How to tell if someone is jealous of you? Listen, I can guarantee if you were inspired to click on this article, chances are you have jealous people around you. Jealous people in your family? Maybe jealous people where you work? It could be anybody. Anybody could be low-key jealous and envious of you.
Now the thing we must first understand about a jealous person is when a person is jealous they hate you, but they love you at the same time and that’s the reason why they have these mismatched feelings about you. This actually creates the enviousness in them.
It’s because usually, they’re not happy with themselves and what a jealous person is constantly doing is comparing themselves to everything outside of them, such as yourself.
How To Tell If Someone Is Jealous of You
Talking behind your back
Jealousy and insecurity go hand-in-hand. We unconsciously get jealous of the people that make us feel small and inferior. See, when you can’t see the value in your own accomplishments, you rely on the people around you to give them worth and substance.
Their praise makes you feel valuable, it gives you confidence, power and energy, but what happens when someone more secure or established enters the scene? If they steal the spotlight how does that make you feel? Some might say angry, others would say lonely. People who can’t deal with this lack of attention tend to be jealous.
They felt like a big deal before and they want to feel that way again, so they do everything they can to put things back the way they were. But here’s the thing, most of the people who get jealous like this don’t have the courage to confront you face-to-face. Instead they insult or criticise you when you’re not there to defend yourself.
People gossip like this for two main reasons:
First of all you probably intimidate them
Whilst others make them feel powerful you make them feel powerless. They won’t insult you to your face because they’re just plain scared.
Second, they know that what they’re saying is exaggerated
Or untrue, but if you’re not there you can’t call them out on it. Which means they can basically say whatever they want. In their minds tearing you down restores their own image. When you look bad they think it makes them look good, they start to feel superior again.
So what are you supposed to do about it?
You can’t really call them out on it, because you weren’t there to see it happen and you definitely shouldn’t stoop to their level. Honestly the best thing you can do is display kindness. That way you always come out looking like the bigger person, making them feel guilty for talking behind your back.
Rejecting your advice
Whenever you give someone advice does their mood suddenly worsen? Do they get mad at you for trying to help? This is actually a common sign of jealousy among friends. I say among friends because in most situations offering advice to strangers isn’t the best idea. People don’t like it when a stranger randomly weighs in on their life and I don’t blame them.
They don’t know you and you don’t know them, you’re just asserting yourself where you don’t belong. Even if you’re trying to help, unwanted advice can feel patronising. But when you’re giving advice to a friend you know what you’re talking about. You know who they are and where they come from. You have perspective on their life and they know you want the best for them, so your opinion should matter.
Normally friends value or at least consider each other’s advice, but when they get angry or bitter it may mean they’re harbouring a bit of jealousy. Maybe they envy something you have, they might think you’ve left them behind somehow. Without realising it, your advice is just reminding them of how they failed. They feel like you’re rubbing it in their face, which gets them riled up.
If this sounds familiar don’t worry you’re not the problem, their insecurities are twisting your words. You could say anything and they’d still feel like you’re criticising their life.
Undermining your success
Let’s say you just got back from the biggest weekend of your life. After years of training and planning you finally ran your first marathon. When you get back to work the next week you tell your co-workers all about it. Everyone congratulates you and asks you questions except for one girl who says “That marathon isn’t even that difficult, hundreds of thousands of people have completed it.”
Jealous people will habitually undermine your accomplishments, whenever you do something you’re proud of they’ll swoop in to make you feel worse about it. They’ll say things like “Everyone could do that” or “It isn’t really all that hard” because they wish they had done it themselves.
The idea is to make your achievements seem easy even if they aren’t. That way they don’t have to feel like a failure in comparison. Luckily there’s a foolproof solution to deal with it: no matter what they say, be proud of what you accomplished. All that matters is that you set out to do something and you did it!
Starting minor arguments
Starting arguments is probably the most annoying sign of jealousy on this list. The simple truth is people don’t like to lose. When someone is jealous of you, you may seem better than them in a lot of ways. Maybe you get paid more or have a job they’ve always wanted. Either way it can feel like you’re always winning and they’re always losing.
So whenever they interact with you, they’re searching for weaknesses in your armour. They want you to have flaws and make mistakes. They bide their time waiting for you to say something wrong, when you finally do mess up they’ll make it seem like a huge deal. And the worst part is they’ll never let it go.
Why do people do this? Like I said, people don’t like to lose. When they’re feeling jealous they’re desperate to beat you at something. They start dumb arguments and refuse to give up because they’re feeling insecure around you. They need these little small victories to feel good about themselves.
Blind hatred
Sometimes we don’t know what to do with our jealousy, we can’t pinpoint why we care so much. Jealousy quickly turns into hatred. Imagine your friend is going on and on about a guy they dislike, every chance they get they rant about how terrible he is. But if they really hate him why is this guy on their mind so much?
More often than not it’s because they’re trying to cover up how much they like them. It works pretty much the same way for envious people. When someone is jealous they might say behind your back that they hate you, they might go out of their way to tell people how frustrating you are, but in reality they want to be just like you.
So what do you do when you’ve got someone like this in your life? Is there any way to get past it? Unfortunately, the answer is usually no. These kinds of people are an almost constant source of negativity, don’t let them be an anchor in your life. If they can’t understand their own feelings it isn’t your job to fix things for them, you can try to be positive and kind but until they’re ready to accept their jealousy you might as well keep your distance.
Copying you
Jealousy isn’t always negative, sometimes you’re jealous of someone because you respect them, maybe you want to be like them. You might admire the choices they’ve made or the risks they’ve taken, or you like their style and wish you could do something similar. Whatever your reasons are, when you respect someone you naturally start to imitate them.
There’s an old saying that imitation is the highest form of flattery and it’s true. When someone copies you, they’re using you as a role model. They’re saying you’re living the kind of life they want to live, overtime this practice has become a staple part of our culture.
As you grow and learn you look to the people around you to guide your choices. As you get older you look towards celebrities, mentors and other people to find your path. It can influence where you live, what you do and even how you dress.
My point is that imitation is natural, unavoidable and relatively healthy. Pretty much everything you do in life, you do because someone you admire did it first. They gave you direction, they inspired you to take action, they might have opened doors that you didn’t know existed. But just like you have role models, you might be a role model for someone else. That someone might copy you because they’re jealous of all that you’ve accomplished.
When you’re on the receiving end this can be annoying, you might think you’re being insulted or cheated. It’s frustrating when you invest time and effort into something, only for the next person to just copy your work. Remember that deep down they’re only imitating you because you’re their definition of success.
Creating competition
We strive to surpass the people we respect the most, in fact that’s the exact reason we try so hard to beat them. If we didn’t respect them, we wouldn’t care. Just think about any sport, people respect the highest-ranking teams the most, so you get the biggest boost from winning against them. This is also how rivalries work, they rely on a healthy amount of jealousy to keep each side passionate and competitive.
So how does this translate into your everyday life? Say you notice someone constantly competing against you at work, when you’re trying to succeed they’re fighting you every step of the way. They might want you to fail or try to bring you down.
Whether they realise it or not, they only care so much because they admire you. In their mind you weren’t much different from a rival, you’re someone they have to beat to feel proud and valuable. They get competitive because your success feels like their failure.
What do you think? Do you know how to tell if someone is jealous of you? Let us know in the comments below.
