Road trips can be an amazingly fun time for a group of friends. New adventures, new experiences, and you can share them with those closest to you.
But if something goes wrong, you’re stuck far from home with possibly someone who’s annoying you. What can you do, right?
Redditor PapaMoe1895 turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit to see if they did the right thing.
Or at least, if what they did wasn’t that bad, asking:
“AITA for ditching my mentally ill friend at a gas station?”
They explained their story.
“So around this time last year, me and a group of 3 friends had spent 6 months planning a road trip across the country, and we had just left. Of the 4 of us, 3 were having a great time.”
“One of our friends is very irritable, and says she has depression, anxiety, PTSD and borderline personality disorder despite having never gone to a therapist or psychiatrist (she thinks psychiatry and therapy are shams). Initially, we didn’t want to invite her but she tends to get very upset when she gets left out.”
“Before we left, we explained to her that we were not going to spend 3 weeks putting up with her outbursts and she needed to control them so we could all have fun.”
“She made a fuss about it but eventually agreed.”
“2 days in and a few hundred miles from home, we had all come close to losing our minds.”
“Our one friend was nitpicking and yelling at everyone for EVERYTHING, from the clothes we wore out in public because ‘we were embarrassing her’, eating or drinking water ‘too loudly’, all the way down to two different conversations going on at the same time because it was ‘too much noise’ for her.”
“She was the only one on the aux and refused to let anyone else have a turn, would smoke cigarettes in the RV no matter how many times I told her to wait until we pulled over, etc.”
“I told her she needed to keep her promise that she wouldn’t be a pain so that we could just have fun, but she kept insisting that she wasn’t being rude and kept bringing up her self-diagnosed mental illnesses.”
“The 2 other friends and I decided we were sick of it, so we stopped at a gas station and when she went inside to buy more cigarettes, we sped off.”
“I cashapped her $220 so she could get a hotel and maybe an Uber back home and then blocked her. She blew up my friends phones with threats and insults until we all blocked her and enjoyed the rest of the trip. Her Mom ended up driving to her and bringing her back home after she stayed the night at a hotel.”
“The reason I might be TA is because she said if we had warned her she would be ditched if she didn’t calm down, she would have acted better. At the same time though, if extortion could have brought decency out of her then she was capable of it all along, right? AITA?”
After their initial post, they update with a little more information. The original poster (OP) was only 17 at the time, and the other friends were all early 20s.
It was the middle of the day when they left their friend at the gas station, on a street with a grocery store and 2 motels, with her luggage by the gas station door.
And the group had told her they were going to take her back home, but she threatened to break things if they did.
All of that taken into consideration, AITA was asked the titular question.
Responses were given using one of the following determinations:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
For a question about abandoning a friend with possible mental issues at a gas station, there were more people saying “NTA” than you might have thought.
“NTA – only because you sent her money so she wasn’t completely stranded. But why would you ever agree to let someone like that travel with you? The outcome was predictable.” – Jillypepper72
“I was 17 at the time, logic wasn’t exactly my strong suit… still isn’t tbh lol” – PapaMoe1895
“NTA. She sounds like the worst, most annoying, attention seeking child ever. You gave her a chance to not suck, she said she wouldn’t but didn’t keep her word.”
“Sounds like you managed to end a terrible friendship and enjoy the rest of your vacation.” – Socialmedianame
“NTA. Don’t be a dick to people if you don’t want to get ditched at gas stations.” – Strahan92
Others judged the OP more harshly, saying that while they understand their actions, they still did wrong.
“NTA although verging on ESH because of: ‘we explained to her that we were not going to spend 3 weeks putting up with her outbursts and she needed to control them so we could all have fun. She made a fuss about it but eventually agreed.'”
“What did you think was going to happen? It’s pretty much your own fault.” – Morris_Alanisette
“ESH.”
“She sucks for nitpicking everything and using mental illness as an excuse and not seeking necessary help of she truly does have mental illnesses”
“You and your friends suck for abandoning her in an unfamiliar place without any warnings or information of how to get to a familiar location so that she can get somewhere safe.” – bloxniro
“ESH it sounds pretty dangerous to just leave someone at a gas station with no warning like that” – abcdefg_goodbye
“ESH You shouldn’t have taken her with you in the first place” – SplashyZooclaw
Lastly, there were those who felt that despite how annoying the friend might have been, it was wrong to leave her 200 miles from home in the middle of nowhere.
“YTA.”
“How is this even a question?” – hibearmate
“Seriously. This comment section is making me doubt the sanity of everyone on reddit.”
“How detached from reality do you have to be to think abandoning someone at a gas station is a reasonable and acceptable course of action over a disagreement?”
“Massive YTA.” – bruh_respectfully
“YTA, you dont just ditch people in places far from home.”
“In the end you invited her and she was part of the group. You guys should have talked it out like adults and got her a cab or something instead of just cashapping and blocking her which only makes you guys look just as petty if not more.”
“If something happened to her you guys would’ve been the only people who knows where she was.” – OathWriter
“YTA I’m sorry but you are. I totally sympathize with you and you were in the right , right up until you sped away.”
“I guess telling her to her face was impossible? Very cowardly of you.” – RipleyB
The group tried to get their friend to stop acting out, but they also left her stranded hundreds of miles from home. They gave her a chance to come on the trip with the promise she wouldn’t act like this, but rather than take her back, they ditched her at a gas station.
Whatever judgment you render upon the OP, I think everyone can agree that someone in this story needs better friends.