Paranoia again

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I've been doing alright lately with good friends having settled down in a new place after a few years and so on but recently I feel that a close friend (female) is behaving weird to me and I feel paranoid again. I also feel sad and disappointed because of a few things. I can't explain everything because it's a long story but I want to tell you one or two things so it'd be great if you could read this and give me your fair opinions and/or cheer me up. NT's opinions are very welcome too.

People in this post:
-Close female friend of mine = hostess
-Good male friend of mine = cook
-Another older male friend of mine
-The hostess's boyfriend
-Another good female friend (an old friend of the hostess) = old friend


Me and two friends (the hostess and the cook) were chatting on the Internet and we decided to have a party at the hostess friend's house. The other friend (cook) and I were going to cook some nice food. The hostess's not a good cook while I've often been told I'm good, sometimes wonderful, and the male friend (cook) had a rare specialty to cook. Later one day I had fun discussing a philosophically-themed video with another older male friend so I emailed the hostess and asked tentatively and nicely could I invite him (the older friend) to the party. She promptly said no because she was going to invite only people who were close to me so I'd feel comfortable (she knows I don't relax with a group of strangers). That doesn't make sense at all though does it!? I was never consulted on who to invite when she chose her guests. She also said she had wanted to throw a party like that at her house for quite some time, so she wasn't doing all that just for me. Anyway, when I read her reply I was a bit upset but said that was all right, thinking maybe there was some reason I didn't understand (this happens all the time) and I should be her understanding friend, but more than anything else, because in my idea hosts and hostesses earn the right to choose their quests.

Later, I heard her say to the other cook friend that he could invite his date cos he was cooking and that she wanted to make sure he knew that, even though she'd already told him the same before. At that time something felt funny but it never came to me. Then a couple or so days later it dawned on me that not only was I never told I could invite anyone but she refused my guest request, while she took troubles to let the other cooking friend invite his date. I felt a chill and started thinking she just used me in a very sneaky way while acting out a respectable personality, telling me she was doing all that just for me.

After all this, I got scared of her and couldn't smile back or talk nicely for a few minutes at the beginning when I saw her for the first time after the party. I also feel she's subtly picking on me now and then, not just that time, like when we were group-emailing with another friend (the old friend). I think people who'd do something like that would do it as often as they allow themselves to.

She may have done this because her boyfriend thinks and sometimes says I'm attractive and the older male friend sort of quite likes me and she didn't want me to be too popular in front of her boyfriend. I don't know but that's a wild guess. It could be because she's been having trouble with her boyfriend and under a lot of stress. I've been supportive of her all the time as she never really had a proper boyfriend before him and she thinks the world of him.

There's another problem here. Her boyfriend lives with another girlfriend and him and my hostess friend have been going out for nearly a year when she left him because he wouldn't leave his other living-in girlfriend half because he didn't earn enough to live independently and half because he loved them both. They didn't see or phone each other for a month or so but later they got back together as 'friends'. They're talking to each other on the phone every day and going out alone again. I don't call that friendship under the circumstances, especially when his living-in girlfriend's very upset thinking he's betraying her. That is horrible, and importantly I've lost some respect for my hostess friend because the first time they were dating it was her asking him out in the hope of him leaving his old girlfriend for her, and him responding but choosing to see the both women, so the fault lied more in him, but this time it's her seeing him knowing he's gonna keep tormenting the other girl in a cruel manner and she is indirectly but consciously encouraging it. Every time she tells me happily about what he did for her or what they did together, etc. I feel disbelief at how she could do this. I still want to be supportive of her because that's what friends do: support you when you're down and out, but at the same time I feel she needs to work hard to re-establish my respect and trust in her. I don't think she realises that though.

Another trouble is this boyfriend of the hostess friend often touches me in front of her. She doesn't realise this because he does it stealthily. If you've experienced this kind of harassment you'd know it's extremely difficult to fight back because you instantly freeze in fear like a rabbit in a headlight and are paralyzed. Anyway, I talked about this to only one friend (the old friend) about it and she said I should talk to the man himself. I think she's right but she also knows I couldn't bring it up to him. I haven't told the hostess friend because I know she'll be upset. She doesn't like the fact her boyfriend is comfortable talking to me even though we're only friends. Because of all this I'm more reluctant to stay friends with him now.

There's a lot more I want to spill out but I'm tired. There's several things happening at the same time and I feel like a failure. I didn't sleep a wink tonight. Thank you for reading.

I'm beginning to think I should have posted this in social skills forum. Maybe that's why no one's replying. If so can I remove this and write another post there?

They don't sound like friends to me, or good people for that matter. And I would not call what you experience paranoia, it's not out of whack to think that her motives (the hostess) are not quite right.

Here's a link with a chart you might find interesting:

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~alistair/survival/finding.html

Find people who like you and accept you. Life is short, you don't need toxic people infecting it.