driving bubble. As for me? I’m logging off, living my beautiful, unbothered life, protecting my peace, and making sure my passwords are completely un-hackable. (And you better believe I’m keeping an eye on my EBT cards, too.)

Until next time,

Tina

When Allah Takes a Back Seat: Religion, Money and the Bule Fantasy
https://wp.me/p84YjG-aFK
#BuleHunter #BaliLife #IndonesiaIslam #ExpatsInBali #ReligionAndMoney #ToxicRelationships #MensMindset #RealTalk #IndonesianWomen #BaliDating #zsoltzsemba

https://zsoltzsemba.com/religion-money-bule-fantasy-indonesia/

Sex, Manipulation and the Game Nobody Wins
https://wp.me/p84YjG-aFs
#BuleHunter #BaliLife #ExpatsInBali #ToxicRelationships #LoveAndMoney #MensMindset #RelationshipAdvice #RealTalk #SelfAwareness #ManipulationTactics #zsoltzsemba

https://zsoltzsemba.com/sex-manipulation-and-the-game-nobody-wins/

Sex, Manipulation and the Game Nobody Wins

Let us end this series where it was always heading. Not with finger pointing at one side. But with the full picture, because both sides are in this, both sides are getting hurt, and both sides are doing the hurting.

Here is the dynamic nobody wants to say out loud.

Some women use sex as a weapon. Some men take exactly what is being offered and nothing more. And somewhere in the middle of that transaction, both of them end up with less than they started with.

If Sex Is All You Bring, Sex Is All You Get

There is a belief that circulates openly in certain circles here in Bali and across Indonesia more broadly. The belief that men only want sex. Say it enough times, and it becomes a worldview. And a worldview shapes behaviour. If you genuinely believe men only want sex, then sex becomes your primary currency. You offer it strategically. You withhold it strategically. You use it to open doors, secure commitments, and create dependencies. You become, whether you intended to or not, a manipulator.

But here is the part that belief conveniently skips over. If sex is all you bring to the table, sex is all the relationship will ever be about. You do not get to complain that he only wants you for your body if your body is the only thing you put forward. The relationship will always reflect what was used to build it. Build it on physical transaction and that is exactly what you get. A physical transaction.

The Tourist, the Long Game, and the Tuesday Night

A foreign man lands in Bali for a week. He is on holiday. His guard is down. The sun is out. And there is a woman who has done this before, who knows exactly how to read that energy and meet it. She is thinking long game. Financial support, a dependency he cannot walk away from. He is thinking on Tuesday night. Neither of them is being fully honest. Both of them are using the other.

He gets what he came for. She does not get what she was after. He flies home. She starts again with the next one.

The Pregnancy Play

Let us be direct about this because it happens, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. Getting pregnant to trap a foreign man is not a relationship strategy. It is a desperate move that creates a child who did not ask to be a bargaining chip, a man who feels cornered rather than chosen, and a woman who now has a dependency that may or may not deliver what she was hoping for. It almost never works the way she planned. And when it does not, everyone loses. Especially the child.

The Men Are Not Innocent Either

There are foreign men who come to Bali specifically because the power imbalance works in their favour. They know that economic disparity creates access. They use it. They take what is available, offer nothing real in return, and move on. They do not ask too many questions because the answers might require them to behave better. They benefit from a system they did not create but absolutely choose to participate in.

These men are not victims. They are co-architects.

Manipulation Is a Two-Way Road

The uncomfortable truth at the center of all of this is that manipulation is a two-way road. A woman who uses sex to extract money is manipulating. A man who uses money to extract sex is also manipulating. Both are treating the other person as a means to an end. Both are avoiding the vulnerability of an actual connection. Both get to feel clever in the short term and hollow in the long term.

And the people who genuinely get hurt are the ones who came in without a strategy. The man who actually fell for her and did not know he was being played. The woman who actually liked him and did not realize he was just filling a week. The ones who showed up real in a game being played by people who had decided real was too risky.

They are the collateral damage of other people’s fear of intimacy dressed up as strategy.

The Only Version That Does Not End in Everyone Losing

This series started with data showing that most Indonesian women reject the Bule Hunter culture. It moved through how the system works, how it spreads, and what it costs the people who run it. This final post is just the honest summary.

Sex used as manipulation degrades everyone involved. Money used as leverage does the same. The only thing that does not degrade you is choosing to show up as a full human being and requiring the person across from you to do the same.

That is harder. It is also the only version of this that does not end in everyone losing.

If this series hit close to home and you are navigating something real right now, I work with men one-on-one. Start here.

Passive-aggressive texts aren't about what was said. They're about the gap between the words and what those words did to you. That gap is the real message:

https://blog.misread.io/passive-aggressive-text-messages

#communication #manipulation #toxicrelationships

Love bombing feels like finally being seen. That's what makes it work. Real connection deepens as they learn you. Love bombing peaks when they know the least:

https://blog.misread.io/love-bombing-text-messages

#narcissist #toxicrelationships #mentalhealth

Narcissistic text patterns are remarkably predictable once you see the architecture. The words change. The structure is almost identical every time. DARVO, love bomb, devalue, discard:

https://blog.misread.io/narcissist-text-message-patterns

#narcissist #manipulation #toxicrelationships

"Do what you want, I don't care" is a trap with two exits that are both locked. Do it and it's evidence. Don't and they controlled you without making a demand.

#manipulation #toxicrelationships #communication

"After everything I've done for you" converts past kindness into present-day debt. Generosity with strings attached isn't generosity. It's a tab you never agreed to open.

#manipulation #narcissist #toxicrelationships

"It's fine, forget it" means it's not fine and you're not allowed to forget it. The withdrawal IS the punishment. Your anxiety for the next 48 hours is the message being delivered.

#manipulation #toxicrelationships #communication