this woman is not your friend. she is your enemy. avoid her, and when you can't avoid her, ignore her. she is not worth your time and energy.

and for god's sake do not carpool with her.

count your blessings that your bf is so supportive. take him up on his offers to avoid her presence. you don't need the grief.

Really it's that simple. Don't go to her parties, don't carpool with her.

Why hang around someone who treats you badly? There's no need to be confrontational, but no need to sit with it either. Standing still for it so 'gracefully' makes you an even bigger target. You probably shrink a little rather than rising above it. If you were truly rising above it, you wouldn't have needed to write Cary. She's dragging you down.

Excuse yourself, or simply walk away when she starts in. If anyone asks why say, "I am seeking friendly company" or "I find negativity tiresome and dull." If you want to highlight awareness of the situation you can preface these statements with "Excuse me..."

e.g. "Excuse me, I am going to freshen my beverage and seek congenial company. Anyone care to join me?"

Consider yourself blessed that your beau noticed too, if he's around take him with you. She's apparently alone and staying that way. A wide berth is your best bet, and entirely socially appropriate. If you sparkle on your own and are willing to be yourself, you'll attract plenty of people in the group who prefer to socialize with you, just like you did your partner.

What I see this woman doing to you is very carefully violating social norms and trying to pass the tension she creates off onto you.

She uses the gathered witnesses to reinforce her transgression by saying things that are just a tad hostile, and clearly an invitation to battle, but are not blatantly agressive enough to allow you to defend yourself or inspire the witnesses to choose sides. He ninja skills are a show - they are derived from a minor testing of the social code, but show no true strength in battle.

In fact, in this way she exposes herself as very weak opponent in open battle. I doubt she would be able to best you in a one on one, explicit argument. She probably hates feeling the way she does about you and doubts herself tremendously, otherwise she wouldn't use this cowardly technique to unsettle you. Still she can't resist the compulsion to try to put you down, and so must couch the power struggle in the padding of a normal conversation - like wrapping little gerbil turds in bacon and serving them as hors d'ouvres.

So the first thing to do is not to take a bite. Forget all this nonsense about female on female violence. To win you must abandon your prejudices about your opponent and yourself.

To vanquish her, I suggest you use the very weapon she is weilding.

What is that weapon? As others have alluded to, it is primarily the embarassment that the watching others would feel - if you responded to her provocation with open battle. Then she would win - you would look like the crazy one, the out of control jealous one, because none of the gathered witnesses have needed to be as aware of the subtext but you, and they would be surprised and disturbed to see it laid bare. if you used an explicitly agressive response, they would almost certainly see you as the more unstable one.

So I don't think you should make the battle explicit. Stay in the subtextual realm, but push the limits into open battle just a little bit more.

Some examples were mentioned above, as in, "what did you say?" forcing her to repeat and therefor take responsibility for her hostility.

Or even more daring and socially blameless,

Said loudly to the gathered witnesses: "I always feel so insecure around Jenny! (or whateverherfaceis)

"Every time I see her I go home feeling like a total cultural loser, like I have no hipster savvy! I don't know why!"

Since this is partly true, and describes some of your feelings, it won't take you months to practice saying.

No one will think less of you for admitting an honest insecurity.

And it will put your opponent in the unfortunate position of having to reassure you publicly that she thinks you're wonderful, or she risks incurring the group censure she is trying to foist on you.

When I hooked up with my ex of nine years her recent ex-boyfriend was basically doing the same thing. One day I realized all my friends were at two tables because of it, some with me, some with hi, so I asked him outside to talk about it.

We had a good conversation, and I think we settled a lot. We went back in to our respective tables, and he proceeded to tell everyone, behind my back, that I had kissed his ass and done everything I could do to avoid getting my ass kicked.

A week later he showed up at my housewarming party. I politely threw him out, and everyone noticed. I told him exactly why I was kicking him out ("You told everyone at that table that I was kissing your ass and buttering you up. I don't want you in my house.") He rapidly dropped out of my pool of friends. I stayed with that girl for nine years (she had my back the whole time) and he never bothered me again.

Actually, the carpool would be a great opportunity to fix this little problem. However, LW needs to make sure she does a couple things.

1) The trip must take place in LW's car.

2) LW must drive

First of all, it is generally acknowledged that the driver of the car as the power. Secondly, the fact that you are driving will eliminate any annoying jockeying-for-shotgun issues that would arise if your boyfriend drove. (Is she going to want to sit up front with you? No!) Having her in the back will also put her in the position of feeling like the third wheel--especially if you have music playing, making the conversation up front more difficult to hear. All the better if the back seat of your car is somewhat uncomfortable.

When arranging the carpool, bf can just tell her, "Oh, we/I'll drive, and we/I can pick you up." (If she knows in advance LW is driving, she might have the sense not to go.)

While driving there, LW wait for the first snarky comment about your music/taste in books/car cleanliness/driving ability/etc. At this point, LW should calmly ask her if she will also be needing a ride back from this event (or possibly even the rest of the way there). She can pull over to the side of the road for greater effect, if desired. (Adding something along the lines of, "well, if you do, then I suggest you shut it," is an option.)

I am a non-confrontational person by nature, but if someone is really spoiling for a fight, I will give them one. Someone pointed out earlier that sometimes having self-esteem and doing the right thing to stand up for oneself is often difficult; this is because those in the middle class and above are acculturated to do anything possible to avoid outright conflict and "making waves," and this seems to be especially true in social situations. It took me a long time to learn that sometimes, yes, it is better to be right than have everyone like me, and that in the long run I would be happier for it.