'AITA for cutting off my friend after she told our coworkers who I’m dating?'

"AITA for cutting off my friend after she told our coworkers who I’m dating?"

For some background on the situation, I 20 female had been friends with my one coworker, we’ll call her Sam, 21 female, for a couple years. When we first started getting close, a couple months into our friendship, she told me that she had feelings for me and asked if she could take me on a date.

I told her that I didn’t have those same feelings for her, but that I really valued our friendship and I hoped that we could still stay friends. She understood and said she wanted to stay friends but that she might be a little distant for a while until she gets over it. Fast-forward about a year later Sam has a boyfriend now, and everything was back to normal. I considered her one of my really good friends.

There was a new guy that had just started working with us. We’ll call him Mark 18 male. Mark and I had started becoming friends. We would talk a lot, and game together after work sometimes.

Mark ended up telling me that he had feelings for me and that he’d like to see where things could go if I felt the same way. I told him I also had feelings for him and not long after that he asked me to be his girlfriend. (I said yes) I was really happy and things were going really well between us, but we kept it a secret because we weren’t sure if it was against company policy or not.

One night after a meeting Sam walked up to Mark's car while we were on the phone together and saw hearts next to the contact name and started grilling him about if it was a girl and who he was dating. He didn’t say much just that it was new and he wasn’t ready to tell anyone. When he left he called me back to tell me what had happened.

Sam called me almost immediately to tell me what she saw, and asked me if I knew who he was dating. I told her I didn’t know anything but that he’s allowed to have his privacy and we shouldn’t pry. Immediately after the conversation, I started feeling incredibly guilty for lying to her.

I talked to Mark about it and we agreed that we would tell her. she was my friend and I trusted that she wouldn’t tell anybody at work about it. So I invited her over the next day. we told her the truth and I apologized for lying to her.

I could tell she was really upset, and I didn’t fully know why. She said “I guess you want me to leave now huh?” We said no, that we were watching a movie and that she’s welcome to join. During the movie, she kept pointing to stuff in my room like the flowers, a blanket, stuff like that, and asking, did he buy that for you in an annoyed tone. to which I’d say yes.

After about the third time of her doing that, Mark pointed to everything in the room that he got me as a gift and said, “there that’s everything.” After that she started making comments asking if we were together when we had done XYZ.

I said no and that we’d only been dating for a couple weeks. she said to mark, “I guess you’re stealing her from me now.”Which made us both a little uncomfortable. I was really upset after she left because I wasn’t expecting her to react like that.

I talked to her the next day and she said she was really upset that I lied to her. I apologize again and explained that we didn’t want people to know because we don’t know if it’s against company policy and also that it’s really new and I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

I thought everything was OK after that, but Mark came over to my house after work one day and said that Sam was saying really horrible things about me to him, and texting him telling him a list of things I apparently think he’s doing wrong. Which we’re all lies. I confronted her about it. She apologized and said she was just upset. But I started distancing myself after that.

When I went to talk to a different coworker to ask about company policy, she told me that she had known about mark and I for a little while and was excited we could finally talk about it. Turns out Sam had told multiple people about us. And we were both worried about losing our jobs.

I ended up talking to our manager and telling him what’s been going on. I wanted him to hear it from me instead of finding out from someone else. He said that as long as it doesn’t become a conflict of interest, and we remain professional, it was fine, which was relief.

I confronted Sam and asked if she was the one who was telling people about us. She said no… I told her that I knew that she was lying to me and that I was hurt and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to trust her again. She was crying saying that I broke her trust first by lying to her and not telling her about us sooner.

She said a lot more which basically added up to I’m a terrible person, I’m the problem, and we shouldn’t be friends anymore. I said that’s fine and let’s just make sure we’re professional at work.

She continues to this day to deny that she was the person that told everyone and her stories change every time. There was a lot more that happened after that, but this story is already really long. So I’m wondering AITA for cutting her off?

This is what people had to say to OP:

DesperateToNotDream said:

It’s pretty clear that Sam never “got over” her feelings for you and was hoping that eventually you’d change your mind. She was never actually a friend, she was just waiting for the opportunity.

OP responded:

That’s how I felt, but she had had a boyfriend for almost a year when everything happened there were even inside jokes between the three of us about how she used to like me and her boyfriend would joke about how she’d leave him for me which in hindsight should’ve been a sign. I also found out recently that she had been telling people at work I was the one who asked her out and she turned me down.

Dependent-Feed1105 said:

Sam is in love with you and she acted like a psycho. Thank God you never went out with her. She could be boiling your bunny right now. NTA.

Broad_Pomegranate141 said:

NTA She’s not trustworthy. She lies, and lied about you to your coworkers in an attempt to harm you. She has poor boundaries. She didn’t respect your need for privacy dating your bf. You may have had things in common. But she lacks the core values and behaviors necessary to sustain a meaningful friendship. You did the right thing by dumping her.

ToggleMoreOptions said:

Feels like you should have mentioned Sam's behavior when you talked about the relationship with Mark to your supervisor. Cutting her off is the safest thing to do as it doesn't appear that she cares about your feelings at all or even sees you as a person worthy of making decisions in their own life. The whole post gave me the creeps

OP responded:

I did tell him a lot about what had been going on when I talked to him. And explained how we tried to keep it private and professional but people finding out was out out of our control. He unfortunately didn’t do anything about her behavior she was a supervisor so she was technically my boss as well. Which made work miserable for a while.