"AITA for telling someone I’m not her boyfriend?"

Yes, I’m being serious. I don’t remember most of the exact dialogue; the stuff I do is in quotes. I’m not misrepresenting anything that happened or turning it in my favor. That wouldn’t give me an accurate answer and I’ve been wanting an answer for years.

I was sitting down in the lounge at my college and one of my friends (let’s call her Leah) came over and asked if I could go get her some food. She’d been asking me to do things for her all day, so I was annoyed and said no. She asked why not, and I said, to quote exactly, “I’m not your boyfriend.” For context, generally her boyfriend does this sort of thing for her, but he was out of town for the weekend.

Looking back, it wasn’t very nice, but my thought process was that she needed to do things for herself. She was annoyed, but she went and got her food and I thought it was over. I’m not the best at reading social cues, so I’m not sure exactly if her reaction, “whatever, I’ll do it,” was anything more than annoyance.

The real problem happened later when Leah’s friend “Tricia” met her later and asked her what was wrong. Tricia and I had a bit of a thing between us. We were supposed to go on a date the following weekend, and we studied together all the time. But as soon as Leah told her what happened, she stopped speaking to me.

Like completely. She refused to acknowledge my presence other than to insult me. I knew I’d done something wrong, but again, bad with social cues, so I asked her to tell me what I’d done so I could avoid doing it in the future. She didn’t tell me (Leah had to tell me later), and didn’t interact with me again for three days straight.

When she finally talked to me again, she didn’t apologize, and she said she would “forgive, but not forget. This is a strike on your record.” The next weekend, she told me she wasn’t interested in dating and just stopped hanging out with me. Thankfully it didn’t cause any real rift in our friend group.

Leah actually sought me out between classes the day after the incident to apologize for Tricia’s reaction. Leah apparently had never seen Tricia react to anything like that before and said she wouldn’t have said anything if she’d known what would happen. I apologized to her too, and we’re still on good terms. I’m still not sure what happened with Tricia. AITA or was she in the wrong?​​​​​​

The internet had a lot to say in response.

anom_aly wrote:

I don't think you're an AH for it, but for some perspective I'd like to add that maybe they were upset because it's something they'd do for a friend and it's really weird how sometimes guys (not necessarily you) think they can only do certain things if there is a relationship or the expectation of one.

You stated you'd been doing stuff for her already and were just tired of it, so I don't think that was your intent but it looks like it was their perception of it.

I read a post online a while back where some guy wouldn't help a friend build some furniture because he wasn't interested in her and she should have asked her FWB instead. It's just weird because she was asking a friend to help and he didn't want to do it because he had no interest in f#$king her. Their reaction might be skewed because of experiences like that.

VegaofLyra wrote:

NTA. Tricia's an AH. Move on because you don't want to be with someone who thinks like she does. She didn't even try to hear your side of the interaction, it was pretty minor stuff anyways and certainly doesn't need to part of any "record." Don't dwell too much on this stuff and keep making new friends/connecting with the more reasonable friends.

theZombiekat wrote:

NTA, probably.

On the surface, nothing there is a whole bunch of sayings like that, "what did your last slave die of", "I'm not your mother."

Now, given your admitted difficulty with social cues, it is possible there was something going on in their relationship that made that comment inappropriate at that time. In the same way you wouldn't use "I'm not your mother" with somebody whose mother had just passed.

Wrenwynn wrote:

NTA, what you said was perfectly reasonable in that context. Either Leah told Tricia a fairly exaggerated version of what really happened, or Tricia wildly over-reacted. My money would be on the first given that Leah was so contrite afterwards - presumably she would've lied without realising how seriously Tricia would take those lies.

JouBachi wrote:

NTA but I wouldn't even have apologized and let both of them go on their way. They both sound exhausting and immature honestly. Overreacting like that over you trying to set a boundary is not it, her friend immediately insulting you and giving you silent treatment is incredibly childish.

-Peacock- wrote:

“forgive, but not forget. This is a strike on your record.”

NTA and this quote should give you the ick. Trying to hold something over your head is pretty unhealthy for what was going to be the beginning of a relationship.

Adorable_Bar_5368 wrote:

NTA. You actually dodged a bullet with Tricia. You set a completely reasonable boundary when someone was asking you to run errands all day. The "I'm not your boyfriend" comment was maybe a little blunt, but it was honest and got the point across. Even Leah understood this and apologized for asking too much of you.

Impossible_Smile4113 wrote:

What?! You are allowed to say no, and if it's enough to trigger Tricia, you're lucky you found it out before you were dating. The sarcastic response came after Leah was told no and pressed for an answer when she was perfectly capable of getting her own food. NTA and glad it hasn't caused any rifts in your friends because it shouldn't. That's crazy.