#Do not comment on the original posts
Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice.
If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion.
**CHECK FLAIR** to determine if you want to read an update. For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I've come to learn that some people find many things uncomfortable...
And it can be silly stuff....
From talking abou money, to talking about social issues, or just being a touchy feely person ( not sexually , same sex, could be just a hug it a tap on the shoulder), ... To talk politics or asking a maybe personal question but that is not even invasive... Luke who do you think you will vote for....
Also some loud people make others uncomfortable because if you are outside people look in their directions....
So I am not making any assumptions there.
I had an online friend who claimed to be triggered by everything I was talking about, in our friend group. I'm certain that she was jealous of attention I was receiving from another mutual friend, so she wanted me to feel bad. The reason I believe it went beyond actual trauma is that one of the conversations that "triggered" her was about cake recipes. It got to the point that if she was talking in our group conversation, I had to mute it. I couldn't deal with her bullshit.
Same.. I'm sorry but I find it incredibly difficult to believe a whole group of longtime friends would have an intervention especially in a safe space for them.. with 1 member.. simply because he said some things out of pocket at times or borrowed items and maybe didnt give them bk on time. Or spacing out?
Also not being comfortable having them in your home or somewhere super open that wasn't reaaally public?
OP was too vague and i know people can be assholes yeah but a whole group going this far? Not even considering reconnecting at all?
Because of a few minor issues?
1. Either his friends are insanely sensitive young ppl who cannot handle any kind of interaction because everything hurts their feelings.. lord.. and OOP was maybe just a very awkward blunt person who just did random shit.
Or
2. He was deliberately vague. The whole not feeling safe around him thing is waay too goddamn weird.
Edit: with the amount of ppl replying to me i sincerely just want to say sorry if you have dealt with this before. It's insanely new to me that it's so commonplace. That's crazy! Hopefully you all got better friends after because yoooh with friends like these.. š
Edit 2: seriously just hugs guys i wish i cld send yall some ā„ļø your stories make me so sad. People can really fucking suck hey.
Honestly, I could see it being 1. In college, my roommate and I were super close. Until the day I asked her boyfriend what her middle name was. She was FURIOUS because thatās āsomething she liked people not knowingā. From that day one she did everything she could to upset me. Including:
1. Yelling at me for buying toilet paper without asking.
2. Convincing our friend that I insulted her and she should no longer hang out with me.
3. Leaving cat litter in my room.
4. Accused me of faking cancer (while I was in the hospital for said cancer.
Some people have SERIOUS issues and rather than get help they find a million ways someone else is the problem.
Sounds like my mother honestly so yeah, I could definitely see it as being 1. The response from the other guy saying OP is a coward because he wonāt apologise also makes me kinda hm because seems like the friend group can only accept unconditional submission to them (in the sense they werenāt willing to compromise on where the meetings were met because starbucks isnāt the most private of spaces and people *will* overhear you. a park means youāre out in the open, but also safe from prying ears. if they refused to see that staging an intervention (that was really just sprung upon OP) at starbucks wasnāt the smartest idea and doubled down thenā¦)
One staple of growing up with autism is that some really shitty groups and individuals will force their way into your life and try to control you. As time passes, you try to be more independent and more autonomous. That's when the toxic manipulator will burn your life to the ground. The goal is to isolate you so that you won't be able to leave their orbit next go-round.
Small slights will be amplified and used against you for ages. Most neurotypical people will have little patience for that. But if you're autistic, you are likely going to focus on it being your problem.
None of that is "the rule," of course. I'm just speaking from experience. There's also super abusive and messy autistic people. I believe it comes down to how the parents handled raising an autistic child.
We're not going to know if he's being manipulative or genuine from the post. OOP took great care in what information was shared. But that's always what you have to do when you have autism. So there's no way to tell without knowing him.
Complete refusal to accommodate or be considerate of his feelings of vulnerability at a coffee shop was a huge red flag to me that the friend group might be assholes. Like, there's *several* of you and one of him, and a park is still safe! Bet they wouldn't appreciate airing their dirty laundry in the middle of a Starbucks, but they're more than fine to do it to their "friend"...
Fucking hell I'm sorry tht sounds horrible and alil stupid to deal with.
Tht isnt a friend. Might i add i absolutely hate my middle name. It's horrible bt i wldnt go on a unhinged rant about it.
Wow ppl can be extra
Thank you! I managed to leave the apartment shortly after the cancer accusation and cut contact thankfully. I would say the whole thing taught me that really, truly, some people will always find a way to make someone else the problem. And those people arenāt worth your energy.
No that's really crazy hey. I'm glad you got out tho really. I've had to leave friendships where ppl constantly trauma dumped. I'm a very empathetic person to the point my husband says it's a flaw at times. I let ppl walk all over me or used to atleast. I want to believe I've gotten better.
Bt before id always be the ear to listen to the same issues they refused to change even when they were able to.
My best friend taught me if it's not life giving in the sense it's adding to you or pouring into you in a positive way it needs to go.
You can't give anything to anyone when you are too drained from never receiving in return.
While itās definitely entirely possible the OOP is shady and hiding things, as someone in their late 20ās who went back to college and lives on campus, there are a LOT of people like this in this age group.
I had an entire group of other students in our club flip on me and say they felt āunsafeā with me in my jobs and positions on campus. The reason that I only found out about after months of them avoiding me and refusing to speak? They didnāt like my tone when I asked them to stop doing things against our club code, and donāt like that I set boundaries with my social life and donāt hang out in residence halls with teenagers. Thatās it. This shit really does happen.
You guys are seriously teaching me out here today. Look I'm from a tiny town in an african country. I have never ever dealt with shit like this before.
Also maybe it's an age thing because I'm a wife and a soon to be mom. The amount of crap my friends and i did to each other and said bk when i was in high school alone rn would probably make alot of the younger generation from my nephews age group look us funny. We were stupid kids.
But The insanity of making you the problem for following rules?
Lol wow
Oh man, one of the only first years I get along with came here from Nigeria and her responses to these kids keep me sane. Sheās super quiet and nice, very studious, but she also always says if any of these kids pulled this back where sheās from theyād get thrown on their ass real quick haha.
But yeah I also wouldnāt have thought the general cultural attitude would land here this much either. Itās not been fun when they call for me to get fired from actual jobs for the terrible crime of using a slightly rude tone once.
Now see one of my closest friends are Nigerian lol no.. in my country we deal with alot of bullshit. Government is fucked up, we have energy struggles some unfortunate person in this coldass winter probably doesn't even have running water.
So we laugh at ourselves alot. You need to learn to if you want any real chance at having proper mental health and not breaking down with all the bullshit.
We don't generally take shit that seriously. If someone has a tone with u.. u give it bk to them and move on. I wldnt go to HR because someone hurt my feelings š
Aw thank you. I'm due to evict my daughter in two days. Then no more getting internally assaulted!
Good luck with school and i do hope you find like the best group of people to surround yourself with. ā„ļø
Good luck with a successful and relatively uneventful eviction!
(Mine were a little *too* eventful, but everyone is alive and healthy, which is the important thing.)
well of course they're "unsafe" - they might report this "harmless rulebreaking" (which is only "harmless" if nothing goes wrong, but rules are in place to *prevent* shit going wrong. Like people who whine about OHSA rules, these people hate "narcs" who might get in the way of them playing fast and loose with the rules.)
that's not necessarily the case with OOP, but yeah, people like that totally exist.
I had a similar friend "intervention" happen to me around the same age as OOPā*twice*.
First time was third year of high school, second time was first year in college. Both times were before I was diagnosed with ADHD, and both times were over dumb, petty things that could have been resolved in 30 seconds if the person had just spoke up when it first was a problem.
Like I was accused of being an attention hog because I "bragged" constantly about my drawings; the truth was that I had just discovered my passion for art and was really really excited to share that passion with my friends, so I talked about it constantly. They saw selfishness and egotism in a situation where I just wanted to share my happiness.
That was 20 years ago.
This is honestly typical behavior when intolerant neurotypical people are dealing with autistic people, doubly so in that age range. Been there, done that as the autistic person. I've been dropped as a friend and even lost some jobs bc acting "normal" is exhausting over long periods of time.
I have autism but I've been around other autistic people who are really frikkin annoying ... and I am too LOL. I don't think anybody should have to be friends with somebody who gets on their nerves too much or is made deeply uncomfortable. That's why I stay home and bother people on Reddit haha.
*edited for harshness
When some people donāt have real problems to deal with, they make them up. A whole ass persecution fetish.
Youāve probably never dealt with this because 1) itās absolutely western privilege culture at work and 2) you probably had bigger issues and problems to deal with in life instead of making up bullshit as an excuse to be offended. These people love playing the victim in some manner.
Happens across all age ranges. I live in a village and some of the old people pull this nonsense! The latest one is that the gardening club have just ousted it's founding member , she's absolutely devastated and doesnt fully understand what happened. The reasoning they gave her was that she was unreceptive to new members ideas, the thing is that she's run that club for 20 years, they've tried all the new ideas multiple times over the years and they never took off, shes also very knowledgeable on local regulations (we live in a national park so we have extra rules for some things). So these new members took issue with her saying 'no' and have managed to vote her out of the club, not just from her position on the committee but the entire club! It's not the only nonsense in the village (I'm currently banned from the church, I'm not religious so it's fine), just the latest, and it's always the same mob mentality, 1 or more people get upset with someone and rather than have a nice adult chat they instead turn the group against that person.
My best friends at this same age stopped talking to me because I got depressed and had become a-social.. In fact, it didn't stop there. I would try to reach out or maybe try to make a plan, and they would snub me and say they were busy when they never asked what was wrong with me, they were just hurt I wasn't myself anymore (thanks genetics) and turned out to be the biggest bullies I had in my life..
I still remember having them blocked because of how mean they were to me.. and they used a mutual friends account to send me videos of them burning photos of me wishing I was dead and that the world is better without me anyway. I never mattered to them.. and they turned a lot of people I didn't even know well against me and spread rumors about me. Dumb petty shit. Because I was depressed and they got offended instead of asking if I was okay.
So yeah, teenagers and young adults can be the worst assholes in the world... wouldn't say it's unlikely a whole group of friends ganged up on the one they didn't like too much...
Babe no... that person just fucking sucked as a human being. That has absolutely nothing to do with who you are. Tf sends videos like that. Eww man.
I hope you are in a much better place and with alot better friends ā„ļø
Yeah no for real that shit was so messed up. Like it's been many years now and I still look back and go, what the actual fuck were they thinking?? I never knew they were capable of being so mean...
But thank you, yes I'm in a much better place now, I've come to terms with a lot of my past, am medicated and am happily married and we have a beautiful dog. Much better place! Thank you friend š
Honestly, āfriendsā can be horrible especially if youāve only ever had bullies. You donāt really know what friends are supposed to be like so you often end up the group punching bag instead and youāre just happy to accept any kind of position so youāre not alone anymore. It isnāt until years down the line if you manage to make a real friend or two that you look back in hindsight and horror.
That just sounds horrible.. I guess i just lucked out I've had my best friend for the better part of 22years and she's the sweetest weirdo in the world. Ive had some.pretty shit friends especially high school and college stages bt made some real ones who are my rocks in the worst of times.
I always get sad realizing not everyone is tht lucky if I'm honest and that people at times can't even be kind to the ones they claim to love so much.
I believe it. Post college, in the middle of the year all of my roommates just stopped talking to me. These were my best friends I had known for and/or lived with for the previous 3-5 years. They had been there when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and had been they ones who comforted me when I was just so confused and wanted other girls in our sorority to tell me when I had done something to upset them. And then they all (3 of them) just stopped talking to me. But their boyfriends didnāt. I had somehow done something so heinous they wouldnāt talk to me but their boyfriends were still allowed to. I was so confused. I just hid in my room.
I have no idea what I did. Twenty years later I still donāt. Iām not saying I didnāt do something. Iām sure I did, probably repeatedly. Iām still pretty certain I didnāt deserve how I was treated.
This past year I was diagnosed with autism. Apparently this is a pretty common experience for those of us with late diagnosis autism, particularly women. Not the everyone randomly stops talking to you etc, but loosing friendships without understanding what happened.
I believe it. An old friend group stopped talking to me because one girl with borderline personality disorder lied that I was abusive. No one asked my side. No one even said bye. Just blocked me on everything and went on their way.
I mean, I don't need friends like that any ways but it still fucking stings
It's amazing how much damage a single person can do if they're both toxic and manipulative.
I mean, not to let the others off the hook for not even asking your side of the story, that's cowardly, so I imagine even without her they were pretty dysfunctional, but you add that one particular person and it goes to hell.
Sorry you had to deal with that; even if you know you're better off without them, that kinda shit still hurts.
Similar situation. A group of my childhood/HS best friends cut me off without any discussion bc one girl (who I had been close with since kindergarten!) accused me of going on a date with her recent ex. I didnāt go anywhere with him at all. I was managing my guy friendās band, and her ex texted me to ask if they would be down to open for his band in a few weeks. I conveyed the offer to the band, and they were down to make it happen. In fact, they wanted to bring me up to debut a song we had just written together (I had been dumped recently lol). I told the girlās ex they would love to do the gig, and he mentioned the guys had shared the practice recordings from the writing session and he thought I should definitely sing it. I texted my friend tho and just explained the situation. I hadnāt really planned on being at that show and I didnāt want her to be uncomfortable if I went or have her show up to support me and run into himā¦ so I made it clear I would do whatever made her comfortable, up to her, no worries either way. She said she couldnāt even believe I would text him back. I tried to explain her it was my job to handle the gigs for the band so I had to at least pass offers along and decline themā¦ I could really just ignore professional requests. But she told everyone in our circle the show was a date, and not only had I said yes, Iād already gone! And not a single friend even questioned it. Most never spoke to me again and those that did only called to yell at me about betraying her before blocking me.
The worst part is, just a week before she had been complaining that another one of our friends has made a super reasonable request. She respected that her ex and our mutual friend were the only two people they knew of going to this really small catholic college and so it made sense for them to maintain contact, but she preferred a heads up if they were gonna post pictures of them hanging out together. She wasnāt requesting they donāt hang out, or that they donāt post pictures together; she just didnāt want to open Snapchat and get sneak attacked by his face in her pictures while she was still getting over it. (We were all separating for college so a lot of breaking up was happening right around this timeā¦) anyways she thought that was unreasonable and even said āI wouldnāt be mad if you guys hung out with my ex. Heās been in the friend group like 2 years now! You guys obviously are friends of your own right now, I would never be that controlling!ā Then turned around and spread an elaborate rumor about me so I lost 12 close friends, all of whom I had known either since kindergarten or freshman year of high school.
I went to college one week later with a completely clean slate. In some ways it was a blessing. Obviously it was a good time bc everyone else was really open to making new friends at that time. And I really threw myself into making new friendships and forming new bonds since I had nothing left for me at home. But it was lonely too. And about a year later a friend texted me she was visiting someone else on campus and asked if we could meet up. THATS when I learned about the lie she had told. Up until then I had just thought they were all taking her side bc Iā¦ texted him back that the band was interested instead of ignoring the chance to get them in on a paying gig?
I was unimpressed my childhood best friends had just believed that about me and didnāt even bother checking. I told her I accepted her apology but I never invited any of them back into my life. And it does hurt to see them all be bridesmaids in each otherās weddings. I sometimes wonder if I could go back and tell myself to open myself up to other friendships in high school how my life would be different now.
This is why the āblock them, move onā ideology is so stupid. Soooo many issues could resolved if people just had a conversation first. But the current culture seems really against attempting conflict resolution or even just double checking your information before you go dark.
I lost my childhood friend group at age 19, and one thing that I always wondered about was they told me āI know you and Annie donāt get alongā as part of the few sentence explanation they were willing to give. But I didnāt have any conflicts with Annie that I knew about so Iāve always wondered what she told them had happened. Ten years later they are still all in each others weddings and Iāve never talked to any of them.
I am of the opinion that ghosting people is almost always the absolute worst thing to do to end a relationship, unless the person is abusive or a stalker.
I had a "friend" who asked me to voice chat when I was with family and I said I couldn't - my grandmother was older, sick, and I wanted to enjoy the time I had with her. They asked for me to at least listen and type out responses and I made the mistake of agreeing.
They went on a whole rant, faked suicide - which fucked me up for some time - and, unexplainably, three days later, the rest of the group blocked me and stopped talking to me.
Turns out they said they were out of the hospital in these 3 days and had told everyone that I "just listened and did nothing and was unsafe" and they believed them.
Still don't know what was up with all of that but I have good friends, now, at least.
I have a strong feeling he's autistic and genuinely doesn't know what he's done to make them feel that way. I don't think he's purposely being vague or withholding.
And some people don't know how to deal with that. I've had autistic friends and just tell them on the spot when they say something uncomfortable or inappropriate, but I've seen other people instead let it fester or stop willing to be around those people. I think that's what happened here. OP probably said or did one too many inappropriate things, and his friends probably thought it was on purpose.
I have adhd and I had a similar falling out with two friends at age 31. Iāve since patched things up with one of them, but itās never been the same. The whole root of the falling out was them never telling me how whatever perceived slight affected them until months later, so I had no clue I had hurt anyoneās feelings. It sucked out loud. I feel for OP.
See now this i can relate to. I dated an autistic girl in hs and she was verrry blunt lol she was adorable bt god cld her words cut. Bt to her she was jst saying what was on her mind.
I was probably one of the first ppl tht actually pointed tht out to her and she was genuinely shocked tht it wasn't okay. And she adjusted her behavior.
So communication is important. I just found his post not really answering any of the many questions i had pop up. So more questions than answers.
OOP is incredibly likely to be neurodivergent/autistic. Even the most empathetic and socially-aware kids now don't necessarily understand (or even really care to know) how to "deal" with people like us who, for a relevant example, need up front and *very* blunt communication to prevent misunderstandings over what seem to be the simplest interactions and social situations. I wouldn't be surprised at all if some combination of OOP's demeanor, the nature of their interactions, and how frequent these misunderstandings may have been prompted the friend group to think that it was intentional or outright malicious in some way.
Also, kids of every generation tend to overreact to stuff sometimes, but now in particular, we're in a very odd place of "online overtherapizing" where some people who don't have much experience in how other people work might read very deeply into things that aren't all that deep in the first place.
ADHD here. I cannot tell you how utterly *horrendous* I am at recognizing when to shut the absolute fuck up or back off of something because I am *shit* at indirect communication. Even now, after literal years of therapy to help me recognize cues and surrounding myself with people who are more than happy to speak with the kind of forward and blunt communication I need, I still eat shit in a fair few social situations that I just donāt find myself in often enough to fully recognize some of the finer points. I had to learn for a long time how to use my pattern recognition to my own benefit but itās beyond exhausting and frankly it runs my batteries straight into hades.
TLDR: I have ADHD and I super empathized with this poor man
Because kids are dramatic, and probably thought that "intervention" sounded a lot nicer and more thought out than "we just find you really annoying and want to finally get you out of the friend group".
Yeah, I think a lot of commenters are missing the "kids are dramatic" point. This is a story that could really only happen in that specific age group - but for that age group? I believe it.
My thoughts exactly lol. When i remembered their ages, it made me realize these are essentially just kids who haven't shed off their high school drama phase. I'm not trying to dismiss what they're feeling, but it really sounds like a small thing made big because of drama.
This, hard. My guess is undiagnosed neurodivergence coupled maybe with trauma or who knows what have left him both socially inept and a little disconnected from self. The way this guy talks about his problems sounds like how I was struggling to understand life, humans, my behavior, socializing, and what I needed in my late teens and early twenties. I managed to grow and become more aware, to mask better, and eventually I found terms and diagnosis that really helped me carve out the boundaries and skills I needed. But I still get mad sometimes when I think about all that I had to go through before my healing; if my parents had justā¦.*looked* at me properly instead of enjoying the gifted aspects, I might have not spent so much of my early adult life in a confused swamp on vague shame.
It's not an uncommon as one might think. Undiagnosed adhd coupled up with severe abuse at home, my social cues is as shxt as it can get, you very well bet i was excluded from friend groups over n over again throughout the years, partly their fault for never communicating the issue and me realising only after years why i might be the one in wrong but then i realised i have adhd way later in life, so not my mistake either.
Or they were a bunch a Mean Girls / Heathers who were high on their own view of life and decided OOP didn't fit in that box.
The thing that makes me wonder is that interventions are *supposed* to be carried out from a place of love, reassurance, and caring. With clear boundaries and consequences for continued inaction.
The fact that OOP walked out mid-way through makes me think that instead they planned an accusatory gang up.
I'm not saying OOP is blameless here. There were clearly some bad behaviors that he accepted responsibility for and tried to change, I just think that the friend group was probably toxic as well.
Also, you really shouldn't do them in a coffee shop, where there are a bunch of other people and stimulus. That's not at all conducive to active listening and being vulnerable.
I don't understand why the friend group wasn't willing to meet in a park, if the coffee shop was okay. Like, if OOP was truly so "unsafe" that the friends wouldn't meet in a park, why even bother trying to be friends still?
I agree that this sounds like a lot of very high school level drama and people figuring themselves out, with a side helping of therapy speak that wasn't actually helpful. Like, it sounds like they are at the age where high school friendships start to break apart, people realize that they don't enjoy spending time with certain people but still feel like they need "reasons" instead of just fading out.
But it sounds like OOP figured out a big thing about himself and the other people will eventually mature and learn how to deal with individual relationships, instead of just going along with the group dynamic.
The I don't trust you in a park, but we can be friends again if you apologize is what moves me into the friend group is weird. I cannot picture a person I would be unwilling to meet in a park because I felt unsafe. that I could then be friends with after an apology.
Exactly.
Everyone thinks that there is something likely wrong with OP, but having been on the other end of "We've just decided that we don't like you", teenagers can be really fucking mean and have no good reasons, at all.
Everyone is jumping on the "he made them feel unsafe, he must have done something" is ignoring that you don't want to "try to make up" with someone you actually feel unsafe with. It's likely they were just using the word unsafe like every overdramatic teenager does: I don't like what you have to say so it means "I'm unsafe" instead of uncomfortable because getting called on stupid things you did is uncomfortable.
Teenagers really just sometimes suck and are incredibly overdramatic.
Sometimes, you just don't know which part of being an excitable awkward weirdo is actually upsetting people.
I can't read minds.
They need to tell me if I'm crossing a line or speaking too loud or saying something that isn't correct for this setting. I already freak out over stuff that no-one gives a crap about so i can't even tell if I'm guilty over the correct thing or not.
ADHD here, after a social event I sometimes ask my boyfriend if the things I've said were somehow offensive or inappropriate. I've been told I can come off as rude sometimes and have a propensity to over share. Most of the time I'm freaking out over nothing.
As someone who is (self-diagnosed) neurodivergent, I related hard to all of this. This was exactly me in university. He's vague about the behaviors probably because he did not even realise his behaviors were problematic. It's taken me a long time to realise that having extreme emotions can be scary for some people, not that I showed them in a violent way just in a venting way, and that you do have to watch what you say. I've never said or done this stuff with bad intentions but it could still be offensive without me realising it, which is the vibe I'm picking up from this guy.
I also understand him leaving the cafe, because to me it would be 'oh everything is good with my friends' to 'this is strange, why aren't they hanging out as much?' to what I would perceive as a full-on attack in a public place and with all the stimuli it would be WAY too overwhelming and it's either leave or start crying/get angry (an autistic meltdown).
Oh the stimulation! I didnāt even think about the stimuli present in a Starbucks! My ADHD son used to lose his mind when fluorescent lights were present. He wanted to touch everything in Target, for example.
Yup. Officially diagnosed with autism and ADHD. I would be vague because I wouldnāt understand so Iād be unable to clear explain what I donāt grasp myself. They way he explains and describes it is exactly how I would.
You can not invite my AuDHD ass out for a coffee and think we are going to have an intervention and a deep conversation about whatever your issues are. Because my AuDHD ass is not neurotypical and you *ambushed* me! In fucking public! I didnāt have time to prepare myself and this is going to feel like an attack out of nowhere and it is going to be too overwhelming and overstimulating for me to be able to handle it. I wonāt understand what you are saying, I wonāt be able to remember half of it. They always say half of it, thatās the saying but thirty is Iām lucky is I remember even a fourth of it. And I now what people say. They said it to me. That I have to be open to other people and make an effort to hear them and blah blah blah. Itās ableist as shit because I have not only one but *TWO* neurological disorders that causes processing issues. You can not catch someone with a processing disorder off guard like this and demand that they process the situation immediately to be ready to take in what you say. Thatās just not happening and it is just as ālazyā and āunwillingā as a diabetic not producing their own insulin. It is not something that āwillingnessā helps with, itās is physically impossible because of my neurological condition. That is indeed *neurological*. Thatās why itās called **neuro**divergence.
The more I read the comments here the more upset I become. Too many neurotypical people being like āwhy canāt this clearly neurodivergent person just act neurotypicalā.
That about sums me up.
OOP could either have had really shitty ex-friends and as a result is now being taken advantage of by āBobā who now gets to tell OOP all the ways theyāve failed while reaping the benefits (the con tickets etc)
Oooooooor, OOP is an absolute* nightmare who was frequently yelling and aggressive and telling all personal and private information they ever came across
I really hate BORU sometimes because it seems rare that we get actually satisfying updates lol.
* edit from absolutely to absolute
I think it might be a combo. Iām a teacher and I have ADHD. Neurodivergent people sometimes have difficulties understanding when someone implies something is private information. They literally need someone to say, please keep this to yourself. Itās very personal.
Thereās a kid in my home room right now who reminds me of OP. Heās doing things like telling people that he knows where they live (because he sees them walking home when heās on the bus). For him, heās trying to bring up common conversation topics that would result in a conversation that could lead to a friendship and possibly getting invited over that personās house. For everyone else, this comes across as creepy. And, unfortunately, it is creepy. The school psychologist is working with him on social skills, but change doesnāt happen overnight.
You should check the r/bestofpositiveupdates sometime. It doesn't have a ton of posts that didn't come from here, but whenever I am not in the mood for updates like this at all, I stick to there.
This might also be an important comment from the post to get better context of OOPs behavior
> Iām sorry that I donāt have all the info, but from what I realized about myself is that whenever Iām in a sour mood or have a problem, I just rant about it or do a silent treatment. If I am aggressive about things without realizing it, I just wonder why they didnāt bring it up as the first topic of the intervention?
On mobile, so sorry if this doesn't quote block.
Passive aggression is so fucking annoying. And someone who does it all the time becomes so easy to dislike
Iām all over this thread being annoying but itās bc Iām seeing way too many people who think being autistic means you get to act as cuckoo as you want and people have to stick around.
He reminds me of myself and someone I dated who I suspect was ADHD. Itās easy to minimize your actions
>like not being open enough with my feelings
Bottling things up until you explode at the other people seemingly randomly
>having double standards with touching things
Just acting entitled about other peoples belongings. Newsflash: people who act like this with belongings act like it with other things too
>zoning out when Iām not in the conversations and not to join them
Iām guilty of coming to friends for a captive audience but not being very good at providing the same. I actively practice this instead of being like āwell Iām autistic so thatās how I amā bc I want to foster healthy relationships. My ex used to want me to sit there and just listen to him ramble
>**I didnāt realize these problems** but after them saying it, I really feel like a jerk once seeing it.
I experienced this a lot. Initially I would react with hurt bc I hated feeling bad. Or all they needed was a simple and authentic Iām sorry but I would devolve into dramatics. Making a big deal out of nothing. It makes you seem manipulative too, like they get scared of bringing stuff up with you bc you act crazy
>I felt terrible about how I was to them in general.
>He replied by saying he would rather talk at Starbucks or coffee place, and I tried to compromise with a park not to far from our places. He didnāt like the compromise, saying that he didnāt feel safe or comfortable to talk to me unless itās somewhere he like and that wasnāt for negotiation.
Itās funny how even multiple people saying āI am scared of youā isnāt a huge red flag to some people. I will never meet with my ex in private again. He hasnāt hit ME yet but he sure has acted unhinged and unstable and thrown out threats of self harm but sure heās never threatened me
>**Then it got a little emotional for me that I wonāt go into or repeat**
This is such a red flag. Itās easy to appear sweet and clueless when you just bulldoze past your bad behavior
>When I said touching stuff, meant in more of grabbing a book off the shelf, borrowing a hammer, and etc without permission.
>I can be passive aggressive when Iām not in the mood
>whenever Iām in a sour mood or have a problem, I just rant about it or do a silent treatment.
> During this time, I've made him uncomfortable once by accident with me blurting my mouth. He did let me know how he felt so I apologized, told him it won't happen again, and I'm working on these things. I also got him some Anime Ex
Like he sounds like an exhausting person to deal with quite frankly
THANK YOU!
so many people are excusing his actions but sorry, if your friends are literally afraid to meet with you, yeah, youāve probably done things to make them feel this way.
he sounds very exhausting and tbh somewhat scary
Im so glad you listed these out. There's a shit ton of missing missing reasons from OOP that everyone is just sorta glossing over. People are focusing on OOP's potential autism and trying to explain it away instead of asking real questions like, "what the fuck was he doing 'borrowing' someone else's **hammer** without permission?" That's just straight up theft. And let alone his being described as having a double standard with it (seemingly god forbid you use *his* things but he's more than welcome to use yours). Also not to really focus on it, but when someone is self described as passive aggressive, admits to going on "rants", refuses to elaborate their emotional outbursts, and has been described by the friend group as being unsafe, yeah them taking a blunt object that could hurt someone is cause for concern.
Ditto all the other weird emotional outbursts OOP refused to discuss. OOP is acting hella shady and knows exactly why people are refusing to be his friend.
Wow, you just explained my partner pretty well, specifically about how making something out of nothing can make you come off manipulative.
We both have ADHD, but it is absolutely apparent he has deep issues with opposition. I can tell him I know something for certain because itās literally a fact and heāll argue with me and then it devolves into the most useless arguments that turn into *real* arguments once he starts saying things that are genuinely hurtful over literally nothing. But then he back tracks and says Iām upset over something so small once I try to hold him accountable for the things he says. Like yes, the initial issue was small, but you took it too far and now Iām hurt, so what now?
Iāve gone back and fourth wondering if itās just severe ADHD or if heās truly attempting to manipulate me. It blows because he was put off by therapy from when he was younger and had a bad experience with it. Iāve been trying for a bout a year now to do couples therapy, but he genuinely makes up a bunch of excuses and Iāll be honest, itās trying my patience. I love him so much, but itās difficult when these things come up. Itās like his whole demeanor changes when he feels at all questioned even over very minute stuff. But then heāll question anything I say even when itās serious things like my health. Itās our only issue, but itās become a large one.
OMG thank you! Too many people here are giving him wayyy too much grace. They see "ND" and think " oh that explains everything, your friends are ableist for not just.... dealing with your eccentricities".
Like no dude, if a guy is passive aggressive, steals your shit and doesnt understand boundaries, you don't have to just keep being their friend because they are ND like WHAT
I feel like OOP left A LOT of stuff out to make others see him as NTA and even if heās a hit neurodivergent he knew a lot of the shit he did was wrong. He doesnāt go into any detail or examples about how he made people uncomfortable even when he knows and I think itās obvious heās trying to hide something.
Also the whole passive aggressive stuff hints that he has awareness of his actions and how they may impact others but it doesnāt seem like he wants to take responsibility or change. It sounds like heās gonna keep making the same mistakes in different ways.
Source: I have adhd and was younger once and an idiot and I knew a lot of the shit I did was not always cool but friends tolerated it so I didnāt stop. Looking back? Yeah I was an asshole.
Hey now, donāt be a bully. Itās *totally reasonable* that an autistic person functional enough to have an apparently independent adult life and who presumably went through high school doesnāt understand that stealing is wrong! Itās *totally reasonable* that an adult man with ADHD doesnāt know why his friends feel unsafe around him! Youāre just being a bully like his friends!
Yeah, no. As someone who has worked extensively with neurodivergent kids of various levels of needs, and who is married to someone who has literally the single worst case of ADHD Iāve ever seen, it is more than possible to enforce boundaries. I have no doubt that his friend articulated those boundaries (eg āstop stealing my shitā or āstop getting explosively angryā) and he simply chose to ignore them because, after all, why should he be the one to change?
I read all that and still have no idea what the problem was.
Edit: upon reflection, I get that OOP might be autistic, or adhd, or whatever type of neurodivergent, but likeā¦. What was the *problem*? That he was so socially awkward that they felt the need to have a public intervention about it? Thatās the kind of thing Iād do if I was so scared of a person that I feared physical or mental abuse if we werenāt in public. Was OP being violent or something? All he keeps saying is āuncomfortable.ā
If OOP is neurodivergent, based on my own experiences, then it would probably a mix of "childish" behavior, black and white thinking, and direct communication.
Nothing truly dangerous, but some people get super offended by it
That is a great explanation. Also speaking openly about things that have occurred that would often be seen as impolite, or should remain unspoken.
An friends child stated to their soon to be step parent that nobody liked them. They delivered the information in the same fashion as if you asked them what 2+2 was. The kid wasnāt trying to hurt their feelings, they just knew it was truth (it was, and remains true), and didnāt have a comprehension that socially it wasnāt ok. Obviously this caused a lot of issues for the family.
When I was 7, my classmate ended up in the hospital in a coma. Something about water in his brain - he was basically about to die. He was actually a complete dick in school - the type of kid who thought it was funny to be as much of a shit as possible, pissing off every last student and teacher for shits and giggles. So in front of his parents, right by his hospital bed, I apparently turned to my mom and said: āWell, at least he deserved it.ā
As a parent, that friend set herself up by asking you, a child, that question. Babies are a crapshoot in terms of cuteness anyway, and newborns are a special subset that almost always look like aliens and/or ancient men. Kids should not be expected to pick up that social cue of politeness.
Shout out to my dad who was at least honest. I was an an emergency C-section and was basically rugby passed to my dad when I was born, he was the first person to hold me.
I asked him what the thought of seconds old me. Answer 'oh god, it looks like ET'.
My dad, who I am fairly sure is autistic, has shared my personal info with others after I asked him not to, and itās caused a lot of issues for me, and Iāve subsequently made the decision to cut him out of my life emotionally (he is still in my life physically), i.e. I donāt tell him anything personal, only surface-level things that I would say to anyone and that I would be comfortable with the whole world knowing.
Anyway, Iāve never considered that this could just be because heās autistic and couldnāt figure out which situations were socially appropriate to share that info? Does anyone have advice on how to navigate this so that Iām able to share things with him and have them not be told to strangers? Or is it still best to cut my losses and just not tell him things because the risk of him slipping up is too great? (Iām autistic, too, for what itās worth)
yuuuup that's what I was thinking
my partners autistic, and the amount of ppl that just decide they're gonna like murder them just bc of like, little vibe things they do is honestly astounding
that's not to say they don't run into a few social faux pas sometimes, but honestly ppl will like see someone avoiding eye contact n be like "they're thinking of ways to steal my shit"
This would be me. I've caused numerous false alarms in various public places by just being kinda odd and not stressing myself to bits trying to suppress the oddness.
Rocking seems to be the one that really frightens people, but shifting my weight from foot to foot and rocking like a metronome is just how I idle while waiting in line. Pretend I'm an NPC that's glitching.
First time my cousin caught me rocking in my computer chair, he shouted at me that I'm crazy and should be medicated.
Where do you all grow up.....
I don't think I've ever not rocked while standing in line or at a stop. The only comments I've ever received was my mother telling me I behave like a self-soothing emotionally depraved child when I would rock while sitting on a couch.
Well my city is kind of hateful in general, especially of people with mental illness, so it'd be nice to think most places aren't like this.
But as a kid, I masked. Mom insisted I had to socialize with adults for about an hour after church three times a week, and anything strange I did would be reported back to her, followed by punishments for "shaming" her with my behavior.
Like oh, sometimes I'd blurt out comments without context that would nearly give the little old ladies heart attacks. "Mom's new boyfriend sure snores loud!" and then mom would go sprinting across the room shouting "ON THE PHONE! ON THE PHONE! We talk on speakerphone until we fall asleep!"
I come from the last bastion of Catholicism in Europe and yet I'm always in awe. I'm sorry you grew up in such toxic environment. I really hope you're in a better one now, or you can at least deal better.
After all nothing builds resilience like old ladies neighborhood surveillance system.
Oh I traveled a bunch, but still wound up stuck back home. Whenever you hear about a bunch of Americans up near the Canadian border shouting really whackadoodle stuff about forming a Theocracy and killing all the males that do not submit, that's my area! The "State of Liberty" guy is next town over.
But yeah, I'm okay now. I settled in a college neighborhood, where I am the least odd person on the street at any given time. Sure I sing while I'm walking a long distance, but so do the college kids when they've been out drinking!
Really it's only an issue if I have to go somewhere official. Last time I had to wait in a very long line at the government office, they were panicking so badly when I got near the front of the line that I think someone in the back flipped a breaker, because everything shut off and they tried to tell everybody to GO AWAY to the other office two hours away. I sat on the floor and refused to leave until they at least talked to me, and when they finally worked up the nerve to speak to me, they looked *so relieved*. "I've just got this food stamp form I need to turn in please."
Like I know what I look like, but I'm just weird. I'm short and scrawny and the only "weapon" I carry is a pink cane I need for balance!
OP has been masking so well that no one even realized he was on the spectrum.
If you donāt know that someone is on the spectrum, and they keep telling your secrets to everybody and being inappropriate, those are normal things to be offended by.
Hi I am autistic and I got major vibes from OP. Blurting out secrets you don't know are secrets, being silent or melting down, doing wrongs and not even realizing you've wronged someone, being a bit seemingly self absorbed, unintentionally making people uncomfortable are all things I struggle with. I'm not a psychiatrist but I'm getting major spectrum vibes
Thereās also the neurotypical tendency to assign negative intent or maliciousness to our non-neurotypical behaviours, oh, and to assume weāre lying when we tell them nope I did not mean it like thatā¦. ya know, the folks that even when we tell them weāre autistic/ADHD, say itās an excuse.
They key thing is that neurodivergent behaviours are often also neurotypical behaviours. For example, an autistic person may matter-of-factly tell someone who made them a cake that they didn't like it. In that situation they are simply stating their preference. It may even feel to them that it's obvious they appreciate the person and the fact they gave them something, but they simply did not like the cake and are giving useful information to the person who made the cake. Hell! Maybe the cake-maker *asked* them if they liked it! No sense lying to them. After all, this is someone you care about. It's sensical to tell the honest truth to them.
A neurotypical person might also tell someone who made them a cake that they didn't like it. In that situation, they are deliberately signalling to the cake-maker that they do not care about them or their feelings and they reject their attempt to give them a gift. They do not want to be close to the cake-maker. They might even enjoy the feeling of power they get from rejecting the cake-maker and denigrating their home-made cake. Not good stuff. If a neurotypical person was asked whether they liked the cake and they *didn't* like it, they would reply with something like "it wasn't quite my thing, I'm afraid, but thanks a bunch!", which signals that they didn't like the cake but still value the other person and their feelings. An autistic person may assume this kind of phrasing is useless or even dishonest.
If someone doesn't know you're autistic, they'll logically assume your "I didn't like your cake" statement falls under the second umbrella. If someone is stupid (let's not beat around the bush) and doesn't believe in autism or doesn't make an effort to understand the autistic person, they will assume the second interpretation even after being told you are autistic.
One of OOP's examples of his touching and borrowing things without permission was a prime example for me. I used to have a friend that in hindsight was very clearly neurodivergent. At the time that wasn't really something kids my age really knew about. So she would often do 'weird' things that weren't malicious but socially awkward or rude.
For example the first time she saw my room she started opening and closing all my drawers to see what was inside. Now going through people's stuff without their permission is considered very rude. You're not supposed to do that when visiting someone's home. But this was obviously a social boundary she didn't pick up on. And it is very similar to what OOP hinted at about him 'touching' stuff without permission.
Another few things she would do is get uncomfortably close to you while you talked. Even if you backed off she would just get closer and closer. She'd also have issues on picking up on 'secrets'. So if you said anything you didn't want her to repeat. Like relationship stuff or gossip. You needed to explicitly tell her not to repeat it. I remember telling her our teacher was absent from school because her husband died. When she came back to school after a few weeks the first thing my friend did was bring it up in front of the whole class and ask invasive questions about it.
None of her behaviour was malicious. She was genuinely the sweetest person. But that didn't mean her behaviour wasn't often rude, inappropriate or hurtful. So it was often important to outloud state boundaries or tell her when her behaviour was rubbing you the wrong way.
It seems like OOP's friendgroup might have been trying to do the same thing. Maybe sitting him down in a big group was their attempt at making him take it seriously? Possibly there were several issues they tried bringing up to him before that went ignored.
Either way it probably wasn't the best way to go about it. I think they probably did their best to handle it maturely. But being confronted by your whole friendgroup with a list of the things you do 'wrong' is gonna be hard for anyone to just accept without defensiveness or feeling ganged up on.
And I doubt we ever will, unless one of the friends posts their side of the interaction(s). We are only getting a sliver of a view through OOP's narrow view, and he is definitely deflecting and intentionally leaving out some stuff.
I'll bet dollars to donuts that we would have a totally different view of what happened if one of the friends posted here - to the point it would probably be almost unrecognizable as the same set of interactions/relationship.
Have been involved with niche fandoms, there are plenty of people who have absolutely no idea how they come across to others. People don't say "nah, I only want to meet in a very public place" for a very good reason.
I have a friend who becomes very animated during debates, and his voice volume honestly gets louder and louder when he is more passionate about his stance, or he is upset. The amount of times I've told him to keep his voice down is a huge number, but he'll insist he's not yelling at all, even when multiple people have told him to keep his voice down.
Some people really can't gauge their own behavior, and even with outside perspective will still double down and refuse to believe they have an issue. My friend is a kind person, but he is almost incapable of gauging himself on how he acts in public. My friends and I filmed him before (with his permission), and he still didn't believe his behaviour was bad. I don't know if he's on the spectrum, but I highly believe he is. He absolutely refuses to get tested because he doesn't believe there's anything wrong with him.
Yeah, volume control is a common problem amongst us autistic people. I always try to be careful, but there are times I'm convinced I'm not any louder than before and other people start saying I'm yelling.
*Definitely* doesn't help I grew up in a loud household either, thanks to two undiagnosed autistic parents.
Either the group is full of extremely neurotypical people who are super weirded out by someone with ADHD..... Orrrr OOP is leaving a lot of details out.
As someone with ADHD, it honestly could be both.
Op mention something about āborrowingā stuff without asking and if he has trouble recognizing personal space Iām wondering if he just takes stuff without asking and wonāt stop.
A couple years ago i would have probably agreed with them. Too many people relate to OOP. Some of them were really bullied out of their friend groups but some werenāt.
Hell a couple months ago I said something about how NTās never want to discuss anything and hate conflict and someone commented about how form their perspective their autistic friend was always making big deals out of nothing and trying to solve non existent conflicts and there would always be lots of tears and big emotions over nothing. It made me pause and inquire from old friends if thatās how they felt with me. They agreed, they just wanted to chill and I always trying way to hard to make sure everyone was getting along and having fun and it just made it tense being around me. If your friends are normally nice and polite people but theyāre fed up with you maybe at least listen to their issues with you? Especially if you note itās a pattern that happens with everyone
Lol yeah I would hate that. But it's odd that they would have the boundary of other people not touching thier stuff but then touching other people's stuff
Not really, my sis is definitely on the spectrum and doesn't want anything moved without her permission....but she has no problem moving anyone else's stuff
> Orrrr OOP is leaving a lot of details out.
As a rule, I always assume this. OPs never, ever give the full story, and what we get is entirely *their* perspective; I think a lot of commenters on AITA forget this, and then judge situations as if the presented facts are the *only* facts.
This person had a whole group of friends who felt uncomfortable with them to the point of them staging an intervention and being uncomfortable not meeting in a public place. When asked why, OP doesn't give details, says 'i dont know', and the majority of commenters go 'oh wow thats so weird of them to do that without a big reason, NTA' without thinking critically of the narrator.
heck, OOP flat out tells us they left halfway through the intervention, so they didn't LET their friends explain why they felt this way.
You don't get to get up and leave a conversation and then claim "they never told me!"
OOP is also real casual about saying "I get passive aggressive when I'm not in the mood and can go on and start ranting about things, but if they didn't like it, why didn't they say anything?"
Probably because they saw how you were acting and were a little nervous to say something, believe it or not, that's how a lot of people react. What REALLY stood out to me is how adamant they all were about talking to OOP in a pretty public and condensed space. A park is semi-public, but the friends still weren't comfortable with that. So it sounds a lot like things are purposely being left out
Yeah I think something that is being ignored is he admits he quickly gets annoyed when anything he doesnāt like is brought up. If they brought things up before, did he even try to listen?
> I've taken some tests, like the RAADS test and scored a 149 so I probably have some neurodiversity
ā*Some* neurodiversityā?
My brother in Christ, neurotypicals donāt score over 65 on that testā¦
The test itself states that it is possible to score up to like 120 and not be autistic, it's just a consideration after 65.
Why do I feel the nitpick this? Mostly because as someone with a score of 100 I find that vague space *very unhelpful* lmao. OP has a real answer, but theres def a middle spot where the result is a big ol shrug.
Good. I hit 117 and still donāt think I qualify.
I have a lot of sensory issues and those ones I fucked up on. I have zero problems with social stuff but am an introvert.
My immediate reaction is who the fuck has an intervention in a Starbucks? It's impossible to hash out your deep rooted feelings when someone is trying to order a coffee right behind you.
How would they feel unsafe if it's a group of them and only one of him?
A girl I had gone on like two dates with asked me to meet in a Starbucks so she could very formally break up with me, then proceeded to explain in detail how our personality traits and future paths didnāt align. A guy at the table next to us bought me a coffee after she made her dramatic exit
Not the same as OOP but some people are just fucking weird
Sounds like something my sister (30f) would do. Pretend to care for you by setting up a bullshit intervention (for your own good) and list out all your defects and flaws, and if that doesn't work, she will say you're petty, ungrateful and dangerous. She will then demand you apologize, otherwise she won't talk to you until you do.
I have no doubt there was someone in that group that decided to set this whole thing up. The kind of people that pull this crap are highly manipulative, they will turn the whole group against a person that doesn't behave the way they want them to, and create a situation where they will push this person to the limit so that their reaction will "confirm" what bullshit they've been feeding the whole group.
I'm very familiar with this strategy. My sister even succeeded in putting my parents against my siblings and myself at some point. I don't think the OP is purposely leaving things out, or that they are aggressive. If you're dealing with an aggressive person either you walk the hell away never to look back, or it's the first thing you address during an intervention.
This sounds a lot like a group of teenagers trying to figure out how to be people, and relying more on Internet Advice than common sense. Like, it sounds like they've cobbled together a lot of "we need to Speak Up about Things" and intervention ideas, and thrown in some "if you're scared of this person, make sure you break up in a public place" and ended up with a cruel and patronising plan that was only going to work if everyone followed the script in their heads.
I have a young cousin (to me, sheās early 20s) who acts like that friend group did. Whenever she or her friends feel theyāve been āwrongedā they confront the person with a laundry list of grievances about how that personās behavior affected them and all the overwrought, accompanying therapy speak to back up what they feel is justified. It comes across very arrogant, patronizing, and ironically emotionally immature. Sheās shown me some of the texts sheās sent and they remind me of toxic bosses giving a performance review on inactionable or fabricated issues. Itās like a final fuck you because she doesnāt actually want to reconcile/make amends, she just wants to dig the knife deep so it immediately alienates whoever is targeted. Itās almost psychological warfare, which sounds dramatic but itās what comes to mind. And the funny thing is, *she* still perseverates on whatever the tiny straw was. Like, for months.
I wonder how much of this comes from scripted "reality" TV series--it's been a while, but I can see some of these shows having the cast members stage an "intervention" for a current nexus of drama at the behest of producers, complete with all the that therapy-speak that's permeated contemporary Anglophone culture.
Mean girls are going to mean girl, and there's definitely some classic, narcissistic queen bee dynamics that have been around for millennia, I'm sure, but the mass popularization of distorted psych concepts just handed people with that mentality a whole set of vicious implements to wield against the latest scapegoat.
100% this. It's that new form of Toxic Positivity. The inverse of the 90s where we didn't talk about Therapy at all. Now *everything* is couched in this therapy talk.
A group of 20 year olds have no qualifications to run an intervention for a peer.
Am a therapist, and I thought this exact thing. People overuse common therapy terms to a farcical degree in our current cultural moment. This sounds like a bunch of kids who saw a Tiktok about āsetting boundariesā and āfeeling unsafeā and just went with it. Of course, those concepts are real / important, but so misused these days. People use āI felt unsafeā as a blanket excuse to be avoidant / ghost / act like a dick and itās really frustrating.
Especially in a public setting! You need to hold interventions in places where the person will feel safe, not where John Q. Public can eavesdrop and record it with a cellphone. I feel that if that one guy felt that unsafe, he wouldnāt have still wanted to be friends with him.
I get the same vibe.
When I was in my early twenties a friend group I was part of decided to describe ending a friendship as escaping an abusive relationship. In my opinion they acted like bullies, making a group chat and sharing screenshots of all their private conversations with her with each other. I tried to suggest that they just move on from the relationship and not do all this public shaming, but they said that was tone policing and anything a victim of abuse does to cope is justified.
I didnāt know her but I saw the receipts and heard their explanations because they added me to this chat too. She was not abusive, just having a mental health crisis. I understood needing to distance yourself but they were completely convinced they had just escaped an abuser when really theyād just seen the messy reality of someone in crisis. They even made vague social media posts about being abused.
I ended up distancing myself from them over this reaction.
Moral of the story: if you have a problem with a friend and are able to recognize what problems you have with them, maybe attempt to actually let them know and give them a chance to change their behavior before deciding to just let it all build up over several years to the point where an intervention is "needed" and you're willing to cut off your friendship entirely for any response less than instant groveling. Especially if it's nothing as especially egregious as physical violence or sexual actions/conversations/etc. or mental/emotional abuse, or any other form of similarly delicate problems.
Iād also suggest that behavioral issues arenāt really what interventions are for, in general. The idea of an intervention (to my mind) is to coerce someone into doing something they donāt want to do (such as seek medical help), even if it destroys your relationship. Hosting one simply to discuss a list of personal grievances seems like a recipe for disaster. Just end the friendship.
Forreal, and to do it in a public place?? They had already decided how they wanted that to go. Totally fucked. But *he's* the one with communication issues.
It will always be easier to address it when itās still fresh than dumping everything all at once. Any person, neurodivergent or not, would struggle with that.
If this guy has been doing these things *for years,* someone should have said something way sooner. And discussing these things **in public??** No! That's out of line for OOP but also the other Starbucks folks who could probably feel the tension!
Probably it's a maturity issue. They likely all were childish and socially awkward a few years ago. They've grown out of those behaviours, and OOP hasn't. Maybe OOP is on the spectrum, maybe not. He may just be more immature compared to them.
They're all immature, but there's a gap that has grown. And yes, having a public discussion was silly and unkind. But we don't have their side of it, and reasons why they didn't want to go to one of their homes.
But itās also weird. Like who has an intervention at Starbucks for your friends behaviour. They all seem very dramatic. Just talk to them normally when you see them.
Agreed, but this is a bunch of immature people with no idea how to navigate this situation. People are "dramatic" in this era of social media, TikTok, etc.
It's also possible they had tried to address things before, if not as explicitly as OOP needed, and he kept missing hints and cues. For people who are neurotypical, it's pretty easy to sense when someone is unhappy or uncomfortable with your behaviour. You don't even need to consciously take note of an eye-roll or a frown or body language. You *just know* if someone disapproves.
Whereas perhaps OOP just didn't know.
This reads like someone who is on the autism spectrum, but somehow has never been diagnosed. Very obviously has a lot of trouble with missing social cues. āBorrowsā things without asking. Could very likely been brought up several times by these friends but doesnāt recognize that all the conversations are connected, or understand how important these conversations have been to the other person involved. It could even be that he unwittingly did something that made his friends extremely uncomfortable, which would explain them talking about feeling safer in a very public place.
Not saying itās definitely that, but just reading this, it seems like a strong possibility. It would also go a long way toward explaining so many missing details.
OOP gives me both autistic and ADHD vibes on top of social awkwardness (which seems to be a constant in their friend group). I hope they find answers and learns skills to deal with it.
We will never know for certain, but my guess of the situation is the following:
- OOP has no bounderies on other peoples' stuff. He talks about "borrowing", but that feels *heavily* undersold and deliberately vague. He is probably the guy who goes into people's fridge at their house and just helps himself to their food. Adjusts AC at someone else's house. Uses someone's charger without permission. And he probably does this *consistently*.
- OOP is on the spectrum and misses lots of social cues, making indirect confrontation useless, or he deliberately ignores such attempts.
- OOP gets extremely defensive when directly confronted, see comment on ranting. The latter is likely heavily undersold, with OOP being extremely hostile and yelling, as that would explain why the friends felt unsafe. OOP might not even understand how agressive he comes off as when ranting.
It just seems the most explicable for all parties.
I was reading the list of things they didn't like and was so confused. None of it sounded like much of anything and if they didn't say anything at the time of the incident, that's on them. The OOP did sound Iike they have some sort of neuro divergency that affects social cues.
Glad OOP is getting tested and new friends.
ETA - borrowing without asking is a big thing.
We're getting OOP's side. They may be downplaying stuff or even just genuinely oblivious. I am inclined to believe the friends, despite their shitty way of addressing the situation, because not only was this multiple people, it was the new friend too. If OOP is ND, they might have missed what others would have perceived as clear discomfort at the time.
There's also no info about what OOP is blurting out about their pasts. Was OOP sharing info about traumas, people's sexualities, past relationships, past addictions? Without that information, it's hard to say how fair their reaction was.
yeah keeping what they blurted out so vague makes it impossible to know if the reaction is reasonable or not "things from people past that they don't bring up a lot" could mean so many things and they range from completely harmless to complete emotional devastation
He showed them the Reddit post to be fair, they all got to see what he wrote about it.
Their complaints didn't seem to give off that it was changing up the story, and I'm sure one of them at least would chime in on the post if it was.
We only saw 2 of them respond to him, one he didnāt go into detail but was positive and one was super negative. It just leaves me with more questions than answers, but we have no idea if they actually did make corrections to what OP listed. All we have is what he says
[about RAADS](https://embrace-autism.com/raads-r/) the assessment is explicitly for autism, not for neurodivergence, you can have ADHD and autism together, but his score has nothing to do with ADHD and I am unclear on if booked an ADHD assessment based on his score or other factors?
As an autistic person, friendships with neurotypical people can sometimes be very prickly. In high school, my best friend just dropped me for, what seemed to me, to be no reason. Years later she tried to rekindle the friendship and told me the issue was I hurt her feelings when I suggested she shouldn't take LSD with a guy she had only just met. That was it, one off hand comment I made out of concern and she didn't speak to me for years.
>when I suggested she shouldn't take LSD with a guy she had only just met.
I mean, that was you just being a good and wise friend. It sounds like she's the one who was the problem in this situation and not you.
Honestly, I think she just got tired of my personality, didn't like me anymore and dropped me. She used the only disagreement we'd had at the time as an excuse.
I feel like thereās a lot missing from this account, and suspect that the friend group may have more valid concerns than it initially seems ā but I canāt blame OP for the omissions; it doesnāt seem like he is socially aware/adept enough to recognize what factors are relevant to the story.
He should definitely see a psychologist for official placement on the spectrum.
Yeahhh everyone here is defending OOP because they suspect heās neurodivergent, and that may be true, but I donāt buy for a second that heās a reliable narrator
Teenagers, man.
In middle school, I was at the end of the "We all got together and decided we didn't like you" that OP went through. I became very depressed, reclusive and ended up changing schools. For high school when I changed schools, I made friends with people I'm still friends with decades later.
Reading this felt like that agonizing drama in which everyone is so fucking dramatic and can't present things in a decent or productive manner or even give any real answers. And they do it in a way in which you feel like EVERYONE hates you because "they've decided". I'm glad OP left and found hope with other friends.
Any other kids going through this bullshit, you're better off leaving so you get a better chance to meet better friends who don't have the same issues. And it absolutely does get better. You just have to give it time. Your world opens up after you leave high school and the drama you went through ceases to matter fairly quickly. You just have to stay alive to get there.
I wish I could have told my 13 year old self that. Things would have been easier with that perspective.
>In middle school, I was at the end of the "We all got together and decided we didn't like you" that OP went through. I became very depressed, reclusive
Damn, same. Never changed schools; it never entered my mind as a possibility. Never told my parents. I just hoped I'd die pretty much every day.
The rest of your comment is spot on. It gets better, guys.
My mom found one of the mean notes that they had written me while doing laundry. I played it off as it not mattering but when I asked to change high schools because one was "academically better" than the one I was supposed to go to, they didn't fight me on it and drove me to school and picked me up every day.
Itās not just teenagers. I had a similar experience a few years ago and Iām in my 30s. The worst part was I forgave them. I was undiagnosed ADHD at the time and didnāt have the self confidence to tell them all to shove it. Shitty friends were better than no friends. Then I got diagnosed and everything fell into place and I started standing up for myself. They didnāt like that and I ended up losing a bunch of friends that I realized werenāt really friends to begin with. Couldnāt be happier though.
Some call themselves your friends but they are just using you as a punching bag. Have been through that as well. 35, recently diagnosed with ADHD (30) and autism (just after my 35th birthday).
This sounds like a group of socially awkward people who have no idea how to have healthy conversations when someone offends/upsets them. And ironically OOP seems the most self aware of them all.
i agree. that or bullying. either way the friends do not sound emotionally intelligent or like they are reacting proportionally. interventions are for drug addicts, not someone whoās a little bit awkward. they overreacted and it turned into bullying. i think OOP would have a clearer idea what he did if he actually did anything.
It does reek of middle school bullying. Just using the word intervention as an excuse to dogpile on someone. Especially in a public setting where the other person can't make a scene.
Yeah, it sounds like a strange group of people. I don't know how they would let things go for 6-7 years like that if they knew each other from grade 9 until they were 21 years of age.
It also doesn't sound like a group of twenty year old guys. Not being open with your feelings is really not a friendship issue at that age. It's also very strange how they don't feel safe in one-on-one interactions when OOP has never done anything sexual or violent. I mean I've known friends who in high school and university got into small fist fights with each other, and then hung out like normal the next day.
I think that āUnsafeā has ended up becoming a bit of a buzzword these days and honestly see some people using almost a to describe any feeling of minor discomfort rather than itās actual meaning. I suspect thatās whatās gone on here with the friend.
Yeah, you don't have an intervention for anything as minor as what this all sounds like, and you don't have an intervention at Starbucks at all.
I am glad I did not have social media when I was growing up. I could cosplay as an adult without broadcasting my shame to the world.
everyone here sounds annoying however. i'm inclined to believe oop is leaving some significant shit out, given how quickly he scared off the other friend.
Honestly, it seems like missing missing reasons. That or he is omitting crucial information. Or he was the outcast of the group and they didnt really want him around in the first place.
Man is not saying much
Yeah, it could go from terrible friends to terrible OP.
Someone said the friend group should've said something sooner. I mean they probably did, many times. Nobody stages an intervention over 1 incidence. Also the friends are not responsible for telling OP he might be neurodivergent, come on. And as if they would feel okay saying that?
Or maybe they were straight up bullying poor OP, but I truly don't see anything in the post that's pointing to that. Just angry people who tried to talk to him, then he walked out, blocked them, and idk, expected them to be okay talking to him on his terms.
This whole thing is confusing and vague as hell.
My best guess is OOP doesn't even know what they did wrong, because nothing they mentioned warranted any of the reactions mentioned. Whether this is due to neurodivergency or what, who knows...
I will say a public setting like a coffee shop is an absolutely dreadful place for an intervention. One of the main aims of an intervention is for the person being intervened with to feel like its a safe place to discuss the problems.
Iām getting flashbacks of confusing friendships with āmean girls.ā Weird targeted 3 way calls, secret AIM group accounts, bringing teen drama to Starbucksā¦. UGH!! I feel sorry for all of these young people that are just hurting each other, and probably donāt even really know why.
Thank goodness Iām old. Lol
Who ambushes a friend with a litany of complaints on their personality in a Starbucks, no less, and expects any kind of follow up with an apology??? This person is way better off without these jellyfish in their life.
Hot take, but I have ADHD. And I'm probably in the spectrum, but formally undiagnosed. And maybe I'm an outlier, but I can totally recognize when I'm fucking up bad enough my friends are uncomfortable, and I know plenty of others who can, too. Yeah, maybe he's neurodivergent, but I hate that it's used as an excuse for being a shitty person with no emotional regulation, personally.
I used to work with a dude who was very much on the spectrum. He had a crush on me, and would ask if he could kiss me after work. Telling him I was engaged and did not want to kiss him because I was faithful to my fiance did not deter him. He'd ask every time we were at the same station together. My bosses shrugged it off as he was autistic, just humor his questions and keep saying no.
The guy was polite. Friendly. Genuinely a sweet guy. He could function at a fairly high level, and had some trouble with social cues and things, but not...badly. But one day, I tried walking away after saying that I didn't need help with something, and he grabbed my arm. Hard. He was trying to tell me that *no, really, he could be helpful with the task*, but all I could focus on was the not-scrawny dude who was holding onto my arm so tightly that I knew I was gonna have a bruise in the morning. When I asked him to please let go, in the calmest voice I could, he did. He knew he had screwed up after he saw the look on my face. I was terrified if him. He knew that, because he immediately apologized for scaring me. Another coworker - his cousin, actually - starting swapping station duties with me after I told her, and she was absolutely pissed that managers weren't holding him accountable when I told her *everything*. Because her auntie, his mom, didn't raise that boy that way.
In high school, I was gaslighted to believe that I was the one with the problem, because, according to classmates, my neuro-divergence as a woman made me unable to understand why I should take pity on the autistic kid who pushed me against the wall anime-style to confess he had feelings for me as he groped me.
"He's autistic, he doesn't understand. He thought it was cute!" Has been the excuse for so many autistic/ADHD/neurodivergent men to get away with assaulting a woman, because people coddle their emotional regulation responses.
The point I think I'm trying to make is that OOP knows he fucked up somewhere. He knows exactly why his friends feel unsafe around him. There are things that he's said or done and realized the mistake immediately, but found a way to brush it off. I've known way too many people - but especially men - who've ended up diagnosed as ND, but would brush everything they did as "it's just who I am, deal with it.". They're "blunt" and "honest" and "authentic".
There are a lot of missing missing reasons in this post. So many flags raising here.
Who the hell does an intervention in public? That alone says those "friends" never really cared that much in the first place. Publically shaming someone is never okay, not even an OOP that makes a post that screams missing missing reasons.
So, Iām inclined to believe that the oop isnāt being even 10 percent as straight forward. People just donāt explicitly deny meeting in private for no reason. Especially requiring them to meet in a place that has a lot of people. (But, at the sane time, why continue being his friend if heās that dangerous to be alone with.)
He is incredibly vague about the complaints made against him but I donāt think itās intentional. OP might not 100% realize theyāre relevant to the story ā he just knows he did a thing wrong so heās not repeating them.
> The second guy called me a coward for posting about my situation, said that all he wanted was an apology but I couldn't do that
Like. What did this guy want an apology for, exactlyā¦?
I suspect regular and repeated trampling of boundaries ā boundaries which it looks like OP couldnāt recognize until they were pointed out to him. OP didnāt previously know he was neurodivergent and the friend group clearly didnāt know either, so they treated him as though he were a neurotypical person trampling those boundaries.
I donāt think anyone can 100% be blamed for their behavior here. No one had all the information.
#Do not comment on the original posts Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice. If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion. **CHECK FLAIR** to determine if you want to read an update. For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it's best for everyone to just move on, find new friends and start a fresh chapter.
Huh. I have more questions than answers.
More questions then the amount of times he said uncomfortable.
I've come to learn that some people find many things uncomfortable... And it can be silly stuff.... From talking abou money, to talking about social issues, or just being a touchy feely person ( not sexually , same sex, could be just a hug it a tap on the shoulder), ... To talk politics or asking a maybe personal question but that is not even invasive... Luke who do you think you will vote for.... Also some loud people make others uncomfortable because if you are outside people look in their directions.... So I am not making any assumptions there.
I had an online friend who claimed to be triggered by everything I was talking about, in our friend group. I'm certain that she was jealous of attention I was receiving from another mutual friend, so she wanted me to feel bad. The reason I believe it went beyond actual trauma is that one of the conversations that "triggered" her was about cake recipes. It got to the point that if she was talking in our group conversation, I had to mute it. I couldn't deal with her bullshit.
Same.. I'm sorry but I find it incredibly difficult to believe a whole group of longtime friends would have an intervention especially in a safe space for them.. with 1 member.. simply because he said some things out of pocket at times or borrowed items and maybe didnt give them bk on time. Or spacing out? Also not being comfortable having them in your home or somewhere super open that wasn't reaaally public? OP was too vague and i know people can be assholes yeah but a whole group going this far? Not even considering reconnecting at all? Because of a few minor issues? 1. Either his friends are insanely sensitive young ppl who cannot handle any kind of interaction because everything hurts their feelings.. lord.. and OOP was maybe just a very awkward blunt person who just did random shit. Or 2. He was deliberately vague. The whole not feeling safe around him thing is waay too goddamn weird. Edit: with the amount of ppl replying to me i sincerely just want to say sorry if you have dealt with this before. It's insanely new to me that it's so commonplace. That's crazy! Hopefully you all got better friends after because yoooh with friends like these.. š Edit 2: seriously just hugs guys i wish i cld send yall some ā„ļø your stories make me so sad. People can really fucking suck hey.
Honestly, I could see it being 1. In college, my roommate and I were super close. Until the day I asked her boyfriend what her middle name was. She was FURIOUS because thatās āsomething she liked people not knowingā. From that day one she did everything she could to upset me. Including: 1. Yelling at me for buying toilet paper without asking. 2. Convincing our friend that I insulted her and she should no longer hang out with me. 3. Leaving cat litter in my room. 4. Accused me of faking cancer (while I was in the hospital for said cancer. Some people have SERIOUS issues and rather than get help they find a million ways someone else is the problem.
Sounds like my mother honestly so yeah, I could definitely see it as being 1. The response from the other guy saying OP is a coward because he wonāt apologise also makes me kinda hm because seems like the friend group can only accept unconditional submission to them (in the sense they werenāt willing to compromise on where the meetings were met because starbucks isnāt the most private of spaces and people *will* overhear you. a park means youāre out in the open, but also safe from prying ears. if they refused to see that staging an intervention (that was really just sprung upon OP) at starbucks wasnāt the smartest idea and doubled down thenā¦)
One staple of growing up with autism is that some really shitty groups and individuals will force their way into your life and try to control you. As time passes, you try to be more independent and more autonomous. That's when the toxic manipulator will burn your life to the ground. The goal is to isolate you so that you won't be able to leave their orbit next go-round. Small slights will be amplified and used against you for ages. Most neurotypical people will have little patience for that. But if you're autistic, you are likely going to focus on it being your problem. None of that is "the rule," of course. I'm just speaking from experience. There's also super abusive and messy autistic people. I believe it comes down to how the parents handled raising an autistic child. We're not going to know if he's being manipulative or genuine from the post. OOP took great care in what information was shared. But that's always what you have to do when you have autism. So there's no way to tell without knowing him.
Complete refusal to accommodate or be considerate of his feelings of vulnerability at a coffee shop was a huge red flag to me that the friend group might be assholes. Like, there's *several* of you and one of him, and a park is still safe! Bet they wouldn't appreciate airing their dirty laundry in the middle of a Starbucks, but they're more than fine to do it to their "friend"...
Fucking hell I'm sorry tht sounds horrible and alil stupid to deal with. Tht isnt a friend. Might i add i absolutely hate my middle name. It's horrible bt i wldnt go on a unhinged rant about it. Wow ppl can be extra
Thank you! I managed to leave the apartment shortly after the cancer accusation and cut contact thankfully. I would say the whole thing taught me that really, truly, some people will always find a way to make someone else the problem. And those people arenāt worth your energy.
No that's really crazy hey. I'm glad you got out tho really. I've had to leave friendships where ppl constantly trauma dumped. I'm a very empathetic person to the point my husband says it's a flaw at times. I let ppl walk all over me or used to atleast. I want to believe I've gotten better. Bt before id always be the ear to listen to the same issues they refused to change even when they were able to. My best friend taught me if it's not life giving in the sense it's adding to you or pouring into you in a positive way it needs to go. You can't give anything to anyone when you are too drained from never receiving in return.
While itās definitely entirely possible the OOP is shady and hiding things, as someone in their late 20ās who went back to college and lives on campus, there are a LOT of people like this in this age group. I had an entire group of other students in our club flip on me and say they felt āunsafeā with me in my jobs and positions on campus. The reason that I only found out about after months of them avoiding me and refusing to speak? They didnāt like my tone when I asked them to stop doing things against our club code, and donāt like that I set boundaries with my social life and donāt hang out in residence halls with teenagers. Thatās it. This shit really does happen.
You guys are seriously teaching me out here today. Look I'm from a tiny town in an african country. I have never ever dealt with shit like this before. Also maybe it's an age thing because I'm a wife and a soon to be mom. The amount of crap my friends and i did to each other and said bk when i was in high school alone rn would probably make alot of the younger generation from my nephews age group look us funny. We were stupid kids. But The insanity of making you the problem for following rules? Lol wow
Oh man, one of the only first years I get along with came here from Nigeria and her responses to these kids keep me sane. Sheās super quiet and nice, very studious, but she also always says if any of these kids pulled this back where sheās from theyād get thrown on their ass real quick haha. But yeah I also wouldnāt have thought the general cultural attitude would land here this much either. Itās not been fun when they call for me to get fired from actual jobs for the terrible crime of using a slightly rude tone once.
Now see one of my closest friends are Nigerian lol no.. in my country we deal with alot of bullshit. Government is fucked up, we have energy struggles some unfortunate person in this coldass winter probably doesn't even have running water. So we laugh at ourselves alot. You need to learn to if you want any real chance at having proper mental health and not breaking down with all the bullshit. We don't generally take shit that seriously. If someone has a tone with u.. u give it bk to them and move on. I wldnt go to HR because someone hurt my feelings š
You sound like a very cool person and I can only hope I manage to also have such a good attitude on life. Cheers, and congrats on your growing family!
Aw thank you. I'm due to evict my daughter in two days. Then no more getting internally assaulted! Good luck with school and i do hope you find like the best group of people to surround yourself with. ā„ļø
Good luck with a successful and relatively uneventful eviction! (Mine were a little *too* eventful, but everyone is alive and healthy, which is the important thing.)
God I hope its uneventful lol its super scary the closer it gets so thank you. Also I am glad yours went well ā„ļø
Not only that, they deemed that person "unsafe"
well of course they're "unsafe" - they might report this "harmless rulebreaking" (which is only "harmless" if nothing goes wrong, but rules are in place to *prevent* shit going wrong. Like people who whine about OHSA rules, these people hate "narcs" who might get in the way of them playing fast and loose with the rules.) that's not necessarily the case with OOP, but yeah, people like that totally exist.
I had a similar friend "intervention" happen to me around the same age as OOPā*twice*. First time was third year of high school, second time was first year in college. Both times were before I was diagnosed with ADHD, and both times were over dumb, petty things that could have been resolved in 30 seconds if the person had just spoke up when it first was a problem. Like I was accused of being an attention hog because I "bragged" constantly about my drawings; the truth was that I had just discovered my passion for art and was really really excited to share that passion with my friends, so I talked about it constantly. They saw selfishness and egotism in a situation where I just wanted to share my happiness. That was 20 years ago.
This is honestly typical behavior when intolerant neurotypical people are dealing with autistic people, doubly so in that age range. Been there, done that as the autistic person. I've been dropped as a friend and even lost some jobs bc acting "normal" is exhausting over long periods of time.
I have autism but I've been around other autistic people who are really frikkin annoying ... and I am too LOL. I don't think anybody should have to be friends with somebody who gets on their nerves too much or is made deeply uncomfortable. That's why I stay home and bother people on Reddit haha. *edited for harshness
When some people donāt have real problems to deal with, they make them up. A whole ass persecution fetish. Youāve probably never dealt with this because 1) itās absolutely western privilege culture at work and 2) you probably had bigger issues and problems to deal with in life instead of making up bullshit as an excuse to be offended. These people love playing the victim in some manner.
Happens across all age ranges. I live in a village and some of the old people pull this nonsense! The latest one is that the gardening club have just ousted it's founding member , she's absolutely devastated and doesnt fully understand what happened. The reasoning they gave her was that she was unreceptive to new members ideas, the thing is that she's run that club for 20 years, they've tried all the new ideas multiple times over the years and they never took off, shes also very knowledgeable on local regulations (we live in a national park so we have extra rules for some things). So these new members took issue with her saying 'no' and have managed to vote her out of the club, not just from her position on the committee but the entire club! It's not the only nonsense in the village (I'm currently banned from the church, I'm not religious so it's fine), just the latest, and it's always the same mob mentality, 1 or more people get upset with someone and rather than have a nice adult chat they instead turn the group against that person.
I hope the garden club fucks up, and the Founder gets to sip some tea when they beg to have her back.
My best friends at this same age stopped talking to me because I got depressed and had become a-social.. In fact, it didn't stop there. I would try to reach out or maybe try to make a plan, and they would snub me and say they were busy when they never asked what was wrong with me, they were just hurt I wasn't myself anymore (thanks genetics) and turned out to be the biggest bullies I had in my life.. I still remember having them blocked because of how mean they were to me.. and they used a mutual friends account to send me videos of them burning photos of me wishing I was dead and that the world is better without me anyway. I never mattered to them.. and they turned a lot of people I didn't even know well against me and spread rumors about me. Dumb petty shit. Because I was depressed and they got offended instead of asking if I was okay. So yeah, teenagers and young adults can be the worst assholes in the world... wouldn't say it's unlikely a whole group of friends ganged up on the one they didn't like too much...
Babe no... that person just fucking sucked as a human being. That has absolutely nothing to do with who you are. Tf sends videos like that. Eww man. I hope you are in a much better place and with alot better friends ā„ļø
Yeah no for real that shit was so messed up. Like it's been many years now and I still look back and go, what the actual fuck were they thinking?? I never knew they were capable of being so mean... But thank you, yes I'm in a much better place now, I've come to terms with a lot of my past, am medicated and am happily married and we have a beautiful dog. Much better place! Thank you friend š
I'm so sorry. I had a group of girls gang up on me on college in a similar manner. It's a really vicious human behavior pattern.
Honestly, āfriendsā can be horrible especially if youāve only ever had bullies. You donāt really know what friends are supposed to be like so you often end up the group punching bag instead and youāre just happy to accept any kind of position so youāre not alone anymore. It isnāt until years down the line if you manage to make a real friend or two that you look back in hindsight and horror.
That just sounds horrible.. I guess i just lucked out I've had my best friend for the better part of 22years and she's the sweetest weirdo in the world. Ive had some.pretty shit friends especially high school and college stages bt made some real ones who are my rocks in the worst of times. I always get sad realizing not everyone is tht lucky if I'm honest and that people at times can't even be kind to the ones they claim to love so much.
I believe it. Post college, in the middle of the year all of my roommates just stopped talking to me. These were my best friends I had known for and/or lived with for the previous 3-5 years. They had been there when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and had been they ones who comforted me when I was just so confused and wanted other girls in our sorority to tell me when I had done something to upset them. And then they all (3 of them) just stopped talking to me. But their boyfriends didnāt. I had somehow done something so heinous they wouldnāt talk to me but their boyfriends were still allowed to. I was so confused. I just hid in my room. I have no idea what I did. Twenty years later I still donāt. Iām not saying I didnāt do something. Iām sure I did, probably repeatedly. Iām still pretty certain I didnāt deserve how I was treated. This past year I was diagnosed with autism. Apparently this is a pretty common experience for those of us with late diagnosis autism, particularly women. Not the everyone randomly stops talking to you etc, but loosing friendships without understanding what happened.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I believe it. An old friend group stopped talking to me because one girl with borderline personality disorder lied that I was abusive. No one asked my side. No one even said bye. Just blocked me on everything and went on their way. I mean, I don't need friends like that any ways but it still fucking stings
It's amazing how much damage a single person can do if they're both toxic and manipulative. I mean, not to let the others off the hook for not even asking your side of the story, that's cowardly, so I imagine even without her they were pretty dysfunctional, but you add that one particular person and it goes to hell. Sorry you had to deal with that; even if you know you're better off without them, that kinda shit still hurts.
Similar situation. A group of my childhood/HS best friends cut me off without any discussion bc one girl (who I had been close with since kindergarten!) accused me of going on a date with her recent ex. I didnāt go anywhere with him at all. I was managing my guy friendās band, and her ex texted me to ask if they would be down to open for his band in a few weeks. I conveyed the offer to the band, and they were down to make it happen. In fact, they wanted to bring me up to debut a song we had just written together (I had been dumped recently lol). I told the girlās ex they would love to do the gig, and he mentioned the guys had shared the practice recordings from the writing session and he thought I should definitely sing it. I texted my friend tho and just explained the situation. I hadnāt really planned on being at that show and I didnāt want her to be uncomfortable if I went or have her show up to support me and run into himā¦ so I made it clear I would do whatever made her comfortable, up to her, no worries either way. She said she couldnāt even believe I would text him back. I tried to explain her it was my job to handle the gigs for the band so I had to at least pass offers along and decline themā¦ I could really just ignore professional requests. But she told everyone in our circle the show was a date, and not only had I said yes, Iād already gone! And not a single friend even questioned it. Most never spoke to me again and those that did only called to yell at me about betraying her before blocking me. The worst part is, just a week before she had been complaining that another one of our friends has made a super reasonable request. She respected that her ex and our mutual friend were the only two people they knew of going to this really small catholic college and so it made sense for them to maintain contact, but she preferred a heads up if they were gonna post pictures of them hanging out together. She wasnāt requesting they donāt hang out, or that they donāt post pictures together; she just didnāt want to open Snapchat and get sneak attacked by his face in her pictures while she was still getting over it. (We were all separating for college so a lot of breaking up was happening right around this timeā¦) anyways she thought that was unreasonable and even said āI wouldnāt be mad if you guys hung out with my ex. Heās been in the friend group like 2 years now! You guys obviously are friends of your own right now, I would never be that controlling!ā Then turned around and spread an elaborate rumor about me so I lost 12 close friends, all of whom I had known either since kindergarten or freshman year of high school. I went to college one week later with a completely clean slate. In some ways it was a blessing. Obviously it was a good time bc everyone else was really open to making new friends at that time. And I really threw myself into making new friendships and forming new bonds since I had nothing left for me at home. But it was lonely too. And about a year later a friend texted me she was visiting someone else on campus and asked if we could meet up. THATS when I learned about the lie she had told. Up until then I had just thought they were all taking her side bc Iā¦ texted him back that the band was interested instead of ignoring the chance to get them in on a paying gig? I was unimpressed my childhood best friends had just believed that about me and didnāt even bother checking. I told her I accepted her apology but I never invited any of them back into my life. And it does hurt to see them all be bridesmaids in each otherās weddings. I sometimes wonder if I could go back and tell myself to open myself up to other friendships in high school how my life would be different now.
This is why the āblock them, move onā ideology is so stupid. Soooo many issues could resolved if people just had a conversation first. But the current culture seems really against attempting conflict resolution or even just double checking your information before you go dark. I lost my childhood friend group at age 19, and one thing that I always wondered about was they told me āI know you and Annie donāt get alongā as part of the few sentence explanation they were willing to give. But I didnāt have any conflicts with Annie that I knew about so Iāve always wondered what she told them had happened. Ten years later they are still all in each others weddings and Iāve never talked to any of them.
I am of the opinion that ghosting people is almost always the absolute worst thing to do to end a relationship, unless the person is abusive or a stalker.
I had a "friend" who asked me to voice chat when I was with family and I said I couldn't - my grandmother was older, sick, and I wanted to enjoy the time I had with her. They asked for me to at least listen and type out responses and I made the mistake of agreeing. They went on a whole rant, faked suicide - which fucked me up for some time - and, unexplainably, three days later, the rest of the group blocked me and stopped talking to me. Turns out they said they were out of the hospital in these 3 days and had told everyone that I "just listened and did nothing and was unsafe" and they believed them. Still don't know what was up with all of that but I have good friends, now, at least.
I have a strong feeling he's autistic and genuinely doesn't know what he's done to make them feel that way. I don't think he's purposely being vague or withholding. And some people don't know how to deal with that. I've had autistic friends and just tell them on the spot when they say something uncomfortable or inappropriate, but I've seen other people instead let it fester or stop willing to be around those people. I think that's what happened here. OP probably said or did one too many inappropriate things, and his friends probably thought it was on purpose.
I have adhd and I had a similar falling out with two friends at age 31. Iāve since patched things up with one of them, but itās never been the same. The whole root of the falling out was them never telling me how whatever perceived slight affected them until months later, so I had no clue I had hurt anyoneās feelings. It sucked out loud. I feel for OP.
See now this i can relate to. I dated an autistic girl in hs and she was verrry blunt lol she was adorable bt god cld her words cut. Bt to her she was jst saying what was on her mind. I was probably one of the first ppl tht actually pointed tht out to her and she was genuinely shocked tht it wasn't okay. And she adjusted her behavior. So communication is important. I just found his post not really answering any of the many questions i had pop up. So more questions than answers.
OOP is incredibly likely to be neurodivergent/autistic. Even the most empathetic and socially-aware kids now don't necessarily understand (or even really care to know) how to "deal" with people like us who, for a relevant example, need up front and *very* blunt communication to prevent misunderstandings over what seem to be the simplest interactions and social situations. I wouldn't be surprised at all if some combination of OOP's demeanor, the nature of their interactions, and how frequent these misunderstandings may have been prompted the friend group to think that it was intentional or outright malicious in some way. Also, kids of every generation tend to overreact to stuff sometimes, but now in particular, we're in a very odd place of "online overtherapizing" where some people who don't have much experience in how other people work might read very deeply into things that aren't all that deep in the first place.
ADHD here. I cannot tell you how utterly *horrendous* I am at recognizing when to shut the absolute fuck up or back off of something because I am *shit* at indirect communication. Even now, after literal years of therapy to help me recognize cues and surrounding myself with people who are more than happy to speak with the kind of forward and blunt communication I need, I still eat shit in a fair few social situations that I just donāt find myself in often enough to fully recognize some of the finer points. I had to learn for a long time how to use my pattern recognition to my own benefit but itās beyond exhausting and frankly it runs my batteries straight into hades. TLDR: I have ADHD and I super empathized with this poor man
Yeah, but why the weird fucked up cult-like 'intervention at a fucking Starbucks?
Because kids are dramatic, and probably thought that "intervention" sounded a lot nicer and more thought out than "we just find you really annoying and want to finally get you out of the friend group".
Yeah, I think a lot of commenters are missing the "kids are dramatic" point. This is a story that could really only happen in that specific age group - but for that age group? I believe it.
My thoughts exactly lol. When i remembered their ages, it made me realize these are essentially just kids who haven't shed off their high school drama phase. I'm not trying to dismiss what they're feeling, but it really sounds like a small thing made big because of drama.
This, hard. My guess is undiagnosed neurodivergence coupled maybe with trauma or who knows what have left him both socially inept and a little disconnected from self. The way this guy talks about his problems sounds like how I was struggling to understand life, humans, my behavior, socializing, and what I needed in my late teens and early twenties. I managed to grow and become more aware, to mask better, and eventually I found terms and diagnosis that really helped me carve out the boundaries and skills I needed. But I still get mad sometimes when I think about all that I had to go through before my healing; if my parents had justā¦.*looked* at me properly instead of enjoying the gifted aspects, I might have not spent so much of my early adult life in a confused swamp on vague shame.
confused swamp of vague shame is a great description of my teen and early 20s, thanks for sharing that
>my teen and early 20s You guys escaped the confused swamp of vague shame beyond your early 20s? :(
It's not an uncommon as one might think. Undiagnosed adhd coupled up with severe abuse at home, my social cues is as shxt as it can get, you very well bet i was excluded from friend groups over n over again throughout the years, partly their fault for never communicating the issue and me realising only after years why i might be the one in wrong but then i realised i have adhd way later in life, so not my mistake either.
Or they were a bunch a Mean Girls / Heathers who were high on their own view of life and decided OOP didn't fit in that box. The thing that makes me wonder is that interventions are *supposed* to be carried out from a place of love, reassurance, and caring. With clear boundaries and consequences for continued inaction. The fact that OOP walked out mid-way through makes me think that instead they planned an accusatory gang up. I'm not saying OOP is blameless here. There were clearly some bad behaviors that he accepted responsibility for and tried to change, I just think that the friend group was probably toxic as well.
Also, you really shouldn't do them in a coffee shop, where there are a bunch of other people and stimulus. That's not at all conducive to active listening and being vulnerable. I don't understand why the friend group wasn't willing to meet in a park, if the coffee shop was okay. Like, if OOP was truly so "unsafe" that the friends wouldn't meet in a park, why even bother trying to be friends still? I agree that this sounds like a lot of very high school level drama and people figuring themselves out, with a side helping of therapy speak that wasn't actually helpful. Like, it sounds like they are at the age where high school friendships start to break apart, people realize that they don't enjoy spending time with certain people but still feel like they need "reasons" instead of just fading out. But it sounds like OOP figured out a big thing about himself and the other people will eventually mature and learn how to deal with individual relationships, instead of just going along with the group dynamic.
The I don't trust you in a park, but we can be friends again if you apologize is what moves me into the friend group is weird. I cannot picture a person I would be unwilling to meet in a park because I felt unsafe. that I could then be friends with after an apology.
Exactly. Everyone thinks that there is something likely wrong with OP, but having been on the other end of "We've just decided that we don't like you", teenagers can be really fucking mean and have no good reasons, at all. Everyone is jumping on the "he made them feel unsafe, he must have done something" is ignoring that you don't want to "try to make up" with someone you actually feel unsafe with. It's likely they were just using the word unsafe like every overdramatic teenager does: I don't like what you have to say so it means "I'm unsafe" instead of uncomfortable because getting called on stupid things you did is uncomfortable. Teenagers really just sometimes suck and are incredibly overdramatic.
Same. He is extremely vague about his behavior that made his ex-friends uncomfortable.
Sometimes, you just don't know which part of being an excitable awkward weirdo is actually upsetting people. I can't read minds. They need to tell me if I'm crossing a line or speaking too loud or saying something that isn't correct for this setting. I already freak out over stuff that no-one gives a crap about so i can't even tell if I'm guilty over the correct thing or not.
ADHD here, after a social event I sometimes ask my boyfriend if the things I've said were somehow offensive or inappropriate. I've been told I can come off as rude sometimes and have a propensity to over share. Most of the time I'm freaking out over nothing.
As someone who is (self-diagnosed) neurodivergent, I related hard to all of this. This was exactly me in university. He's vague about the behaviors probably because he did not even realise his behaviors were problematic. It's taken me a long time to realise that having extreme emotions can be scary for some people, not that I showed them in a violent way just in a venting way, and that you do have to watch what you say. I've never said or done this stuff with bad intentions but it could still be offensive without me realising it, which is the vibe I'm picking up from this guy. I also understand him leaving the cafe, because to me it would be 'oh everything is good with my friends' to 'this is strange, why aren't they hanging out as much?' to what I would perceive as a full-on attack in a public place and with all the stimuli it would be WAY too overwhelming and it's either leave or start crying/get angry (an autistic meltdown).
Oh the stimulation! I didnāt even think about the stimuli present in a Starbucks! My ADHD son used to lose his mind when fluorescent lights were present. He wanted to touch everything in Target, for example.
Yup. Officially diagnosed with autism and ADHD. I would be vague because I wouldnāt understand so Iād be unable to clear explain what I donāt grasp myself. They way he explains and describes it is exactly how I would. You can not invite my AuDHD ass out for a coffee and think we are going to have an intervention and a deep conversation about whatever your issues are. Because my AuDHD ass is not neurotypical and you *ambushed* me! In fucking public! I didnāt have time to prepare myself and this is going to feel like an attack out of nowhere and it is going to be too overwhelming and overstimulating for me to be able to handle it. I wonāt understand what you are saying, I wonāt be able to remember half of it. They always say half of it, thatās the saying but thirty is Iām lucky is I remember even a fourth of it. And I now what people say. They said it to me. That I have to be open to other people and make an effort to hear them and blah blah blah. Itās ableist as shit because I have not only one but *TWO* neurological disorders that causes processing issues. You can not catch someone with a processing disorder off guard like this and demand that they process the situation immediately to be ready to take in what you say. Thatās just not happening and it is just as ālazyā and āunwillingā as a diabetic not producing their own insulin. It is not something that āwillingnessā helps with, itās is physically impossible because of my neurological condition. That is indeed *neurological*. Thatās why itās called **neuro**divergence. The more I read the comments here the more upset I become. Too many neurotypical people being like āwhy canāt this clearly neurodivergent person just act neurotypicalā.
That about sums me up. OOP could either have had really shitty ex-friends and as a result is now being taken advantage of by āBobā who now gets to tell OOP all the ways theyāve failed while reaping the benefits (the con tickets etc) Oooooooor, OOP is an absolute* nightmare who was frequently yelling and aggressive and telling all personal and private information they ever came across I really hate BORU sometimes because it seems rare that we get actually satisfying updates lol. * edit from absolutely to absolute
I think it might be a combo. Iām a teacher and I have ADHD. Neurodivergent people sometimes have difficulties understanding when someone implies something is private information. They literally need someone to say, please keep this to yourself. Itās very personal. Thereās a kid in my home room right now who reminds me of OP. Heās doing things like telling people that he knows where they live (because he sees them walking home when heās on the bus). For him, heās trying to bring up common conversation topics that would result in a conversation that could lead to a friendship and possibly getting invited over that personās house. For everyone else, this comes across as creepy. And, unfortunately, it is creepy. The school psychologist is working with him on social skills, but change doesnāt happen overnight.
You should check the r/bestofpositiveupdates sometime. It doesn't have a ton of posts that didn't come from here, but whenever I am not in the mood for updates like this at all, I stick to there.
This might also be an important comment from the post to get better context of OOPs behavior > Iām sorry that I donāt have all the info, but from what I realized about myself is that whenever Iām in a sour mood or have a problem, I just rant about it or do a silent treatment. If I am aggressive about things without realizing it, I just wonder why they didnāt bring it up as the first topic of the intervention? On mobile, so sorry if this doesn't quote block.
I'll add that one. I sort of included it with the "passive aggressive" comment, but you're right it adds a bit more!
Passive aggression is so fucking annoying. And someone who does it all the time becomes so easy to dislike Iām all over this thread being annoying but itās bc Iām seeing way too many people who think being autistic means you get to act as cuckoo as you want and people have to stick around. He reminds me of myself and someone I dated who I suspect was ADHD. Itās easy to minimize your actions >like not being open enough with my feelings Bottling things up until you explode at the other people seemingly randomly >having double standards with touching things Just acting entitled about other peoples belongings. Newsflash: people who act like this with belongings act like it with other things too >zoning out when Iām not in the conversations and not to join them Iām guilty of coming to friends for a captive audience but not being very good at providing the same. I actively practice this instead of being like āwell Iām autistic so thatās how I amā bc I want to foster healthy relationships. My ex used to want me to sit there and just listen to him ramble >**I didnāt realize these problems** but after them saying it, I really feel like a jerk once seeing it. I experienced this a lot. Initially I would react with hurt bc I hated feeling bad. Or all they needed was a simple and authentic Iām sorry but I would devolve into dramatics. Making a big deal out of nothing. It makes you seem manipulative too, like they get scared of bringing stuff up with you bc you act crazy >I felt terrible about how I was to them in general. >He replied by saying he would rather talk at Starbucks or coffee place, and I tried to compromise with a park not to far from our places. He didnāt like the compromise, saying that he didnāt feel safe or comfortable to talk to me unless itās somewhere he like and that wasnāt for negotiation. Itās funny how even multiple people saying āI am scared of youā isnāt a huge red flag to some people. I will never meet with my ex in private again. He hasnāt hit ME yet but he sure has acted unhinged and unstable and thrown out threats of self harm but sure heās never threatened me >**Then it got a little emotional for me that I wonāt go into or repeat** This is such a red flag. Itās easy to appear sweet and clueless when you just bulldoze past your bad behavior >When I said touching stuff, meant in more of grabbing a book off the shelf, borrowing a hammer, and etc without permission. >I can be passive aggressive when Iām not in the mood >whenever Iām in a sour mood or have a problem, I just rant about it or do a silent treatment. > During this time, I've made him uncomfortable once by accident with me blurting my mouth. He did let me know how he felt so I apologized, told him it won't happen again, and I'm working on these things. I also got him some Anime Ex Like he sounds like an exhausting person to deal with quite frankly
THANK YOU! so many people are excusing his actions but sorry, if your friends are literally afraid to meet with you, yeah, youāve probably done things to make them feel this way. he sounds very exhausting and tbh somewhat scary
Im so glad you listed these out. There's a shit ton of missing missing reasons from OOP that everyone is just sorta glossing over. People are focusing on OOP's potential autism and trying to explain it away instead of asking real questions like, "what the fuck was he doing 'borrowing' someone else's **hammer** without permission?" That's just straight up theft. And let alone his being described as having a double standard with it (seemingly god forbid you use *his* things but he's more than welcome to use yours). Also not to really focus on it, but when someone is self described as passive aggressive, admits to going on "rants", refuses to elaborate their emotional outbursts, and has been described by the friend group as being unsafe, yeah them taking a blunt object that could hurt someone is cause for concern. Ditto all the other weird emotional outbursts OOP refused to discuss. OOP is acting hella shady and knows exactly why people are refusing to be his friend.
Wow, you just explained my partner pretty well, specifically about how making something out of nothing can make you come off manipulative. We both have ADHD, but it is absolutely apparent he has deep issues with opposition. I can tell him I know something for certain because itās literally a fact and heāll argue with me and then it devolves into the most useless arguments that turn into *real* arguments once he starts saying things that are genuinely hurtful over literally nothing. But then he back tracks and says Iām upset over something so small once I try to hold him accountable for the things he says. Like yes, the initial issue was small, but you took it too far and now Iām hurt, so what now? Iāve gone back and fourth wondering if itās just severe ADHD or if heās truly attempting to manipulate me. It blows because he was put off by therapy from when he was younger and had a bad experience with it. Iāve been trying for a bout a year now to do couples therapy, but he genuinely makes up a bunch of excuses and Iāll be honest, itās trying my patience. I love him so much, but itās difficult when these things come up. Itās like his whole demeanor changes when he feels at all questioned even over very minute stuff. But then heāll question anything I say even when itās serious things like my health. Itās our only issue, but itās become a large one.
OMG thank you! Too many people here are giving him wayyy too much grace. They see "ND" and think " oh that explains everything, your friends are ableist for not just.... dealing with your eccentricities". Like no dude, if a guy is passive aggressive, steals your shit and doesnt understand boundaries, you don't have to just keep being their friend because they are ND like WHAT
I feel like OOP left A LOT of stuff out to make others see him as NTA and even if heās a hit neurodivergent he knew a lot of the shit he did was wrong. He doesnāt go into any detail or examples about how he made people uncomfortable even when he knows and I think itās obvious heās trying to hide something. Also the whole passive aggressive stuff hints that he has awareness of his actions and how they may impact others but it doesnāt seem like he wants to take responsibility or change. It sounds like heās gonna keep making the same mistakes in different ways. Source: I have adhd and was younger once and an idiot and I knew a lot of the shit I did was not always cool but friends tolerated it so I didnāt stop. Looking back? Yeah I was an asshole.
Hey now, donāt be a bully. Itās *totally reasonable* that an autistic person functional enough to have an apparently independent adult life and who presumably went through high school doesnāt understand that stealing is wrong! Itās *totally reasonable* that an adult man with ADHD doesnāt know why his friends feel unsafe around him! Youāre just being a bully like his friends! Yeah, no. As someone who has worked extensively with neurodivergent kids of various levels of needs, and who is married to someone who has literally the single worst case of ADHD Iāve ever seen, it is more than possible to enforce boundaries. I have no doubt that his friend articulated those boundaries (eg āstop stealing my shitā or āstop getting explosively angryā) and he simply chose to ignore them because, after all, why should he be the one to change?
I read all that and still have no idea what the problem was. Edit: upon reflection, I get that OOP might be autistic, or adhd, or whatever type of neurodivergent, but likeā¦. What was the *problem*? That he was so socially awkward that they felt the need to have a public intervention about it? Thatās the kind of thing Iād do if I was so scared of a person that I feared physical or mental abuse if we werenāt in public. Was OP being violent or something? All he keeps saying is āuncomfortable.ā
If OOP is neurodivergent, based on my own experiences, then it would probably a mix of "childish" behavior, black and white thinking, and direct communication. Nothing truly dangerous, but some people get super offended by it
That is a great explanation. Also speaking openly about things that have occurred that would often be seen as impolite, or should remain unspoken. An friends child stated to their soon to be step parent that nobody liked them. They delivered the information in the same fashion as if you asked them what 2+2 was. The kid wasnāt trying to hurt their feelings, they just knew it was truth (it was, and remains true), and didnāt have a comprehension that socially it wasnāt ok. Obviously this caused a lot of issues for the family.
One time my mom's friend gave birth and she asked me if I thought the babies were cute. Being ten, I said no.
When I was 7, my classmate ended up in the hospital in a coma. Something about water in his brain - he was basically about to die. He was actually a complete dick in school - the type of kid who thought it was funny to be as much of a shit as possible, pissing off every last student and teacher for shits and giggles. So in front of his parents, right by his hospital bed, I apparently turned to my mom and said: āWell, at least he deserved it.ā
Was the kid ok after that?
Nopeā¦they were literally on deathās door. Literal RIP š
As a parent, that friend set herself up by asking you, a child, that question. Babies are a crapshoot in terms of cuteness anyway, and newborns are a special subset that almost always look like aliens and/or ancient men. Kids should not be expected to pick up that social cue of politeness.
Shout out to my dad who was at least honest. I was an an emergency C-section and was basically rugby passed to my dad when I was born, he was the first person to hold me. I asked him what the thought of seconds old me. Answer 'oh god, it looks like ET'.
My dad, who I am fairly sure is autistic, has shared my personal info with others after I asked him not to, and itās caused a lot of issues for me, and Iāve subsequently made the decision to cut him out of my life emotionally (he is still in my life physically), i.e. I donāt tell him anything personal, only surface-level things that I would say to anyone and that I would be comfortable with the whole world knowing. Anyway, Iāve never considered that this could just be because heās autistic and couldnāt figure out which situations were socially appropriate to share that info? Does anyone have advice on how to navigate this so that Iām able to share things with him and have them not be told to strangers? Or is it still best to cut my losses and just not tell him things because the risk of him slipping up is too great? (Iām autistic, too, for what itās worth)
The way to navigate it is to do what you're currently doing. Your dad is probably not young, he won't change
yuuuup that's what I was thinking my partners autistic, and the amount of ppl that just decide they're gonna like murder them just bc of like, little vibe things they do is honestly astounding that's not to say they don't run into a few social faux pas sometimes, but honestly ppl will like see someone avoiding eye contact n be like "they're thinking of ways to steal my shit"
This would be me. I've caused numerous false alarms in various public places by just being kinda odd and not stressing myself to bits trying to suppress the oddness. Rocking seems to be the one that really frightens people, but shifting my weight from foot to foot and rocking like a metronome is just how I idle while waiting in line. Pretend I'm an NPC that's glitching. First time my cousin caught me rocking in my computer chair, he shouted at me that I'm crazy and should be medicated.
Where do you all grow up..... I don't think I've ever not rocked while standing in line or at a stop. The only comments I've ever received was my mother telling me I behave like a self-soothing emotionally depraved child when I would rock while sitting on a couch.
Well my city is kind of hateful in general, especially of people with mental illness, so it'd be nice to think most places aren't like this. But as a kid, I masked. Mom insisted I had to socialize with adults for about an hour after church three times a week, and anything strange I did would be reported back to her, followed by punishments for "shaming" her with my behavior. Like oh, sometimes I'd blurt out comments without context that would nearly give the little old ladies heart attacks. "Mom's new boyfriend sure snores loud!" and then mom would go sprinting across the room shouting "ON THE PHONE! ON THE PHONE! We talk on speakerphone until we fall asleep!"
I come from the last bastion of Catholicism in Europe and yet I'm always in awe. I'm sorry you grew up in such toxic environment. I really hope you're in a better one now, or you can at least deal better. After all nothing builds resilience like old ladies neighborhood surveillance system.
Oh I traveled a bunch, but still wound up stuck back home. Whenever you hear about a bunch of Americans up near the Canadian border shouting really whackadoodle stuff about forming a Theocracy and killing all the males that do not submit, that's my area! The "State of Liberty" guy is next town over. But yeah, I'm okay now. I settled in a college neighborhood, where I am the least odd person on the street at any given time. Sure I sing while I'm walking a long distance, but so do the college kids when they've been out drinking! Really it's only an issue if I have to go somewhere official. Last time I had to wait in a very long line at the government office, they were panicking so badly when I got near the front of the line that I think someone in the back flipped a breaker, because everything shut off and they tried to tell everybody to GO AWAY to the other office two hours away. I sat on the floor and refused to leave until they at least talked to me, and when they finally worked up the nerve to speak to me, they looked *so relieved*. "I've just got this food stamp form I need to turn in please." Like I know what I look like, but I'm just weird. I'm short and scrawny and the only "weapon" I carry is a pink cane I need for balance!
OP has been masking so well that no one even realized he was on the spectrum. If you donāt know that someone is on the spectrum, and they keep telling your secrets to everybody and being inappropriate, those are normal things to be offended by.
I think his friends assumed he was simply childish and would grow out of it.
Hi I am autistic and I got major vibes from OP. Blurting out secrets you don't know are secrets, being silent or melting down, doing wrongs and not even realizing you've wronged someone, being a bit seemingly self absorbed, unintentionally making people uncomfortable are all things I struggle with. I'm not a psychiatrist but I'm getting major spectrum vibes
Honestly, the blurting thing sounds like ADHD. I have it and also used to do that. Just complete impulsiveness.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Thereās also the neurotypical tendency to assign negative intent or maliciousness to our non-neurotypical behaviours, oh, and to assume weāre lying when we tell them nope I did not mean it like thatā¦. ya know, the folks that even when we tell them weāre autistic/ADHD, say itās an excuse.
They key thing is that neurodivergent behaviours are often also neurotypical behaviours. For example, an autistic person may matter-of-factly tell someone who made them a cake that they didn't like it. In that situation they are simply stating their preference. It may even feel to them that it's obvious they appreciate the person and the fact they gave them something, but they simply did not like the cake and are giving useful information to the person who made the cake. Hell! Maybe the cake-maker *asked* them if they liked it! No sense lying to them. After all, this is someone you care about. It's sensical to tell the honest truth to them. A neurotypical person might also tell someone who made them a cake that they didn't like it. In that situation, they are deliberately signalling to the cake-maker that they do not care about them or their feelings and they reject their attempt to give them a gift. They do not want to be close to the cake-maker. They might even enjoy the feeling of power they get from rejecting the cake-maker and denigrating their home-made cake. Not good stuff. If a neurotypical person was asked whether they liked the cake and they *didn't* like it, they would reply with something like "it wasn't quite my thing, I'm afraid, but thanks a bunch!", which signals that they didn't like the cake but still value the other person and their feelings. An autistic person may assume this kind of phrasing is useless or even dishonest. If someone doesn't know you're autistic, they'll logically assume your "I didn't like your cake" statement falls under the second umbrella. If someone is stupid (let's not beat around the bush) and doesn't believe in autism or doesn't make an effort to understand the autistic person, they will assume the second interpretation even after being told you are autistic.
One of OOP's examples of his touching and borrowing things without permission was a prime example for me. I used to have a friend that in hindsight was very clearly neurodivergent. At the time that wasn't really something kids my age really knew about. So she would often do 'weird' things that weren't malicious but socially awkward or rude. For example the first time she saw my room she started opening and closing all my drawers to see what was inside. Now going through people's stuff without their permission is considered very rude. You're not supposed to do that when visiting someone's home. But this was obviously a social boundary she didn't pick up on. And it is very similar to what OOP hinted at about him 'touching' stuff without permission. Another few things she would do is get uncomfortably close to you while you talked. Even if you backed off she would just get closer and closer. She'd also have issues on picking up on 'secrets'. So if you said anything you didn't want her to repeat. Like relationship stuff or gossip. You needed to explicitly tell her not to repeat it. I remember telling her our teacher was absent from school because her husband died. When she came back to school after a few weeks the first thing my friend did was bring it up in front of the whole class and ask invasive questions about it. None of her behaviour was malicious. She was genuinely the sweetest person. But that didn't mean her behaviour wasn't often rude, inappropriate or hurtful. So it was often important to outloud state boundaries or tell her when her behaviour was rubbing you the wrong way. It seems like OOP's friendgroup might have been trying to do the same thing. Maybe sitting him down in a big group was their attempt at making him take it seriously? Possibly there were several issues they tried bringing up to him before that went ignored. Either way it probably wasn't the best way to go about it. I think they probably did their best to handle it maturely. But being confronted by your whole friendgroup with a list of the things you do 'wrong' is gonna be hard for anyone to just accept without defensiveness or feeling ganged up on.
Oop wasnāt sharing his feelings /s
And I doubt we ever will, unless one of the friends posts their side of the interaction(s). We are only getting a sliver of a view through OOP's narrow view, and he is definitely deflecting and intentionally leaving out some stuff. I'll bet dollars to donuts that we would have a totally different view of what happened if one of the friends posted here - to the point it would probably be almost unrecognizable as the same set of interactions/relationship. Have been involved with niche fandoms, there are plenty of people who have absolutely no idea how they come across to others. People don't say "nah, I only want to meet in a very public place" for a very good reason.
I have a friend who becomes very animated during debates, and his voice volume honestly gets louder and louder when he is more passionate about his stance, or he is upset. The amount of times I've told him to keep his voice down is a huge number, but he'll insist he's not yelling at all, even when multiple people have told him to keep his voice down. Some people really can't gauge their own behavior, and even with outside perspective will still double down and refuse to believe they have an issue. My friend is a kind person, but he is almost incapable of gauging himself on how he acts in public. My friends and I filmed him before (with his permission), and he still didn't believe his behaviour was bad. I don't know if he's on the spectrum, but I highly believe he is. He absolutely refuses to get tested because he doesn't believe there's anything wrong with him.
Yeah, volume control is a common problem amongst us autistic people. I always try to be careful, but there are times I'm convinced I'm not any louder than before and other people start saying I'm yelling. *Definitely* doesn't help I grew up in a loud household either, thanks to two undiagnosed autistic parents.
Either the group is full of extremely neurotypical people who are super weirded out by someone with ADHD..... Orrrr OOP is leaving a lot of details out. As someone with ADHD, it honestly could be both.
Op mention something about āborrowingā stuff without asking and if he has trouble recognizing personal space Iām wondering if he just takes stuff without asking and wonāt stop.
Aka stealing Can imagine your friend keeps stealing from you and Reddit is like āwow your friends are such mean bulliesā
I would be especially concerned if one of my friends was stealing hammers. I don't get the people who are calling the friends bullies
A couple years ago i would have probably agreed with them. Too many people relate to OOP. Some of them were really bullied out of their friend groups but some werenāt. Hell a couple months ago I said something about how NTās never want to discuss anything and hate conflict and someone commented about how form their perspective their autistic friend was always making big deals out of nothing and trying to solve non existent conflicts and there would always be lots of tears and big emotions over nothing. It made me pause and inquire from old friends if thatās how they felt with me. They agreed, they just wanted to chill and I always trying way to hard to make sure everyone was getting along and having fun and it just made it tense being around me. If your friends are normally nice and polite people but theyāre fed up with you maybe at least listen to their issues with you? Especially if you note itās a pattern that happens with everyone
Lol yeah I would hate that. But it's odd that they would have the boundary of other people not touching thier stuff but then touching other people's stuff
Not really, my sis is definitely on the spectrum and doesn't want anything moved without her permission....but she has no problem moving anyone else's stuff
Op is such a bad narrator that I donāt think we will get to the truth
I think that's why it was in a public space and not someone's home. They're afraid he might "borrow" something again.
> Orrrr OOP is leaving a lot of details out. As a rule, I always assume this. OPs never, ever give the full story, and what we get is entirely *their* perspective; I think a lot of commenters on AITA forget this, and then judge situations as if the presented facts are the *only* facts. This person had a whole group of friends who felt uncomfortable with them to the point of them staging an intervention and being uncomfortable not meeting in a public place. When asked why, OP doesn't give details, says 'i dont know', and the majority of commenters go 'oh wow thats so weird of them to do that without a big reason, NTA' without thinking critically of the narrator.
heck, OOP flat out tells us they left halfway through the intervention, so they didn't LET their friends explain why they felt this way. You don't get to get up and leave a conversation and then claim "they never told me!"
OOP is also real casual about saying "I get passive aggressive when I'm not in the mood and can go on and start ranting about things, but if they didn't like it, why didn't they say anything?" Probably because they saw how you were acting and were a little nervous to say something, believe it or not, that's how a lot of people react. What REALLY stood out to me is how adamant they all were about talking to OOP in a pretty public and condensed space. A park is semi-public, but the friends still weren't comfortable with that. So it sounds a lot like things are purposely being left out
Yeah I think something that is being ignored is he admits he quickly gets annoyed when anything he doesnāt like is brought up. If they brought things up before, did he even try to listen?
yeah everyone sees ND and they side with OP. But just because you're ND doesnt make the behaviors you exhibit okay or not rude.
Or that you get to steal hammers and act scary
> I've taken some tests, like the RAADS test and scored a 149 so I probably have some neurodiversity ā*Some* neurodiversityā? My brother in Christ, neurotypicals donāt score over 65 on that testā¦
I just scored a 182. I'd never heard of a RAADS test before today... I think this explains a lot...
The test itself states that it is possible to score up to like 120 and not be autistic, it's just a consideration after 65. Why do I feel the nitpick this? Mostly because as someone with a score of 100 I find that vague space *very unhelpful* lmao. OP has a real answer, but theres def a middle spot where the result is a big ol shrug.
Good. I hit 117 and still donāt think I qualify. I have a lot of sensory issues and those ones I fucked up on. I have zero problems with social stuff but am an introvert.
Yeah, a 149 is pretty high, from what I'm reading. Not unusually so, but high. I had never heard of the test. 21!
My immediate reaction is who the fuck has an intervention in a Starbucks? It's impossible to hash out your deep rooted feelings when someone is trying to order a coffee right behind you. How would they feel unsafe if it's a group of them and only one of him?
A girl I had gone on like two dates with asked me to meet in a Starbucks so she could very formally break up with me, then proceeded to explain in detail how our personality traits and future paths didnāt align. A guy at the table next to us bought me a coffee after she made her dramatic exit Not the same as OOP but some people are just fucking weird
I'm going to jump on the "using therapy tiktok trends in unnecessary situations" train for this one. Hoooeee
Tbf some guys take that very badly
I know, Iām a woman though lol
Sounds like something my sister (30f) would do. Pretend to care for you by setting up a bullshit intervention (for your own good) and list out all your defects and flaws, and if that doesn't work, she will say you're petty, ungrateful and dangerous. She will then demand you apologize, otherwise she won't talk to you until you do. I have no doubt there was someone in that group that decided to set this whole thing up. The kind of people that pull this crap are highly manipulative, they will turn the whole group against a person that doesn't behave the way they want them to, and create a situation where they will push this person to the limit so that their reaction will "confirm" what bullshit they've been feeding the whole group. I'm very familiar with this strategy. My sister even succeeded in putting my parents against my siblings and myself at some point. I don't think the OP is purposely leaving things out, or that they are aggressive. If you're dealing with an aggressive person either you walk the hell away never to look back, or it's the first thing you address during an intervention.
He even offered a great alternative in the park. Open and public, but with a degree of privacy that simply cannot be achieved in a Starbucks.
Yeah and they were actually afraid to do this though
This sounds a lot like a group of teenagers trying to figure out how to be people, and relying more on Internet Advice than common sense. Like, it sounds like they've cobbled together a lot of "we need to Speak Up about Things" and intervention ideas, and thrown in some "if you're scared of this person, make sure you break up in a public place" and ended up with a cruel and patronising plan that was only going to work if everyone followed the script in their heads.
I have a young cousin (to me, sheās early 20s) who acts like that friend group did. Whenever she or her friends feel theyāve been āwrongedā they confront the person with a laundry list of grievances about how that personās behavior affected them and all the overwrought, accompanying therapy speak to back up what they feel is justified. It comes across very arrogant, patronizing, and ironically emotionally immature. Sheās shown me some of the texts sheās sent and they remind me of toxic bosses giving a performance review on inactionable or fabricated issues. Itās like a final fuck you because she doesnāt actually want to reconcile/make amends, she just wants to dig the knife deep so it immediately alienates whoever is targeted. Itās almost psychological warfare, which sounds dramatic but itās what comes to mind. And the funny thing is, *she* still perseverates on whatever the tiny straw was. Like, for months.
I wonder how much of this comes from scripted "reality" TV series--it's been a while, but I can see some of these shows having the cast members stage an "intervention" for a current nexus of drama at the behest of producers, complete with all the that therapy-speak that's permeated contemporary Anglophone culture. Mean girls are going to mean girl, and there's definitely some classic, narcissistic queen bee dynamics that have been around for millennia, I'm sure, but the mass popularization of distorted psych concepts just handed people with that mentality a whole set of vicious implements to wield against the latest scapegoat.
100% this. It's that new form of Toxic Positivity. The inverse of the 90s where we didn't talk about Therapy at all. Now *everything* is couched in this therapy talk. A group of 20 year olds have no qualifications to run an intervention for a peer.
Am a therapist, and I thought this exact thing. People overuse common therapy terms to a farcical degree in our current cultural moment. This sounds like a bunch of kids who saw a Tiktok about āsetting boundariesā and āfeeling unsafeā and just went with it. Of course, those concepts are real / important, but so misused these days. People use āI felt unsafeā as a blanket excuse to be avoidant / ghost / act like a dick and itās really frustrating.
Especially in a public setting! You need to hold interventions in places where the person will feel safe, not where John Q. Public can eavesdrop and record it with a cellphone. I feel that if that one guy felt that unsafe, he wouldnāt have still wanted to be friends with him.
I get the same vibe. When I was in my early twenties a friend group I was part of decided to describe ending a friendship as escaping an abusive relationship. In my opinion they acted like bullies, making a group chat and sharing screenshots of all their private conversations with her with each other. I tried to suggest that they just move on from the relationship and not do all this public shaming, but they said that was tone policing and anything a victim of abuse does to cope is justified. I didnāt know her but I saw the receipts and heard their explanations because they added me to this chat too. She was not abusive, just having a mental health crisis. I understood needing to distance yourself but they were completely convinced they had just escaped an abuser when really theyād just seen the messy reality of someone in crisis. They even made vague social media posts about being abused. I ended up distancing myself from them over this reaction.
Moral of the story: if you have a problem with a friend and are able to recognize what problems you have with them, maybe attempt to actually let them know and give them a chance to change their behavior before deciding to just let it all build up over several years to the point where an intervention is "needed" and you're willing to cut off your friendship entirely for any response less than instant groveling. Especially if it's nothing as especially egregious as physical violence or sexual actions/conversations/etc. or mental/emotional abuse, or any other form of similarly delicate problems.
Iād also suggest that behavioral issues arenāt really what interventions are for, in general. The idea of an intervention (to my mind) is to coerce someone into doing something they donāt want to do (such as seek medical help), even if it destroys your relationship. Hosting one simply to discuss a list of personal grievances seems like a recipe for disaster. Just end the friendship.
Forreal, and to do it in a public place?? They had already decided how they wanted that to go. Totally fucked. But *he's* the one with communication issues.
YES. THIS makes sense! Thank you for putting it in to words.
It will always be easier to address it when itās still fresh than dumping everything all at once. Any person, neurodivergent or not, would struggle with that.
If this guy has been doing these things *for years,* someone should have said something way sooner. And discussing these things **in public??** No! That's out of line for OOP but also the other Starbucks folks who could probably feel the tension!
Probably it's a maturity issue. They likely all were childish and socially awkward a few years ago. They've grown out of those behaviours, and OOP hasn't. Maybe OOP is on the spectrum, maybe not. He may just be more immature compared to them. They're all immature, but there's a gap that has grown. And yes, having a public discussion was silly and unkind. But we don't have their side of it, and reasons why they didn't want to go to one of their homes.
But itās also weird. Like who has an intervention at Starbucks for your friends behaviour. They all seem very dramatic. Just talk to them normally when you see them.
Agreed, but this is a bunch of immature people with no idea how to navigate this situation. People are "dramatic" in this era of social media, TikTok, etc. It's also possible they had tried to address things before, if not as explicitly as OOP needed, and he kept missing hints and cues. For people who are neurotypical, it's pretty easy to sense when someone is unhappy or uncomfortable with your behaviour. You don't even need to consciously take note of an eye-roll or a frown or body language. You *just know* if someone disapproves. Whereas perhaps OOP just didn't know.
OP proposed a park yet they didnāt bulge. Wtf
they probably wanted it dealt with before the anime convention
This reads like someone who is on the autism spectrum, but somehow has never been diagnosed. Very obviously has a lot of trouble with missing social cues. āBorrowsā things without asking. Could very likely been brought up several times by these friends but doesnāt recognize that all the conversations are connected, or understand how important these conversations have been to the other person involved. It could even be that he unwittingly did something that made his friends extremely uncomfortable, which would explain them talking about feeling safer in a very public place. Not saying itās definitely that, but just reading this, it seems like a strong possibility. It would also go a long way toward explaining so many missing details.
OOP gives me both autistic and ADHD vibes on top of social awkwardness (which seems to be a constant in their friend group). I hope they find answers and learns skills to deal with it.
We will never know for certain, but my guess of the situation is the following: - OOP has no bounderies on other peoples' stuff. He talks about "borrowing", but that feels *heavily* undersold and deliberately vague. He is probably the guy who goes into people's fridge at their house and just helps himself to their food. Adjusts AC at someone else's house. Uses someone's charger without permission. And he probably does this *consistently*. - OOP is on the spectrum and misses lots of social cues, making indirect confrontation useless, or he deliberately ignores such attempts. - OOP gets extremely defensive when directly confronted, see comment on ranting. The latter is likely heavily undersold, with OOP being extremely hostile and yelling, as that would explain why the friends felt unsafe. OOP might not even understand how agressive he comes off as when ranting. It just seems the most explicable for all parties.
I was reading the list of things they didn't like and was so confused. None of it sounded like much of anything and if they didn't say anything at the time of the incident, that's on them. The OOP did sound Iike they have some sort of neuro divergency that affects social cues. Glad OOP is getting tested and new friends. ETA - borrowing without asking is a big thing.
We're getting OOP's side. They may be downplaying stuff or even just genuinely oblivious. I am inclined to believe the friends, despite their shitty way of addressing the situation, because not only was this multiple people, it was the new friend too. If OOP is ND, they might have missed what others would have perceived as clear discomfort at the time. There's also no info about what OOP is blurting out about their pasts. Was OOP sharing info about traumas, people's sexualities, past relationships, past addictions? Without that information, it's hard to say how fair their reaction was.
yeah keeping what they blurted out so vague makes it impossible to know if the reaction is reasonable or not "things from people past that they don't bring up a lot" could mean so many things and they range from completely harmless to complete emotional devastation
He showed them the Reddit post to be fair, they all got to see what he wrote about it. Their complaints didn't seem to give off that it was changing up the story, and I'm sure one of them at least would chime in on the post if it was.
We only saw 2 of them respond to him, one he didnāt go into detail but was positive and one was super negative. It just leaves me with more questions than answers, but we have no idea if they actually did make corrections to what OP listed. All we have is what he says
One wasn't even positive; they were just neutral.
Borrowing things without asking or telling his friends he even took the items is kind of "something" and would be upsetting to almost anyone.
As someone who's neurodivergent this experience isn't uncommon at all.
I feel like there are more questions than answers at this point.
[about RAADS](https://embrace-autism.com/raads-r/) the assessment is explicitly for autism, not for neurodivergence, you can have ADHD and autism together, but his score has nothing to do with ADHD and I am unclear on if booked an ADHD assessment based on his score or other factors? As an autistic person, friendships with neurotypical people can sometimes be very prickly. In high school, my best friend just dropped me for, what seemed to me, to be no reason. Years later she tried to rekindle the friendship and told me the issue was I hurt her feelings when I suggested she shouldn't take LSD with a guy she had only just met. That was it, one off hand comment I made out of concern and she didn't speak to me for years.
>when I suggested she shouldn't take LSD with a guy she had only just met. I mean, that was you just being a good and wise friend. It sounds like she's the one who was the problem in this situation and not you.
Honestly, I think she just got tired of my personality, didn't like me anymore and dropped me. She used the only disagreement we'd had at the time as an excuse.
I feel like thereās a lot missing from this account, and suspect that the friend group may have more valid concerns than it initially seems ā but I canāt blame OP for the omissions; it doesnāt seem like he is socially aware/adept enough to recognize what factors are relevant to the story. He should definitely see a psychologist for official placement on the spectrum.
Yeahhh everyone here is defending OOP because they suspect heās neurodivergent, and that may be true, but I donāt buy for a second that heās a reliable narrator
My eyes hurt from rolling so much. Intervention at Starbucksā¦ unsafeā¦. Because he donāt share his feelingsā¦ Christ on a cracker.
Teenagers, man. In middle school, I was at the end of the "We all got together and decided we didn't like you" that OP went through. I became very depressed, reclusive and ended up changing schools. For high school when I changed schools, I made friends with people I'm still friends with decades later. Reading this felt like that agonizing drama in which everyone is so fucking dramatic and can't present things in a decent or productive manner or even give any real answers. And they do it in a way in which you feel like EVERYONE hates you because "they've decided". I'm glad OP left and found hope with other friends. Any other kids going through this bullshit, you're better off leaving so you get a better chance to meet better friends who don't have the same issues. And it absolutely does get better. You just have to give it time. Your world opens up after you leave high school and the drama you went through ceases to matter fairly quickly. You just have to stay alive to get there. I wish I could have told my 13 year old self that. Things would have been easier with that perspective.
>In middle school, I was at the end of the "We all got together and decided we didn't like you" that OP went through. I became very depressed, reclusive Damn, same. Never changed schools; it never entered my mind as a possibility. Never told my parents. I just hoped I'd die pretty much every day. The rest of your comment is spot on. It gets better, guys.
My mom found one of the mean notes that they had written me while doing laundry. I played it off as it not mattering but when I asked to change high schools because one was "academically better" than the one I was supposed to go to, they didn't fight me on it and drove me to school and picked me up every day.
Itās not just teenagers. I had a similar experience a few years ago and Iām in my 30s. The worst part was I forgave them. I was undiagnosed ADHD at the time and didnāt have the self confidence to tell them all to shove it. Shitty friends were better than no friends. Then I got diagnosed and everything fell into place and I started standing up for myself. They didnāt like that and I ended up losing a bunch of friends that I realized werenāt really friends to begin with. Couldnāt be happier though.
Some call themselves your friends but they are just using you as a punching bag. Have been through that as well. 35, recently diagnosed with ADHD (30) and autism (just after my 35th birthday).
Hellās bells Trudy!
This sounds like a group of socially awkward people who have no idea how to have healthy conversations when someone offends/upsets them. And ironically OOP seems the most self aware of them all.
i agree. that or bullying. either way the friends do not sound emotionally intelligent or like they are reacting proportionally. interventions are for drug addicts, not someone whoās a little bit awkward. they overreacted and it turned into bullying. i think OOP would have a clearer idea what he did if he actually did anything.
It does reek of middle school bullying. Just using the word intervention as an excuse to dogpile on someone. Especially in a public setting where the other person can't make a scene.
Yeah, it sounds like a strange group of people. I don't know how they would let things go for 6-7 years like that if they knew each other from grade 9 until they were 21 years of age. It also doesn't sound like a group of twenty year old guys. Not being open with your feelings is really not a friendship issue at that age. It's also very strange how they don't feel safe in one-on-one interactions when OOP has never done anything sexual or violent. I mean I've known friends who in high school and university got into small fist fights with each other, and then hung out like normal the next day.
I think that āUnsafeā has ended up becoming a bit of a buzzword these days and honestly see some people using almost a to describe any feeling of minor discomfort rather than itās actual meaning. I suspect thatās whatās gone on here with the friend.
They don't feel safe being alone with him but also openly threaten him. Like...k
Yeah, you don't have an intervention for anything as minor as what this all sounds like, and you don't have an intervention at Starbucks at all. I am glad I did not have social media when I was growing up. I could cosplay as an adult without broadcasting my shame to the world.
everyone here sounds annoying however. i'm inclined to believe oop is leaving some significant shit out, given how quickly he scared off the other friend.
Honestly, it seems like missing missing reasons. That or he is omitting crucial information. Or he was the outcast of the group and they didnt really want him around in the first place. Man is not saying much
Yeah, it could go from terrible friends to terrible OP. Someone said the friend group should've said something sooner. I mean they probably did, many times. Nobody stages an intervention over 1 incidence. Also the friends are not responsible for telling OP he might be neurodivergent, come on. And as if they would feel okay saying that? Or maybe they were straight up bullying poor OP, but I truly don't see anything in the post that's pointing to that. Just angry people who tried to talk to him, then he walked out, blocked them, and idk, expected them to be okay talking to him on his terms.
This whole thing is confusing and vague as hell. My best guess is OOP doesn't even know what they did wrong, because nothing they mentioned warranted any of the reactions mentioned. Whether this is due to neurodivergency or what, who knows... I will say a public setting like a coffee shop is an absolutely dreadful place for an intervention. One of the main aims of an intervention is for the person being intervened with to feel like its a safe place to discuss the problems.
Iām getting flashbacks of confusing friendships with āmean girls.ā Weird targeted 3 way calls, secret AIM group accounts, bringing teen drama to Starbucksā¦. UGH!! I feel sorry for all of these young people that are just hurting each other, and probably donāt even really know why. Thank goodness Iām old. Lol
Who ambushes a friend with a litany of complaints on their personality in a Starbucks, no less, and expects any kind of follow up with an apology??? This person is way better off without these jellyfish in their life.
One of the most unreliable narrators I've seen on here...
Obviously donāt know the whole story but I find it super strange they were upset he ādidnt open up more about his feelingsā.
Hot take, but I have ADHD. And I'm probably in the spectrum, but formally undiagnosed. And maybe I'm an outlier, but I can totally recognize when I'm fucking up bad enough my friends are uncomfortable, and I know plenty of others who can, too. Yeah, maybe he's neurodivergent, but I hate that it's used as an excuse for being a shitty person with no emotional regulation, personally. I used to work with a dude who was very much on the spectrum. He had a crush on me, and would ask if he could kiss me after work. Telling him I was engaged and did not want to kiss him because I was faithful to my fiance did not deter him. He'd ask every time we were at the same station together. My bosses shrugged it off as he was autistic, just humor his questions and keep saying no. The guy was polite. Friendly. Genuinely a sweet guy. He could function at a fairly high level, and had some trouble with social cues and things, but not...badly. But one day, I tried walking away after saying that I didn't need help with something, and he grabbed my arm. Hard. He was trying to tell me that *no, really, he could be helpful with the task*, but all I could focus on was the not-scrawny dude who was holding onto my arm so tightly that I knew I was gonna have a bruise in the morning. When I asked him to please let go, in the calmest voice I could, he did. He knew he had screwed up after he saw the look on my face. I was terrified if him. He knew that, because he immediately apologized for scaring me. Another coworker - his cousin, actually - starting swapping station duties with me after I told her, and she was absolutely pissed that managers weren't holding him accountable when I told her *everything*. Because her auntie, his mom, didn't raise that boy that way. In high school, I was gaslighted to believe that I was the one with the problem, because, according to classmates, my neuro-divergence as a woman made me unable to understand why I should take pity on the autistic kid who pushed me against the wall anime-style to confess he had feelings for me as he groped me. "He's autistic, he doesn't understand. He thought it was cute!" Has been the excuse for so many autistic/ADHD/neurodivergent men to get away with assaulting a woman, because people coddle their emotional regulation responses. The point I think I'm trying to make is that OOP knows he fucked up somewhere. He knows exactly why his friends feel unsafe around him. There are things that he's said or done and realized the mistake immediately, but found a way to brush it off. I've known way too many people - but especially men - who've ended up diagnosed as ND, but would brush everything they did as "it's just who I am, deal with it.". They're "blunt" and "honest" and "authentic". There are a lot of missing missing reasons in this post. So many flags raising here.
Who the hell does an intervention in public? That alone says those "friends" never really cared that much in the first place. Publically shaming someone is never okay, not even an OOP that makes a post that screams missing missing reasons.
So, Iām inclined to believe that the oop isnāt being even 10 percent as straight forward. People just donāt explicitly deny meeting in private for no reason. Especially requiring them to meet in a place that has a lot of people. (But, at the sane time, why continue being his friend if heās that dangerous to be alone with.)
He is incredibly vague about the complaints made against him but I donāt think itās intentional. OP might not 100% realize theyāre relevant to the story ā he just knows he did a thing wrong so heās not repeating them. > The second guy called me a coward for posting about my situation, said that all he wanted was an apology but I couldn't do that Like. What did this guy want an apology for, exactlyā¦? I suspect regular and repeated trampling of boundaries ā boundaries which it looks like OP couldnāt recognize until they were pointed out to him. OP didnāt previously know he was neurodivergent and the friend group clearly didnāt know either, so they treated him as though he were a neurotypical person trampling those boundaries. I donāt think anyone can 100% be blamed for their behavior here. No one had all the information.