Was this woman making fun of me?

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I used to speak to this woman who got on my bus often, and one late afternoon as I was on my way home from seeing a friend I was chatting to this woman and before I got off the bus I said, "oh, I'll be lonely when I get home." And she said, "talk to your imaginary friend." So I said that I don't have an imaginary friend, and she said, "don't you? I do, I say hello to her when I'm at home and I talk to her." I was like, "OK...."

I found it strange for a grown woman to openly talk about having an imaginary friend. But then I wondered to myself, was she making fun of me? Was it a subtle way of saying "I don't think you have friends, I think you're making it up" or something? I did have a few friends, OK I might have exaggerated a little and said I had more friends than what I really did, but it was still believable enough and I'm a friendly chatty person so it's not like I'm unlikeable or unapproachable. She only knew me as this chatty girl on a bus, so she didn't really know my whole life.

It is possible she was making fun of you or it could be she is different in her own way.
It that type of situation I would need to be there and read the person's body language to really have a better idea which one it was.

A friend of mine used to whisper, "Honey! I'm home!" to the memory of his late wife whenever he came home from work.  He never acted like she was still alive, but simply greeted her as if she were.  He passed away 30 years ago, and the thought of it still brings tears to my eyes.

Talking to people who aren't there is harmless, as long as the person talking knows they're not there.

Well she didn't say it sadly, she said it rather smugly.

Then when I got up to get off the bus, she added, "don't forget to say hi to your imaginary friend."

If you don't talk to yourself, nobody can deduce that you have an imaginary friend.

I think it's possible that by taking this women literally, you would be correct. Maybe she's cuckoo--who knows?

You can always befriend the woman in the mirror who looks back at you by talking to them like you are are two friends living together. That way you start telling yourself just how much you love her and start saying kind things. Other things, you can ask that friend what they want to do that evening at your flat. Order pizza, watch the telly, etc.

Sounds like maybe she has some issues of her own and wasn't making fun of you. Perhaps she's lonely and so she really does have an imaginary friend. But yeah you never know what is going on with people on the Bus, sometimes people say weird things.

Sounds like British banter to me.

I haven't spoken to this woman for ages now. In fact I haven't seen her (although I don't get the buses as much as I used to). Then I found out (by someone else) that she was rather fake, and I know that fake people are often difficult to "read", even to a lot of NTs (if a person is good at being fake and can emotionally manipulate others). Maybe she was lonely, I don't know. She looked rather professional and she got the bus to go to work and back (she actually worked in a bank).

I think I would have taken that as some self-deprecation on her part.

A lot of people live alone and they don't really like it and they'd actually like to talk to someone when they get home, but they can't because there's no one there. So they kind of make jokes about it and make up people to talk to or they talk to their pets because otherwise they'd be coming home to an empty and lonely house.

Maybe she had an "itch"----maybe that's why she was a "b***h."

Forget about this woman!

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that she wasn't mocking you, just f*****g with you. Some people have weird/absurd senses of humour which results in their jokes being too odd for other people to actually get.

Luhluhluh's comments seem likely on point as well. If that's the case, she's going to have a mocking tone because she's mocking her situation, instead of the sad tone she'd be more likely to use if she was being serious and asking for companionship or empathy.

I would say not to jump to conclusions, because if she is genuinely lonely and telling the truth then you could really hurt her hard if you said something nasty.
If she was messing with you and you just take it as if she isn't don't worry. She is the one taking the risks not you. So I would wait for things to develop. It is too early to jump to conclusions as yet.

I would never make fun of anyone to their face, but I know that if I pointed out to someone that I had an imaginary friend, they would probably make fun of me.

Saying hello to a late loved one is beautiful and I would never judge anyone for doing that.
But it was the way she said it that made me wonder what she was getting at. She sounded rather proud and a little smug.

If she is lonely then I do understand, but she doesn't seem lonely to me. She got asked on a date by the very man that I liked (this was while I was single), but she turned him down because she wasn't interested. That made me feel crushed.
But it seems she was always getting asked out by guys, even though she wasn't exactly Miss World.