I have a recent female friend who is in a LTR (5+ years) and therefore I have never viewed her as a target who seems to be doing her best to cock block me and make me look bad when chatting to other women.

We often meet up in bars a big group which is a good opportunity to open lots of new girls, however my friend will spend a large amount of her time being critical of me to any girl who will listen. She will critique every minor detail of my appearance and my high confidence (she calls it arrogance) and doesn't seem to like it when I am giving other girls and not her attention. At first I took most of this as useful feedback however now it is just getting annoying and cock blocking me on potential targets. Every girl I mention to her she will have a whole list of unfair criticisms about them, then attack me for my taste in women :S

When it is just the 2 of us we have a good time - I would also say there has been a few moments where if she wasn't a friend then something might have happened. We have spoke in general terms she is adamant she could never cheat on her bf and sees them together in 10 years. I've not tried anything to game her, although we do text multiple times every day and I've yet to meet her bf despite asking to. Surely he must be wondering who the guy (me) she is always texting is - from what I've heard he sounds a typical nice guy though.

Any ideas why she is behaving this way and how I can put a stop/use it constructively other than stop talking to her?

theres a few simple things you can do, and theres a very obvious one, find someone else to go out with!.
if thats not an option theres other things like cutting her off in a bar, saying something like to the girl youre talking to 'dont worry shes just jealous' or 'shes just upset no guys hitting on her' or 'shes just manhating at the moment' in a sense its basically amogging her and knocking her down a level.
if you want to confront directly basically front her out in front of everybody else, basically say to her 'if you have a problem just say it', or 'do you treat all your friends who are having fun like this' because basically. you see what it does is put everyones focus on her that shes being childish and trying to spoil everyones fun, it also works as form of punishment because what you are basically doing is embarassing her as everyone will see her as the fun hater

_________________
life sucks and then you die! deal with it

Don't go out with her. She's probably just miserable and doesn't want to see anyone else happy.

_________________
These hos ain't loyal

Either don't go out with her anymore or sit her down and tell her you will no longer tolerate her cockblocking you and if she does it again you're not hanging out w/ her anymore.

She is into you. In the meantime her boyfriend is probably opened up a "My girlfriend is losing attraction" thread here.

Appreciate the advice - pretty clear I need to call her out on her behavior. Others in the group have already asked me what the score is with her having noticed her constant criticism of me.

Sounds like she doesn't like you. The impression you're giving is she's of mind that you're too big for your boots and need to tone down thus the "arrogance" statement. How do you speak about women around her? Are you degrading of them? Discuss them as objects or what? If she thinks you're disrespectful of women and only want sex when she's in an LTR she's not going to respect you having a string of ONS as it's the complete opposite of what she would(Or should) believe in: Monogamy(Being in an LTR).

Adjust your attitude towards her, have her believe you've had a change of heart and you're more respectable of women. You should start seeing another side to her.

This touches on something that is maybe part the problem and something I need addressing although she will most often initiate conversation with me so it's not a worry about her disliking me. Recently the flirting has gone up a level which has me thinking she likes my attention because I'm selective in which women I give it to...but I could be deluded on that

Ha

lmaooo

So turns out the first part is right! I confronted her and she admitted this was the case. Things got flirty and touchy pretty quickly, although I insisted nothing could happen as she was taken while doing the straw man technique on her nice but seemingly dull bf.

Next day she randomly messaged me saying "feeling a bit guilty at being so flirty, I know it's only fun but I'm in a ltr lol just don't want you to get your hopes up " - Seemed a bit weird, she is warning me she won't cheat but I am guessing this is purely so she doesn't have guilty mind if something does happen?

Maybe she:

Wants you to chase her
or
Wants to let you know she wants it casual/discrete

I could be wrong, you sound a lot more experienced than me

All of these replies I agree with. 1. She's keeping your around if she decides to pull out on her current relationship. 2. She's not a friend. 3. She interested in you, but only (at least for now as fallback) for her current relationship. Screw that. Get away from her.

Go get some and then "as her friend" tell her all about it. Since she's actively having to cock block you, she knows it's in already the cards for you. You can just as easily make up a story. Rinse repeat. Then maybe she'll stop playing you as a second fiddle and bang you instead of her current boyfriend who she obviously still has her doubts about. You're second on her list obviously. Go for first or tell her to "get lost."

My experience with female cock-blockers is they are usually women friends with a secret bisexual crush. A girl is not going to get in the way of one of her friend's possible relationships/hook ups. That's not girl-code. It always strikes me as a very masculine move, especially when they're at like a bulldog doing everything at every opportunity to get between. I guess some queen bees have to be the shot-callers for their girlfriends, not breaking the "girls night out" crap or whatever. Can't say for sure.

Also that admant about not cheating on her boyfriend is a cock-and-bull story. She's keeping you around. Maybe she'll break up with him first but there's already a relationship with you. Talk is cheap and actions speak louder. She's already cheating.

A cheeky 'idk if i'll be able to go on now babe' text seems in order right about here. She is trying to own the frame here. Agreed with the other poster, tell her about your sexual escapades. Treat her like a buddy.

Better yet, just drop her as a friend if she continues to cockblock. Not worth it at all.

Time to establish some boundaries with this 'friend' of yours.

While I"m not entirely convinced she likes you in the bf sense, you do provide some function to her in her life and I would say being in a LTR and all of a sudden befriending a guy (you) she's looking for some sort of excitement, or escape.

It may be that she likes you, or it could be just that she wants you to herself and does not want to lose her accessibility to you by your entering into a rel with another woman.

Regardless of her motive, this isn't a healthy relationship as it stands. It's time to establish some stronger boundaries as lines are getting blurred.