Many of us have had a friend or relationship that wasn’t good for us. There’s a good chance the relationship benefitted the other person much more than it benefitted us.
One teen recently realized she was in one of these friendships in the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit.
Redditor SuperSourApples began questioning everything after her friend left her stranded just to gain a few laughs from her new crowd of friends.
But after she stood up for herself and was criticized for it, the Original Poster (OP) wondered if she was wrong.
She asked the sub:
“AITA for leaving my drunk friend in the park at night after she embarrassed me?”
The OP had been in an unequal friendship for a long time.
“My (15 [female]) relationship with Bee (15 [female]) has honestly been toxic for a while.”
“She’s one of my closest friends (we’ve known each other for years and live right near each other), but she is mean to me a lot of the time.”
“Bee is very insecure, so she really likes having an ‘awkward’ friend for people to compare her to and make her seem cooler/sexier/funnier. I am that ‘awkward’ friend, but not by choice.”
The OP’s perception of herself began to change because of how Bee treated her.
“Bee constantly makes fun of me, especially about how anxious I am, how plain my body is, and how weird/gross I look doing normal things.”
“Even though I know she’s objectively wrong about a lot of it, I can tell it’s affecting my self-confidence.”
“I was always an anxious person, but never really cared about what others thought before; now I get scared to eat in front of other people because I’m worried they’ll also think I’m gross.”
“Over time she’s truly made me the Needy to her Jennifer [a reference to the 2009 psychological thriller, Jennifer’s Body].”
“And, she sabotages me when I try to break out of it.”
“When we’re in groups of people that she’s friends with, she’ll introduce me as being awkward (literally, ‘this is OP, she’s really awkward’), then tell stories for the rest of the night about how nerdy or weird I am.”
“If I try to deny it, she doubles down.”
“She’ll also ignore me in groups even if we’re with people that I don’t know and make a big show of how annoying I am when I try to get her attention. I end up apologizing a lot in front of everyone; she makes fun of that too because it’s funny to watch me flounder.”
“I try to just let it roll off my back because I know it helps her, but it’s really frustrating to have everybody think they know me when they only know the caricature that Bee’s made me out to be.”
But it recently became too much to ignore.
“Yesterday night, Bee told me to go to this party in the park to meet some new friends she had made.”
“I didn’t know where everybody was, so I tried texting her to meet me in the front of the park, but she said she was ‘feeling too lazy’ to meet me or give me directions.”
“I kept asking her to help because I couldn’t find her.”
“She didn’t respond (even though my texts were showing up as seen), so I spent like 30 minutes finding the group.”
“When I got there, everybody saw me and started laughing. Turns out, she WAS seeing the texts, and had been SHOWING THEM TO EVERYONE. From there, the same story happened.”
The OP finally stood up for herself, but others reprimanded her for it.
“By the end of the night I was kind of at the end of my rope.”
“Even though we were told to go home together since it was late, I left early.”
“A lot of people had been drinking at the party, especially Bee. Turns out she got WASTED and had to be sent home in an uber because she couldn’t walk home on her own.”
“Now she’s really mad at me because she owes the friends for the uber, and her friends have been blowing up my phone, saying that I’m an irresponsible a**hole because I left my friend to fend for herself when she was vulnerable.”
“Honestly, I understand where she and her friends are coming from and I’m super sorry for leaving her, but I’m not sure if I’m totally in the wrong since she was being sort of a jerk the rest of the night.”
“AITA??”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some pointed out the teen wasn’t the OP’s friend at all.
“She’s not a friend. She treats you like a performing animal. For your sanity, block her from everything.” – sodaniechea
“Well, that’s just absolutely ridiculous. How could you ever consider this person a ‘friend’? Was she even f**king nice to you, ever?”
“Jesus. Someone with good self-esteem would not let themselves become a doormat in this way. Kick her to the curb, unless you actually like being publicly humiliated.” – thatsnotmyname_ame
“Boosting a friend’s mood or self-esteem should NEVER involve letting them insult or abusing you. Her behavior isn’t light-hearted or good-humored banter between friends, to help her work through things, it’s bullying and humiliation to make herself look cool.”
“You are not this girl’s friend, you are her tool and prop to use as she finds entertaining.”
“Cut her off. Don’t waste time with people who continually hurt others to make themselves feel better, they aren’t good people. This behavior is very different from someone who normally treats everyone with respect, but who is just going through a hard time. You need to learn this.”
“I strongly suspect her ‘struggles’ and self-esteem/mental health issues are mostly just a ploy and part of her abusive personality too. They suck people in and people let her get away with treating them badly because of it.”
“This behavior is like that of abusive romantic partners, who threaten self-harm if their partner says they want to leave them after they’ve done something abusive to them. It’s manipulation to maintain the relationship and to stop their victim from getting away.”
“Get away from her, OP. Get away.” – Permit-Extreme-117
Others stated the OP deserved better friends.
“NTA. She isn’t your friend, she’s your bully, and you don’t need her. Block her from your life and find some real friendships.”
“I would not trust her if I were you and from the sounds of it I would be concerned for your safety hanging out with her again. Stay away.” – Papfan1
“Who is or isn’t the a**hole is irrelevant. Abandon this friend immediately. They do not care for your feelings or well-being. Immediately drop her, and go no contact.”
“You are far too good for her, and deserve friendships who give the same loyalty that you do.”
“You are clearly loyal, patient, and forgiving. We would all be lucky to have a friend with those 3 traits.”
“You are better than this girl, and you deserve better than this girl. Seek friendships that value you as much as you deserve” – The-TruestRepairman
“Honey, even the most confident person in the world can be hurt. She is trash, and frankly an abuser. Cut her out of your life.”
“She is like a parasite. The more she feeds on you, the less you’ll have for yourself and for making new and better friends.” – Lucky-Worth
A few pointed out the OP also didn’t leave her friend “alone” at the park.
“I was getting mad reading this. NTA.”
“You left her with her other friends. You knew no one there besides her. She treated you like an accessory. Ugh her actions disgust me.”
“You left early, people leave early for a party all the time. Pretty sure she knew you left because she was looking for her ‘friend’ to make fun of more.”
“You have no control of someone’s actions, I doubt she would have left when you wanted to leave. It was up to her to come up with other means to go home.”
“She left you to wander around the park ALONE by yourself.” – AiCeeYouP
“You didn’t leave her alone. On the contrary, she knowingly risked your safety by forcing you to wander around alone in a park for her and her friends’ sick amusement.”
“NTA, but as others have said YTA to yourself if you let this continue. You deserve better, OP.” – strange_byrd
Though the OP felt guilty for leaving her friend at the park after agreeing to walk home together, the subReddit agreed it was more important for her to stand up for herself. The ex-friend had other people there who were willing to take care of her, and after bullying her and allowing her to walk around the park alone for more than 30 minutes, it’s clear the care was not reciprocated.