"AITA: My ex friends think I'm fatphobic?"
I (24 F 270 pounds 5’10F.) And Kay, (22F approx. 300 pounds 5’9.)
Kay and I we were a part of a large friend group. Me and K were not close but we were in the same major.
Our college offered a study abroad. And we had decided to be roommates during the trip. Our first week we had all students in town square and our teachers gave us the option to either stick with them and look around, or split and go in your own groups to look around. I knew one girl, so I talked with her and she was with a group of 10 or so students.
They hadn't decided where to go but most likely the tour. Kay had come up to me and asked where I was going I said what the group said. Kay wandered and I was talking to my peer. When the groups split I went with them. An hour later we all met up again, my group, the teachers group, and another very small group of 4 students. In the small group Kay is crying and freaking out.
I asked what's wrong and she loudly said I had left her in the middle of the town center and she got lost, she couldn’t find me in the teachers group and when my group had left she was trying to look for me and couldn’t catch up and got lost. She was pissed I had left her.
Another week goes and Kays mood has changed a lot, she's annoyed and frustrated and I tried to invite her to things but I stopped after she complained; about the “straight people." the “always partying” “people think I'm fat."
This new girl came into the mix. We ended up wanting to spend all our time together and we ended up with crushes. One morning Kay had said she was going to an all day event, so I said okay and I went with the girl to a museum. We posted our photos online and Kay was so mad she thought I was excluding her because she was fat.
I said no she had made a day plan for herself so why would I need to invite her to something when she already had a full other itinerary. I had started going out more and more with the one girl, going to things by ourselves. I had my locations on in snap chat so Kay had been watching that.
Kay had sent a huge snap chat about how I was excluding her and she hated me, about how I was leaving her to go with other people and that as roommates we were supposed to stick together. And that she has anxiety and I was supposed to be her support system (something I did not agree to) and she hated me.
Stuff that I never told her, that made it hard on the trip:
I got complaints from peers about her- She was clingy and would stand so close to people it made them uncomfortable. She had bad smells and they complained a lot about it.
End: I was ghosted/ blocked from the group without anyone hearing my side.
Add: I know some communication was bad, it still was upsetting since I tried inviting her, but she would complain or get upset and talk about weight every time she could. I was trying to enjoy my trip not be a parent.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
GrandBoring1842 wrote:
NTA. I believe that some things are what you make of it and instead of finding ways to enjoy herself she spent the whole time hating on you. You did the right thing connecting with new people and you’ll continue to meet new people and make new friends. The people who sided with Kay will eventually see for themselves what pulled you guys apart.
arominvahvene wrote:
ESH. The way you tell it you did nothing wrong but I find it very suspicious how much effort you put into explaining how disgusting Kay is to you. You ofc have the right to decide who you hang out with and of you don’t like Kay, you’re better off not hanging out with her. To me, it seems like during this trip Kay realized you don’t like her and made her own conclusions as to why.
And is she wrong? You don’t like how fat she is, per your first chapter where you describe her weight. You are disgusted by her body and health issues and even though it is something you cannot just choose not to be disgusted by, she has a right to feel hurt by that and I am 100% sure she knows how you feel even if you never told her.
Your main reason for not liking her is that she’s clingy (meaning she likes you more than you like her), and to be clear, I think that’s a perfectly normal reason for not liking someone. I think just based on how you talk about Kay, she had a reason to go nuclear and complain to your other friends that you are mistreating her as a friend.
They made their own conclusions abd ghosted you and yeah, that sucks. I don’t think anywhere in this post it says that your other friends think you are fatphobic, they didn’t explain right? Is it that everyone has blocked you, can’t you even DM anyone to ask what’s going on or do they not answer you?
For what it’s worth, Kay seems like a difficult person to deal with and tbh your other friends might just be trying to keep peace with her by ghosting you without actually thinking you did something wrong. I only voted how I voted because you sharing all these details about Kay’s body that have nothing to do with the situation reads unnecessarily mean. What does her shoe smell have to do with anything?
Safe_Ad_7777 wrote:
So you went on a general trip and agreed to room with an acquaintance...she unilaterally appointed you her full time Emotional Support Person...spat the dummy when you refused to follow the script you hadn't agreed to.
She then decided your reason was fatphobia despite the two of you having similar builds...badmouthed you to the rest of the group...who all sided with her. NTA. You need to hang out with better people.
nonebinary wrote:
ESH. So, you edited your post (most likely after people pointed out it was weird) but you obviously do view Kay a certain way because of how she looks. That's not even my main gripe about this, though.
The two of you were friends before this trip and agreed to room with each other, presumably because you were going to be in a foreign country with a group of people that you didn't know well and having someone you know is more comfortable. Kay had expectations about what this would mean, you did not have those same expectations.
Unless you left something out of your post, at no point did the two of you actually discuss what your individual expectations were. On top of that, you do think Kay is fat in a "bad" way and you are fat in a "good" way.
It does not take a genius to figure this out, and if you hold even a shred of the animosity towards her IRL as you do here, I'm sure she has picked up on it. And if you were inviting her to hangout with other people who viewed her the same way, I understand why she would be uncomfortable and not want to go.
That being said, Kay is also absolutely out of line for getting mad that you wanted to hang out with other people. I also think habitually looking at your location on snapchat is weird. And again, she expected a lot of things that she didn't communicate at all, which is unfair to you.
Carma56 wrote:
NTA. It sounds like she excluded herself.
But as a former fat person, here’s what I eventually learned the hard way: friendships that start based on weight are often not true friendships. They are built on insecurity and mutual fear of rejection from thinner people.
When I lost weight, I lost friendships. In one case, a friend outright told me she didn’t feel comfortable being around me anymore. Another told me I’d be welcome back once I regained all the weight this was several years ago, and I have yet to do that.
It felt so crappy though, like she was wishing for me to fail. With a couple others, I simply chose to stop hanging out with them because I couldn’t take the backhanded comments about my weight anymore.
At the same time, I was making friendships with other people thanks to our shared common interests— these friendships are so much deeper and feel so much more real than the friendships I had made earlier based on weight. It’s sad, but it’s true.