For many people, physical touch is their way of showing affection to those closest to them. What they might not anticipate, however, is their nearest and dearest may not be especially eager to be touched.
A recent Redditor had a friend who loved to touch and play with her hair.
Something the original poster (OP) didn’t particularly love but tolerated. Until, the OP’s friend touched her hair at a particularly vulnerable moment, causing the OP to lash out at her.
Wondering if she was out of line, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for snapping at my friend for touching my curly hair while it was drying, and ruining it?”
The OP explained why she couldn’t hold back her anger after her friend touched her hair on a recent visit:
“I’m 23 F[emale], my friend is the same age as me.”
“For my entire life, I have had very, very curly hair.”
“I’m white, but I have 3C curls.”
“Anyways, super curly.”
“My friend has kind of wavy hair, but not super wavy and definitely nowhere near my curls.”
“She has this habit of being super touchy with me in general, but especially with my hair.”
“It drives me insane.”
“Anyone with curly hair knows how delicate they are and how temperamental they can be.”
“ALSO, how difficult it is to fix your hair once it has been ruined.”
“I think I’m a bit emotionally traumatized from growing up with curly hair because I was constantly laughed at, judged, and touched because of my hair and it really is a sensitive subject for me.”
“I love my hair now, and I take good care of it, and it looks great, but I just can’t handle it when people touch it without asking.”
“They don’t understand that they just ruined my hard work, and I’ll have to wet my hair again to fix the damage they have caused.”
“Anyways, this weekend, I was getting ready, and my friend was over at my place.”
“I had showered and was letting my hair air dry.”
“It was in that ‘in-between” stage of wet and dry where it looks really weird and flat (curly-haired people know), but I wait until it’s fully dry to fluff it out and make it look good.”
“My friend came up behind me and scrunched my hair while running her fingers through it.”
“I almost cried.”
“I legit snapped at her and was like, ‘What the f*ck?!”
“You just totally ruined my hair!’”
“I was definitely rude.”
“I don’t care though.”
“She has no idea what it’s like to have someone just completely ruin your hair that now can’t really be fixed.”
“I was honestly furious, and not to be dramatic, but she really did ruin it.”
“I had to fix the pieces that she had turned frizzy and stringy and my hair just looked bad that day as a result.”
“She told me I was crazy and needed to chill out about my hair.”
“I told her that it’s really frustrating to do a whole wash day hair routine just for someone to rake their fingers through it, ultimately messing it up.”
“She said she was sorry, but she’s still frustrated that it made me so upset.”
“I feel like it’s just insane to touch people for no reason, and I’m so tired of people grabbing my hair too. I know I might sound obsessed about having ‘perfect’ hair, but it’s really not even that.”
“My hair is just so curly and also so fine that it doesn’t really take much at all to mess it up, so it’s super upsetting to me when someone is rough with it on purpose and knows how I am about my hair.”
“So, AITA?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
The Reddit community generally agreed that the OP was not the a**hole for snapping at her friend.
Most felt that the OP’s reaction was more than justified, as her friend didn’t have permission to touch her hair, no matter the state it was in:
“NTA.”
“How the F*CK does someone go this long in life and not realize how f*cking disrespectful it is to be touching people’s hair?”
“Most people have this figured out in grade school.”
“Embarrassing!”- Full_Pace7666
“NTA.”
“She’s still frustrated that it made me so upset.”
“This isn’t a thing she gets to complain about.”
“She’s upset that she made you upset.”
“She wants a pass.”- iambecomesoil
“NTA.”
“I have curly hair and my family knows to give the head a wide berth when it’s drying.”
“I have one shot for 3/4 days of decent hair.”
“But beyond that – you’re NTA because you get to decide if you are touched or not.”
“It doesn’t matter why you don’t want someone to touch you – they don’t get to touch you if you say so.”- AffectionateWar7782
“NTA, and I ain’t even reading all that.”
“These two sentences alone are enough:”
“She has this habit of being super touchy with me in general, but especially with my hair.”
“It drives me insane.”
“The curls got nothing to do it.”
“No one who isn’t a romantic partner or a parent of a young child needs to be touching anyone else’s hair ever under any circumstances without explicit permission, unless said hair is literally on fire or swarming with bees.”- Jyqm
“NTA.”
“This is a VERY clear and easy boundary.”
“‘Don’t touch my hair without my expression, immediate, in the moment permission’ should be the STANDARD for anyone with any sense.”
“Your friend deserved telling off.”
“Maybe, just maybe, if this was the first time she had ever invaded your personal space (we know it’s not, you make that clear in your comments about her being super touchy with you) you would walk it back a little AFTERWARDS and explain to her why you blow up at her, and she would understand and respect your boundary moving forward.”
“You need to have a hard chat with this friend.”
“Boundaries are valid, and if she can’t respect them, then she’s not a friend. She’s someone using you to get what she wants out of the relationship.”- rockology_adam
“NTA.”
“Tell her loudly and very clearly, ‘I do not want you touching me.'”
“‘I do not want you to touch my hair, my boobs, or any part of me.'”
“‘From this moment forward, every single time you touch me, I will slap your hand as hard as I can’.”
“‘This is your ONLY warning’.”
“Ideally, see if you can make sure her boyfriend or some other witness is there when you say this.”
“Otherwise, she is sure to claim that you hit her ‘for no reason.'”- Effective-Several
“Anyone who continues to do this more than once deserves their hand slapped.”
“More than twice, and I’d stop asking them around until they learn a lesson.”
“NTA, some people just don’t get it.”- bentscissors
“NTA.”
“My two-year-old knows not to touch people without permission.”- sophie_shadow
“NTA.”
“No one should be touching you without your permission, and that includes your hair.”
“Running her fingers through it?”
“Yikes.”
“You don’t even need a reason (although destroying your curls is a very valid one). She just doesn’t get to touch you without your consent, easy as that.”
“She’s frustrated that it made you upset?!”
“That’s so manipulative.”
“That’s like an abuser hitting someone, the person getting upset, then the abuser making them feel bad for getting upset.”
“Is this friendship working for you?”
“Can this be talked out, or would she refuse to listen?”
“You don’t have to take things from someone just because you’ve been friends a long time, maybe been through a lot together, etc.”
“If you can talk these issues out, great, but if not, it’s ok to decide the friendship isn’t working for you anymore.”- Okie_dokie_36
“NTA.”
“You could have stopped with ‘She has this habit of being super touchy with me in general, but especially my hair’.”
“‘It drives me insane’.”
“‘That’s enough for me to know she is the AH here’.”
“Stop touching people that don’t want you touching them.”
“It’s not complicated.”
“If she keeps doing it, somebody is going to do more than yell at her.”
“And I’ll vote them NTA too.”- ImLittleNana
“NTA.”
“If she messes with the curls before it hardens into the cast, it will completely mess it up!”- Educational-Stop8741
Some people aren’t particularly skilled at controlling their emotions, with even the littlest thing setting them off.
Whether or not the OP’s reaction was justified, her friend nonetheless did not have permission to touch her hair on this or any previous occasion.
Following the OP’s reaction, one imagines that this message has now come in loud and clear.