'AITA for asking my friend if she’s pregnant? She's furious.'

"AITA for asking my friend if she’s pregnant?"

My (M25) friend (F23) usually goes to the gym regularly and parties a lot. Lately, I’ve noticed that she stopped drinking entirely, same as smoking, and has stopped heavy lifting and going to the gym as regularly as she used to. On top of that, lately she’ll often excuse herself to go to the toilet (presumably to throw up) and I’ve noticed she got a bit thicker and watery.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not jabbing her looks, it’s just that I’ve noticed. Her chest has also noticeably grown. When we were out the other week and I noticed she didn’t even touch her red bull I pulled her to the side to have a private conversation and asked her if she’s pregnant. She immediately flipped out and denied it.

Right after that, she went home and I covered for her when the group asked me why she went home. I texted her later that same night if I overstepped and she simply replied “you literally called me fat, douchebag”. I never did such a thing but I simply let her be instead of arguing.

Today another friend told me she indeed is pregnant and I don’t know what to make of her reaction towards me when I asked her in a 4 eye conversation. AITA?

EDIT: For those curious when I asked her I verbatim said “I noticed you‘ve been excusing yourself pretty often lately and are avoiding some things, could it be that you are pregnant?“

People had a lot of strong opinions about this one.

em-n-em613 wrote:

Men and women, let me make this easy:

Has she told you she's pregnant? Yes? Awesome! Congratulate and support her. No? Don't. Say. A. Damned. Thing. I don't know why we still have remind people that's it's not their business until it's been made their business. YTA.

Loud-Decision-8444 wrote:

YTA. She might:

• not have been pregnant

• have wanted to keep it a secret, or at least not share it with you yet.

• have just miscarried

• have been struggling to conceive

• have self esteem issues, perhaps because of the pregnancy symptoms

• ....

If she wanted you to know, she would have told you. I had coworkers who kept asking me if I was pregnant while it took me 4,5 years to get pregnant with our second child and 2 years for the first. I had a coworker who looked VERY pregnant. We didn't ask, 2 weeks later her stomach was flatter and sometime after that she told me she had had a stillbirth. Again.

FloMoJoeBlow wrote:

YTA. That's one of the top 3 questions you never ask a woman. Why is it your business if she's pregnant? She will tell you in her own time.

SpicyTurtle38 wrote:

YTA. Never, ever ask a woman if she’s pregnant. You don’t know what’s going on- she could be dealing with a different health issue. She could be in the middle of a miscarriage. She could be pregnant and not ready to tell anyone. Also, she’s right- you noticed changes in her body and made an assumption to explain them. What if she has simply put on weight?!

Don’t comment on women’s bodies. Don’t ask people if they’re pregnant (or anything about them having children if they don’t offer it up first). Easy rules. Remember them please.

GreenUnderstanding39 wrote:

Typically pregnant people wait until a certain point in the pregnancy to disclose it as miscarriages are very common, 25% common.

It’s not your place to comment on her body. Tons of other reasons why she may be gaining weight. Perhaps she changed her diet. Perhaps she changed her bc. Perhaps she is in fact pregnant. Perhaps she was pregnant and miscarried and is dealing with enough without having your invasive questions added to her burden!

Whatever the reason it’s none of your business so mind yours. If your “friend” feels like sharing she would.

OP jumped on with another update after the first wave of criticism and feedback.

EDIT: Well this post was a waste of time…except “you don’t do that”, which is most of the replies, there has been little actually useful feedback. Why don’t you do that? Why is it not socially acceptable to ask a close friend a normal question in a private setting?

“It’s none of your business”…like, if that’s the energy you could apply that to any question ever. It’s a simple yes, no / no comment thing. Are we in the 1950s still?

After talking with his friend and clearing the air, OP jumped on with a final update.

She messaged me and we met up during lunch break. She apologized for overreacting and I apologized for if my question was intrusive. We came to the conclusion that my question wasn’t intrusive and neither did she overreact. She told me she’s two months pregnant and didn’t think anyone had noticed.

She was keeping it a secret (at least to the guy circle of our group) because she was afraid of being called a whore. That’s why she freaked out when I asked her and it’s also why she tried to deflect by saying I called her fat. I reassured her that nobody would think she’s a whore, especially not in our group.

We are all very supportive and are looking forward to doing our best in helping her out the following months. I also showed her this post and she had a good laugh at some of the way overboard YTA-comments, especially the one that called me a pervert?

To be fair, she also said many of them put forward valid points, but that they in most cases rather concern strangers and not close friends you’ve shared big things with before tho.

So after all I retract my second edit and I’m actually happy with how this turned out, especially after receiving more useful feedback from the point I made the second edit on. Some of y’all really got too butthurt over edit two though lmao.

It's fairly unanimous that OP was TA when it came to his lack of tact and line of questioning, but within the friendship it sounds like he's trying to be empathetic.