We’ve all misjudged a person at one time or another. But for one guy on Reddit, a woman’s mistake about his phone use at the gym resulted in a fairly serious allegation akin to sexual harassment.
So, when she turned out to be wrong, he asked her to pay him money for the mistake.
He wasn’t sure about how he handled it, so he went to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit for input.
The Original Poster (OP), who goes by thefeederTA on the site, asked:
“AITA for making a girl at the gym pay me $20 because she was mistaken about me taking creepshots of her at the gym?”
He explained:
“I (35 M[ale]) was working out at the gym and I’m resting in-between workouts and I want to play a mobile game.”
“This mobile game let’s you switch between landscape and portrait but the only way to switch is to rotate it while the phone is upright. You can’t switch if your phone screen is facing the ceiling.”
“Anyways I am playing and this 20s something girl comes up to me and and is like hey you. I lock my screen and I’m like hey what’s up?”
“She immediately grabs my phone and tells me to give her my lock screen pass code.”
“I’m like no give me my phone. And she starts screeching about how I was taking creepy pictures of her and that I need to delete them.”
“I’m telling her that I was just playing a mobile game and she must have seen me trying to rotate my screen. Sorry if it was pointed in her direction etc….”
“She brings the gym workers into this and tells them she wants me kicked out. The gym workers were great and we’re really nice too both of us.”
“They asked me if I could just give them the passcode and they could check my phone as a third party.”
“I ask the girl what is she gonna give me if she’s wrong? This is a pretty messed up allegation.”
“She was like you get to keep working out here and I’ll maybe apologize. I tell her that’s not good enough.”
“I ask her if she has any cash or venmo or something.”
“After some back and forth she pulls out a 20 and I’m like good okay if they unlock my phone and don’t see any photos of you, I get to keep this $20?”
“She agrees because she seems fairly sure of herself.”
“Well the guys end up unlocking my phone and see my mobile game is still on screen. Then they go to the photos and look thru the photos from the day and don’t see any of her.”
“So I’m like cool and grab my phone and my money. She starts going off about how I probably hid them or something.”
“Now my girlfriend who came over 2/3 into this whole ordeal says I could have just unlocked my phone for her and not embarrassed this girl.”
“I said it was the principle of the matter. Girlfriend says this girl is going to probably think twice.about calling people out in the future and one of them may be the real deal.”
“I told her that’s not my problem, she can’t just embarrass people in a public setting like this and expect to get away with it.”
“AITA for making a girl pay me money because she was wrong about me creeping on her when she was just trying to protect herself?”
People on Reddit were then asked to judge who was in the wrong in this altercation using the acronyms:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
A few people felt OP was definitely in the wrong.
“Your girlfriend is right and this comment section is full of ‘not all men’ energy.” —Electronic-Repair-55
“THIS.”
“It’s very clear that half the people responding to this don’t have an iota of perspective when it comes to life as a woman. Women do not feel safe, and understandably so.”
“Creep shots, upskirts, revenge porn, etc. etc. are a major problem. Women are constantly harassed by men, and men seem to think it’s a non-issue.”
“Instead of being defensive and weird about it, he could have used some empathy and recognized that women are not in a world that feels safe and comfortable, and just showed her what was on his screen. That would have been the end of it.”
“It takes zero effort to reassure the safety of others. OP is definitely the YTA.” —TheresBeans
But most felt the woman was out of line and sided with OP.
“Honestly even as a girl myself I kinda agree with the men here. I definitely know my fiance works out and he for sure saves nudes I am sending him always and takes pics of himself for me as well.”
“I would be mortified if some crazy girl came up to him and forced him to either show off those pics or ruin his reputation. Screw that.”
“OP handled this pretty calmly if not a wee bit rudely for taking and asking for money…. still the girl needs to think before going after some poor guy so publicly in the future and even potentially getting some poor unsuspecting guy banned especially if he isnt willing to show his camera roll for reasons like my fiance has.” —BooksandStarsLover
“NTA and the girl 100% SHOULD think twice before screeching out perv allegations unless she is damn well sure. That’s not a negative from this experience.”
“I’m glad the employees were nice, but the gym should have thrown something like a free month your way because going through your gallery is a violation that would have me cringing for days.”
“What if you had just taken some booty pics of yourself?! Being creeped on sucks and every woman knows the feeling, but you’re legit the victim here, no way you’re the AH.” —vague-vague
“NTA in the least. Never indulge a**holes.” —unpopularcryptonite
Hopefully OP and his accuser both learned something from this.