School is full of backstabbers. A backstabber is a “friend” that betrays you in order to drag you down. The most common type of backstabbing is when your “friend” talks behind your back. Dealing with this can be tricky. Sometimes you just have to learn to deal with backstabbers by being the bigger person. Here’s how:

Step 1: Don’t confront them directly

First of all, don’t ever try to confront a backstabber. They will never own up to their wrongdoings since they backstab instead of facing you directly. The best thing to do when you get stabbed in the back is to act like nothing happened. Not letting them know that you know that they are a backstabber can be an advantage.

Now you can watch out for them and stay a step ahead. When your backstabber makes a move to hurt you, you will be able to see it and have enough time to react. For example, my friend “Kayla” had a close friend that backstabbed her and she stopped herself from confronting her directly which allowed Kayla to be able to react calmly and prevent unnecessary drama.

Step 2: Distance yourself from them… but only a little

When a backstabber decides it is a good idea to hurt you, you need to calmly distance yourself from them. However, distancing yourself from them does not mean that you should kill your relationship abruptly. That would be too obvious.

One way to distance yourself from a backstabber is to hang out with your other friends more. This would automatically distance yourself from the backstabber since you are spending more time with other people and less time with them. For example, I had a friend named “Lana” who would talk behind my back and I distanced myself from her by hanging out with my other friends. Every time she wanted to hang out l asked other friends to hang out with us too. This allowed me to have less contact with Lana.

Because I had put distance between Lana and myself, I eventually stopped caring so much about what she said about me. Caring less about what your backstabber says is important for you to move on.

Step 3: Live well

Living well means living a positive and peaceful life without worrying about what your backstabber friend does. You being happy will make them angry and jealous. One of the main reasons why they talked about you behind your back is because they are jealous of you. Living your best life and outshining them is the best way to get back at your backstabber naturally. As English poet and orator George Herbert once said, “Living well is the best revenge.”

When living your best life, you show a backstabber that they cannot hurt you or affect your mood. If you stay positive and live life peacefully, their offensive actions won’t bother you.

At first, it will be difficult to just live life because you will want immediate revenge. However, revenge is rarely a good solution. When you get revenge on someone, you’re just hurting yourself with unnecessary negativity. Giving in to hate will automatically let your backstabbing friend “win” since their whole goal was to upset you and drag you down to their level.

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The most important thing to remember when dealing with a backstabber is to stay calm and positive. Outshining them and living your life will show them you are the bigger person and that you are mature enough to not worry about them. This will help you get past whatever nasty thing they said and let you keep a healthy mindset. Eventually, they will give up bothering you, and then you have won.