Another student threatened by you and plays dirty

[peppermint.beatnik]

Last year, I had some unprovoked issues with another grad student.

 

I found out they were threatened by me and that they are a profoundly insecure person.

 

I put this all behind me, but then I found out about other things they had done to undermine me.

 

I couldn't believe how low-life, deceitful their actions were; I was really offended.

 

I don't play dirty and I plan to ignore the situation because ultimately they look bad, not me.

 

I am just shocked by such behaviour and I wondered if anyone went through something similar and how it turned out.

Edited March 23, 2013 by peppermint.beatnik

[Sadie_Bea]

I experienced this in undergrad.   The person was very difficult to deal with because at first they acted desperate to be my friend, but when they found out I was doing much better than them in classes and getting more attention from the profs, they completely changed and started trying to undermine me. 

 

I wish I had brilliant advice about how to deal with people like that.  Thankfully I never have to talk to or see this person anymore since we graduated.  But I do have ways of knowing how this person is doing, and in all honesty people like that don't often get very far in life.  You will reap the rewards of being an honest, intelligent person that doesn't have to stoop to a low level to feel validated. You will succeed, and they will probably struggle unless they clean up their act.   

 

My only regret in dealing with this person is that for a while I let this person's actions get to me and make me insecure in my own abilities.    

 

I guess my best advice is just to try hard not to be bitter about it (this is hard advice for me to take from myself!).  Your deision to ignore the situation is definitely a good idea. It is very likely others will notice and end up saying something anyway.   I hope the situation improves for you!

Edited March 23, 2013 by Sadie_Bea

[BytheHammerofThor]

I have dealt with a similar situation.  At first, I didn't realize what this person was doing, as I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but over time, it became clear that this person was actively trying to undermine myself and another person in my cohort who they must have felt "threatened" by.  At risk of identifying myself, I won't go into specifics, but it was some pretty crazy, underhanded stuff and I was similarly shocked, as I cannot fathom doing such things to others.  Unfortunately, I don't really have a good solution for this kind of behavior... I think the biggest thing is knowing that a person has this tendency and being able to anticipate that they are going to actively try and screw you over, and adjust your conduct accordingly (i.e., distancing yourself from them so they cannot wreak havoc).  In my case, I treated this person as a "frenemy" and was cordial publicly, but distanced myself and didn't work with them on a one-to-one basis, and if I did, I made sure that I was on top of their sneaky nonsense.  Luckily, we were not in a lab together, otherwise it would've been a lot harder... I think there are more people in academia like this than we care to admit sometimes...

[kmed]

Keep your enemies close!

 

In my undergrad I had an issue with a student who I considered my "friend". We were in a small, 15 person class together. I would talk to him, with my walls down, about my ideas about the class or things that I wanted to contribute. Soon enough, I saw that he began using my ideas. At first I let it go because I thought that maybe he just liked my ideas a lot and was excited about them or he was frustrated that I didn't bring them up right away inc lass so he figured he would. After a point, it got annoying...then frustrating..then really upsetting. I stopped telling him my ideas and instead emailed them straight to the professor OR brought them up in class when I was sure everyone was listening so that he could not claim my ideas. It's tough...but I learned that people will try to steal your ideas in a heartbeat if you let them. Be private about your conceptualizations, make sure most of your correspondence is in email (so you can prove it was your idea), and make sure you share your ideas in front of a group including the professor so that way there is no discrepancy in who said what or whose idea was it initially.