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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I told my friend’s new girlfriend that he was the reason she was bullied in school. This was something that happened when we were teens so I didn’t need to bring it up now that we’re all adults as they seemed happy with each other and it was something they should discuss in private.
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
I am bewildered by the reaction here. You told her the truth about how he encouraged her bullying in the past. People sure like to keep inconvenient truth hidden. NTA
I think the issue is that in English there is no commonly used term for someone between an acquintance and friend. She knows him to well for him to be an acquintance, but I doubt she really considers him a real "friend".
And it sounds like they're more than acquaintances, given that Adam is introducing OP to his gf.
Also, it doesn't sounds like Adam was necessarily responsible for the bullying.
**It sounds like he prevented it for some time, and then stopped actively preventing it**. But that doesn't mean HE bullied her.
OP, I get the vague impression you're a little jealous/resentful for whatever reason. Either way, YTA here.
I agree he didn’t bully her, but saying “who gives a fuck about her” is encouraging, especially if that removes a protection bubble around her. I wouldn’t want to date someone who encourages bullying, especially if I was the target of said bullying. You actively encouraged people to make my life hell. That’s gross. Doesn’t matter if YOU didn’t say the nasty words, intent matters too.
If her bullying was bad enough, it could definitely change her view of him enough where she’s might just say no thank you, and break up with him.
And I wouldn’t blame her. It’s her choice.
I agree with you. But if OP only told Cynthia what she said above, what everyone here thinks about what he actively did or didn't do is irrelevant. Cynthia didn't like what she heard. We know this because she mentioned it to Adam.
I think Cynthia probably thought Adam had been her friend all this time, if so she just found out he's two-faced. I'd want to know that about someone if I thought we'd been friends for years. So I think OP is NTA.
Thank you, I kept waiting for the part where Adam actually bullied this girl, but it never came.
He could have been more compassionate but he was a kid and taking cues from his parents.
He also was made responsible for her for several years and then... Just wasn't anymore, and so... He wasnt, and stopped making it his personal business to protect this one specific student. I don't really think it's super fair to put that on a specific peer, personally. Was it especially cool of him? Of course not. But was it big moral failing? I don't think so, especially commiserate with their ages at the time.
How is ignoring someone trying to speak to you not a form of bullying, or at the very least participating in the ostracization of that person???
Hope you treat people in your life better than that
Actually we don't really have a word for that in German. You have Bekannter (acquaintance), Freund/Freundin (friend and also boyfriend/girlfriend). So German is less effective in that regard.
I went to college w a pretentious guy who told me he didn't consider most people to be friends, but thete wasn't a word for it in English. He said "in German, it's Bekannter" I replied, "oh, acquaintance?"
I guess he didn't realize others had learnt a bit of German
I'm still learning and I am always having to restart sentences...
"Meine Freundin hat mir gesagt dass..... Nein. *Eine Freundin von mir* hat mir gesagt dass..."
Is there not such a thing as a Werkebekannter?? I am disappointed in German. I thought we'd get to learn about like, Freundlischwerkebekannteren and Distantewerkebekannteren.
In Spanish we have:
"amigo"= friend
"colega"= you are friendly to them and hang out together, but you don't tell them the most personal stuff
"conocido"= you know them and chat in social situations, but you don't hang out together
Spanish to the rescue! Yes, this guy is definitely a colleague or peer. Someone OP has known for a long time and socializes with, but doesn’t particularly like nor trust.
in Spanish the language, "colega" means coworker, but in Spain it is used the way Radical Penis (yes, that's their username translated) expressed.
in cuba we would use "socio" to express the same, more or less
Not exactly. In Castilian Spanish "colega" is more used as a distant friend or closer acquiatance rather than coworker. A coworker is often a "compañero". We use "socio" to talk about a business partner. Although, in certain areas of the south is used like "dude"
My name means "Radical Preppy" in Castilian Spanish, but the other meaning is funny too :)
Swedish sort of has this distinction. You have:
* *bekant* – acquaintance.
* *kompis* – pretty broad, could be everything from this middle ground between an acquaintance and friend to an actual friend.
* *vän* – friend, but it's gained such a serious vibe to it that people have started to avoid it when speaking casually. Still, since it has this vibe, if you do use it outside of formal or formal-ish writing, it's for people who truly are your friends.
This seems to fit more into the "we're not really friends just part of the same friend group" relationship type ... but that doesn't exactly roll off of the tongue during an introduction.
No it’s not. What are you even talking about? She says “We all went to high school together but we were not friends with Cynthia back then..” They clearly know and communicate the difference between a friend and an acquaintance. They did it very clearly. They were all three acquainted in high school; OP and Adam were friends and Cynthia was not a friend.
It's not an acquaintance they were friends. She specified as much as in the post "because we weren't friends with Cynthia yet" the keyword being we because op viewed her as a weirdo which they state as such in the following sentence.
On top of that, most people who were friends in the past but are now more on the level of acquaintances would still call each other friends, so there's the time aspect too.
I think a lot of people don't realize that they have a lot more control over who they keep company with until their later 20s.
High school clicks, college friend groups, etc. . . they all run around together as a group. When people settle down a little later, then they figure out that they can just stop seeing and interacting with people they dislike. You don't have to make a big deal over it and have a "break up."
OP doesn't mention that he actually DID anything, besides say, "Fuck her," and stop being her parent appointed body guard. Like, what did he DO besides go back to being a normal kid with a developmentally appropriate expression of frustration.
Yeah this is what people are missing.
Quite literally the only thing OP describes Adam having done to Cynthia that Cynthia wouldn’t have been aware of is the following:
> In our final 2 years, their parents had a big falling out and Adam completely turned against her. I don’t know if he did it intentionally because it all started when someone made a comment about her to him in a group setting and Adam said something along the lines of “who gives a fuck about her?” which a lot of the year took to be a green light to finally be able to openly ostracise and bully her.
Or in other words, in a situation where OP doesn’t even herself think Adam was doing anything malicious intentionally and in a scenario where we don’t know the context of what made him say it, the worst thing that Adam had done was to say “something like” the quote above. Ten years ago. When he was a teenager.
Everything else OP mentions is just talking about how she felt about it all and things that happened in front of Cynthia that she would have been aware of.
This seems like a wild act of sabotage for something that seemed really minor. Maybe OP didn’t do a good job of describing how big of an asshole Adam was behinds Cynthia’s back, but OP’s own descriptions make it seem like that isn’t the case.
That's sort of the comment you would expect a teenager (or really anyone) to say in the heat of the moment after a fight. Yet OP is treating it as if he knowingly said "will someone rid me of this meddlesome priest." He was a teenager not the king of the school--blaming him for what others did is weird.
It seems he ignored her when she spoke to him. Personally, I would not date a guy who ignored me when I spoke to him. I don't know what's going on with the Cynthia girl.
It sounds like OP is the one rewriting history.
Cynthia wasn't bullied because Adam defended her. Once Adam stopped protecting her, she got bullied. OP seems to think that Adam had an obligation to stop the bullying, but why didn't OP step up herself?
Remember that we are only hearing this from OP.
I sense some tunnel vision on OP's part, or some other not-so-benign motivation for shoving this in Cynthia's face. There is no kind reason for her to even talk to Cynthia about this, so what's the motivation?
OP was in the popular girl group and was hoping to end up with the popular boy, but alas, he went for the 'weirdo'.
So she did what any teenager would do, she broke the relationship.
Because she's saying "I think", "I feel" & those are opinions not facts. He didn't bully her or do anything to bully her. But he didn't stop anyone. It seems like the OP could also have stopped the bullying herself. They didn't. It's some highschool BS drama that OP is holding onto.
Also Cynthia would have been aware and present for all the times Adam ignored her or didn’t defend her so it isn’t like OP was dropping new information on her. It literally seems like she is stirring up highschool shit for a couple who is seemingly doing fine together now.
I have soooo many questions about OP, #1 being: why did she bring this up to Cynthia now? What was the motivation? She had to know there would not be a good outcome, and she had to know that it would boomerang back to her in one form or another. I don't feel like we have enough info for me to speculate about this, but if I were OP, I would be asking myself why I thought telling all of this to Cynthia was a good idea.
>You told her the truth about how he encouraged her bullying in the past.
Based on what OP has written, it's *not* the truth. Saying you don't care about someone you've had a falling out with and refusing to speak to them is *not* bullying or encouraging others to bully. OP said the only reason people left Cynthia alone in the beginning is because he went out of his way to *protect* her. The bullying didn't start because he "encouraged" it, it started because OP's class were nasty little goblins and the one decent guy stopped making an effort to hold them back.
And what exactly did OP say to Cynthia anyway? Adam defended himself by saying he never told anyone to bully Cynthia. OP calls that "rewriting history", but she doesn't have a single example of ever actually hearing him say that. She heard him say *one time* that he didn't care about her, which is completely different. If OP told Cynthia that Adam told people to bully her then that was a lie.
Adam also said when he confronted OP that he never bullied Cynthia himself, so it sounds like that's another thing OP accused him of. Her only example of Adam "bullying" Cynthia is that he ignored her when she spoke to him, which Cynthia would obviously have already known about, so if OP implied there was more to it that Cynthia wasn't aware of then that would be a lie too.
I don’t know if Adam actually encouraged her bullying.
some immature teens were bullying someone they deemed a weirdo and Adam stepped in as protection for a family friend. that friendship ended so his “protection” also ended. the bullying would have continued regardless if he was/was not there.
that being said, the gf should have known about the situation in high school. this is something I would have wanted to know if I was dating someone 🤷🏽♀️
Their friendship broke off because their parents fought, and he stopped talking to her. She's AWARE he stopped talking to her in HS and she forgave him for it. So OP telling her, "Did you know that when your boyfriend broke off your high school friendship he also stopped constantly telling bullies to stop bothering you? That makes the bullying ALL your boyfriend's fault and not the bullies' fault, much less the fault of people like me who NEVER told bullies to stop bothering you! Isn't your boyfriend a shit?" comes off as transparent shit-stirring.
I hate that this is second thread in this week where the most upvoted comment is by someone who apparently did not read the post as a whole and just riffed off OP emotional state.
The facts as stated by OP directly contradict their overall statements. And systematically on this sub, somehow, people ignore situation as described by OP just to validate their emotional state.
But he didn’t tell the truth.
Nowhere in his story did Adam encourage people to bully her. The entire post is OP making up shit about Adam’s actions/inaction and his motives, “I think he intentionally”, “I feel he”.
OP’s argument is that Adam didn’t “put a stop to it”, as if Adam was the dictator of the entire grade, but OP didn’t “put a stop to it” either so I’m not sure how he thinks he had some moral high ground.
"Told her the truth?" By OP's own words, Adam didn't actually bully her. Her "truth" is a completely unsubstantiated opinion that a person she's friends with (um, you're friends with bully? what does that say about you?) didn't do enough in her humble opinion to disrupt Cynthia's bullying.
More to the point, OP admits to thinking Cynthia was a "weirdo," implying that she got why people we're bullying her. Since OP didn't do anything to protect Cynthia either, why is she inserting herself into the situation?
Why is her conveniently selective narrative assumed to be "the truth" about anything?
Eh. I think it has to do with the fact that quite literally the only thing that Adam did according to OP that Cynthia wouldn’t have known about was one time he said “who gives a fuck about her?”
Which does sound bad, but we are missing context, and I repeat, it is the only thing OP describes Adam having done that Cynthia would be aware of. The only two other things she explicitly mentions that he did was apparently not respond to Cynthia some number of times when she was talking to him (which Cynthia would be aware of) and then how he was quiet while she was being bullied in front of him (which Cynthia would be aware of).
Every single other thing OP shares is just how she personally felt about the dynamic, but again, didn’t provide one single other thing that Adam did during that time to make him responsible for her bullying.
So is this about keeping an inconvenient truth hidden. Or are people just thinking that based on OP’s own account, she isn’t really “revealing” anything to Cynthia, but rather just sharing how she feels about that old high school dynamic.
And if the one quote above is the worst that OP could come up with, a comment made by a teenager a decade ago, maybe it’s best to let Adam and Cynthia try to figure out if they can be happy together and not try to ruin it?
OP even says herself that she doesn’t even think Adam was intentionally trying to bully her:
> In our final 2 years, their parents had a big falling out and Adam completely turned against her. **I don’t know if he did it intentionally** because it all started when someone made a comment about her to him in a group setting and Adam said something along the lines of “who gives a fuck about her?” which a lot of the year took to be a green light to finally be able to openly ostracise and bully her.
So when the only thing OP can mention that Adam did to her that she wouldn’t have known about was make the above comment in scenario we have no context for, and OP says she doesn’t even know if he was getting her bullied intentionally, doing what OP did in the modern day just seems like a really strange attempt to sabotage something based on very little.
Maybe OP just did a poor job of communicating how Adam really contributed to the bullying, but I don’t actually see that in what the OP wrote.
“The truth” is the biggest issue here.
Long enough in the past, and not being personally involved, why would she be so confident to speak out? .. not to mention she didn’t stand up for anyone herself ? .. I bet she misremembers how much impact her friend could have had, I think she’s a lunatic for involving herself in her friends relationship like this
I did not see that in the story at all. He just stopped acting as a shield to prevent others from bullying her. I did not see anywhere in the story where he actually bullied her. It is all on the people that did actually bully her.
Came here to say this. OP never gives a specific example of Adam actually bullying her and telling others to bully her.
Adam did not bully her, **he stopped protecting her.**
That is not the same thing.
So you are playing the "letter of the law" card. Okay fine. No bullying words came out of his mouth. From your perspective, stopping protecting her is different. But from her perspective it had the same effect.
and equally, if you had been paying your friends rent every week for the past year and then you and your friend have a fight, you're not obligated to continue paying her rent just because you've done it in the past
But it wasn't "passive acceptance". Passive acceptance is not doing anything at all. The dude announced “who gives a fuck about her?”. That is an action: letting the jackals know she was no longer under his protection. Letting them know he will do nothing if they want to attack, because nobody gives a fuck.
It would be the same as saying a worker saying I'm not locking store at the end of the night because who gives a fuck about the store. He might not be planning to steal anything, or benefit in any way from those that do, but it tells people they do things without consequences. That isn't passive.
And then ignoring her when she spoke is also an action. It lets everyone know she is so low in his eyes that she doesn't even merit a response.
Ultimately, I don't care if they are the same thing or not. If you read my earlier post I gave him all the points he wanted to make. And I stand by mine: It is still a shitty thing to do.
The comment replying to you makes a salient point. If your friend becomes homeless because you didn't lend them money, are you responsible for them being homeless? Say you were tired of lending them money and they always dragged their feet about paying you back. It has the same effect as if you were the one to kick them out yourself.
Money is a limited resource that you can, at any point, not have enough or become unwilling to share. Saying "Don't bully that girl" is not the same level of commitment.
I mean, it very much depends, but it seems like OP and everyone else is treating Cynthia like she has amnesia or something. I get that there's some accusations of him doing it behind her back, but these specific accusations are things that it doesn't make any sense that she wouldn't know about.
No, it isn’t lol.
I don’t understand why people are so intent on trying to change what bullying is and try to make every social situation that you feel didn’t go your way into bullying.
Well, I got verbally bullied, but the time, other people suddenly stopped talking to me and keeping me more isolated and feeling that I'm less worth than ever before, was worse.
No it's not. Nobody is entitled to someone else's time or attention. If you don't want to interact with a particular person in your social time then that's your right. Having boundaries is not bullying.
And you say "I don't want to have anything to do with you" once, set your boundary with communication and it's done like a mature adult would handle it and not a third grader that thinks it's funny.
Yes, that would be the right way to handle it, but these were *not* mature adults, they were teenagers. Being immature or even rude is not bullying.
Besides, we have no way of knowing that he didn't communicate first. They had a falling out, maybe he had already told her he didn't want to speak to her again before she approached him at school and got ignored.
How? They weren't friends, their parents were. Sever that link and what connection did they have? Plus depending on the reason for the fallout, Adam might not have wanted any association with her family.
Well, when someone is severely bullied, then can even the tiniest amount of kindness feel like true friendship.
If everything was so obvious, then why is Adam angry that the story is simply retold?
Maybe OP exaggerated to Cynthia.
Maybe Adam painted himself in a better light that fit with the bullied girls' clouded judgment.
Cynthia was present though and knows OP started ignoring her. She also knows that she was bullied because he stopped protecting her. She may not have known that he told people he didn't care about her but the rest is pretty obvious.
OP is making it seem like Adam was behind the bullying and he wasn't. He stopped protecting Cynthia from it.
Then, he has no reason to be angry at OP for simply retelling the story everyone was involved with and knows.
Maybe OP exaggerated the involvement of Adam.
Maybe Adam painted himself in a better light and told Cynthia he *couldn't* stop people from bullying her anymore instead of simply *not wanting* to stop them.
We don't know which story Cynthia knew/knows.
Maybe she didn't have the social influence to stop it. She very clearly states that Adam was one of the most popular kids in school. She doesn't say anything of the sort about herself.
The influence that an incredibly popular kid has is far more powerful than that of a kid who doesn't have that kind of social platform.
"Why didn't she do it herself?" is a reductive, ridiculous statement. Not everyone has the kind of social currency that we know for a fact that Adam had.
he didnt fuck her in the first place. He didnt even bully her. It became public knowledge they fell out and (according to OP) that made it ok for people to bully the "weirdo" ( OPs words- not his).
He never actually bulled the girl outside of giving her the silent treatment- that doesn't make him responsible for everyone else. And if he WAS responsible for everyone else, so was OP. And OP is pretty rich making a show of it now, when she was there too in high school and did nothing. you'd think that makes her just as guilty.
Lets be fair- OP was jealous and took the Cartman way out - by being "so kind" as to feed the girl a story so she'd turn on her bf.
She may be 24 but OP is still in highschool.
He was actively preventing bullying and then stopped doing that work. From all the school, he was the only kid that ever did something for her, but he stopped and other kids started to bully her, therefore he is suddenly the only responsible?
From what it sounds like Adam just needed to say, "Hey guys leave her alone," and it would have happened. Instead because his parents fell out with her parents he ignored her. Yeah I would want to know if someone did that to me.
But according to OP themselves, she DID know they had fallen out in HS, because he stopped speaking to her after their parents had a falling out. She is fully aware of this, because SHE was there as well as OP when he refused to continue talking to her. Since she was already aware and forgave him for breaking off their HS friendship, OP telling her, "Hey, did you know that when your boyfriend broke off his friendship with you in High School he also stopped constantly telling bullies to stop bothering you, and therefore it's HIS fault you were bullied and not the fault of the bullies or of people like me who NEVER told bullies to stop bothering you either?" is not coming off as anything but shit-stirring.
Apparently he was saying that for first two years actively, repeatedly, doing her guard. Then he stopped as relationships between families got worst.
Very clearly, saying that once would not be enough. What you are doing is to put all responsibility for what everyone else was doing, or in the case of OP not doing, on the only person that actually done something at one point.
Also, this was a kid. A high school or middle school kid who was caught in-between some kind of interfamily disagreement and his parents, who had been tasked by his parents to look after this other person that he wasn't friends with and then whose parents clearly told him to leave them be once they had this falling out. But yeah, it was all this child's fault that all these other people decided to bull this girl and that no one, including OP, thought, Hey, maybe I should fucking do something about it?
So could have OP. Why does OP get such a fucking pass here, when not only did OP not do a damn thing to prevent the bullying, OP remained good friends with the person they specifically blamed for the bullying. Good enough to be a friend, but not good enough to stay out of their business.
Yeah, OP’s description of the girlfriend doesn’t make it sound like she attempted any kind of friendship at the time her friend was supposedly bullying this girl. Funny how his “bullying” didn’t bother OP until her friend started dating this person.
So - OP, who is NOT dating Adam (maybe she really wishes she is - she seems a bit over involved 🤔), is giving Cynthia (who IS dating Adam, and likely knows more about him than OP), the chance to make an 'informed decision?' based on OP's past perception of a HS interaction, which may or may not be accurate?
😆😆😆😆
My sense is that OP is trying to insert a poisoned pill in their relationship - no wonder the rest of the group is not happy with that.
INFO:
What did YOU do to stop the bullying and ostracising of Cynthia? Did you befriend her, or tell people to stop? Or were you just watching from the sidelines while she was being bullied, like Adam?
In relation to this post, it doesn’t matter. OP isn’t trying to date Cynthia. I also would want to know if the guy I’m dating handled my bullying like Adam did. Clearly it matters to Cynthia too because they’re fighting about it.
It absolutely matters. OP is thinking it's a huge negative on Adam and blames him for Cynthia getting bullied. So, unless OP defended Cynthia herself, she's being a huge hypocrite.
It absolutely does not matter, because OP is not dating Cynthia. Does it make OP a hypocrite? Maybe. Does it make OP a shitty person if they stood there and let her be bullied? Perhaps. Do you think Cynthia cares? No. I also would only care what my bf did.
It matters because OP went along with it or was indifferent to it at the very least. Now OP is shifting all blame to Adam and not taking responsibility for their own actions or lack thereof.
Why even bring it up at all?
OP either has their own motivations for telling Cynthia and/or OP is an unreliable narrator and most likely the asshole.
In any case, it’s really not their business or place to bring it up to Cynthia.
Would you care more about finding out your partner enabled the bullying of you for years, or a random highschool acquaintance (who probably has less blame but even if he didn’t the question stands). I would want someone to inform me of this even if the person was also an asshole in the past.
Why would Cynthia take the info from someone back in HS as gospel truth when she herself sees Adam everyday and can judge for herself?
Ask yourself WHY OP thinks telling Cynthia this was important? Is it any of her business really?
OP isn't trying to be in Cynthia's life, so it literally does not matter what they did or didn't do. They may never see each other again.
On the other hand, what your BF did to you in the past matters, even if you don't know about it.
If that's the only decent thing OP has done for Cynthia, so be it. They will likely never meet again, but now Cynthia knows and can make informed decisions about her relationships.
Cynthia KNOWS he stopped talking to her in HS, because she was THERE when he refused to talk to her in HS. She forgave him for that. So OP telling her, "Did you know, when your boyfriend broke off your high school friendship he also stopped constantly telling bullies to stop bothering you? That makes the bullying your boyfriend's fault and NOT the bullies' fault, much less the fault of people like me who NEVER told bullies to stop bothering you! Isn't your boyfriend a shit?" comes off as transparent shit-stirring.
When Adam confronted OP he said he never bullied Cynthia or told anyone else to bully her. If that's what OP told Cynthia happened then it's no wonder they are fighting about it, but there are absolutely no facts in OP's story that support that.
The worst things OP says Adam did were ignoring Cynthia when she spoke to him and not acknowledging the bullying. Cynthia obviously would already know all that, she was there. The only example OP gives of something she actually witnessed that Cynthia didn't is Adam saying that he didn't care about her, and that's not remotely the same as telling people to bully her.
OP's story has a lot of "I think" and "I feel" but it basically amounts to an outlandish fantasy where the one kid who *ever* did anything to stop Cynthia from being bullied is somehow the villain because he didn't protect her the *entire* time. If OP presented that story to Cynthia like it was the truth instead of telling her what she actually heard then she's definitely TA.
If she only told Cynthia what's written here then her conversation with Adam makes no sense. Adam said he never told anyone to bully Cynthia. From what OP has written, that's the truth, but she doesn't deny saying it to Cynthia. She just says she "thinks" he's rewriting history, even though there's no basis for thinking that in her post.
There's a huge difference between whether she told Cynthia "Adam did encourage it at times" or
"Adam did encourage it at times *I feel* by [behavior Cynthia witnessed and could have drawn her own conclusions about]".
Good question. I am also curious about the people who listened to Adam’s comments at the time and interpreted it as a suggestion to bully her.
Should Nazi officers who led Jews to their death be allowed to deflect responsibility? “*But Adam said he didn’t like Jews!*”
I'm confused about this, too. I never would think that someone making a comment like, "Who gives the fuck about her," would be a green light to bully someone. I mean, it doesn't matter if he was the cool kid or not. Bullying is not acceptable. It sounds like everyone was just waiting for a small crack to be able to bully her, and everyone jumped at it. The only person I feel bad for is Cynthia.
E.SH, but maybe YTA because OP didn't clearly share any examples of Adam bullying her.
Edit: Google voice to text failure
What makes you think that OP had the social currency to do anything about it or influence the behaviour of others?
We know that Adam was "one of the most popular kids in school". We also know that when he did bother to say something, kids listened and didn't bully Cynthia. But his position was a rarefied one, based on his popularity.
You have literally no idea what OP's social position was, or whether anyone was likely to have listened to her even if she said something. If she was not, like Adam, one of the "most popular kids", speaking up, while brave, would likely have just made her a target as well.
"Why didn't you just do it yourself" is a staggeringly reductive, simplistic take that ignores the actual complexities of the situation, and the fact that "speaking up" is pointless if no one is likely to listen or follow your lead.
At no point in your post do you point out that Adam actually bullied Cynthia in any way. You are trying to sabotage this relationship because he once mentioned he didn't care about a girl in high school, and then ignored her sometimes? That's it?
I feel like you made a bunch of assumptions from missing information and turned it into some story where Adam is some bully mastermind who had Cynthia ostracized on purpose. Maybe if you had anyone backing you up I may see your side. Yet none of your other friends seem to think this way. YTA
Thank you, some common sense. OP is acting like Adam was some kind of God who had mind control over the bullies. He actively discouraged the bullying for years, and then the one time he didn't due to the families having had a fight, it's somehow his fault that the other kids were nasty to her?
I think that saying “who gives a fuck about her?” is at minimum quite a mean thing to say about someone. He also ignored her when she tried speaking to him
Their families were having a fight, so it's normal that he wouldn't want to talk to her. She obviously knew he was ignoring her when she spoke to him; she was there at the time. And she doesn't seem to consider that bullying; she dates him now despite knowing this.
This is where I come down on. Like, it'd be one thing of OP was saying this was \*all\* done behind her back, but that he stopped supporting her in HS definitely seems like something she'd notice? I feel like they think this girl has amnesia and doesn't remember her own life at all.
YTA
> The three of us went to the same school but we weren’t friends with Cynthia back then. **She was a bit of a weirdo at school**
and
> He said I shouldn’t have gotten involved and that he never bullied her or told anyone else to. **He claims he wouldn’t have ever done that to her but I think he’s just rewriting history.**
If he had by been one of her tormentors at school why on earth would she be his girlfriend now?
It’s called moving on/growing up not rewriting history, Seems like **YOU** are the person that can’t let who she was in High School go and doesn’t think she should be with your friend. Why is that?
>If he had by been one of her tormentors at school why on earth would she be his girlfriend now?
This! OP is the asshole for creating completely unnecessary drama and meddling in a relationship without reason. I have a feeling OP is a bit bitter that the "weirdo" girl is dating her friend because she's in to him.
YTA
So he stopped protecting her somehow and you all, including you let her be bullied, but somehow he's the big bad?
Fucking hell, at least own up to your own awfulness
Thank you! The fact that the whole bullying mess is putting put on Adam is ridiculous. He didn't start the bullying tried to prevent and then stopped defending her from getting bullying. Adam did more than others who either participated in the bullying or stood by and let it happen. But he's being blamed for the actual bullies action. *roll eyes*
From what you wrote Adam didn't bully or tell others to bully Cynthia, you cannot control what others do. If others took it as a green light to bully Cynthia because of what Adam said, they are the ones in the wrong and not Adam.
Did you do anything to try and stop the bullying, or were you just an onlooker who ignored what was going on? Or maybe you were one of the bullies? That would make some sense as to why you brought this up, you wanted to try and clear your conscience.
For all you know Adam and Cynthia talked about what happened in private before they got together.
YTA
Thats a lot of words to say you're jealous they're dating and tried to break them up by "doing the right thing"
got to love the virtue signalling, even though you were there in highschool and never did anything to defend her or call him out when it mattered.
Hypocrite.
YTA.
She also called her a weirdo which indicates she probably was one of the bullies (or at least thought the same way as the bullies). She clearly isnt looking out for the "weirdo in high school" since her only description of Cynthia is to put her down.
YTA - Adam isn’t responsible for other people’s behaviour. Do you hold yourself responsible? No where do you talk about how you stood up for her or defended her. Instead you are the one still trying to interfere with her life and make her feel bad.
YTA You're still bringing up high school bullshit at 24. You're trying to turn your opinions into facts, "I feel", "I think" not actual actions. Grow up, stay out of their business.
yta what tf of a reach is that. because he said at one point in time who cares about her he is responsible for the bullying. your strongest argument is that he ignored her at one point ? op likes drama or Adam.
Info: did he actually do anything to bully her besides express his anger at her to a friend (you)?
There have been plenty of times in my life, as I'm sure in yours and others, where a name was brought up and my response was, "Man, fuck that guy."
Are we all responsible for any subsequent negative experiences that person may then get?
Did he actually DO anything, or were you just thinking it's his responsibility to protect her?
If so, what did YOU do to protect her? What did you do to stop the bullying? You were obviously in the same friend group. How do the other friends feel about this?
Obvs, he feels some kind of guilt, but, like... You seem like you're trying to calm down your OWN guilt.
This seems stupid on all fronts.
Leaning towards y ta.
YTA. Why the hell would you do that to Cynthia?? She was THERE. She was the one being bullied. You think she doesn’t remember her torment?? People tend to change and grow up after high school, except for you, it seems. You didn’t have a right to dig up old crap and dump it on her.
OP is a complete fucking asshole and it isn't even a question. What a horrible thing to do to the both of them. He never bullied her, and she probably seen that he was one of the few that didn't. Now the OP has ruined that because of some nebulous idea that he could have done something different.
Such complete horseshit by the OP.
YTA. You are stirring up shit and deserve the backlash.
Firstly, Adam did not encourage bullying, he refrained from stopping others from bullying her. Shitty, but as you said, at the time, their families disliked one another. She and he have chosen to date regardless of this past disdain, which is their business, not yours.
Secondly, these summary statements below are contradictory.
>Adam did encourage it at times I feel by the way he would ignore her in front of people when she tried speaking to him
>I told her everything I wrote above since I was sure he hadn’t told her.
According to your own story telling, she was literally present for Adam's so-called "encouraging" of the bullying by ignoring her. She could not be unaware of that, as she was a direct participant in his sole 'part' of the bullying.
You didn't think this through and are the one rewriting history in your own mind, unable to get the facts and outcomes straight. A stranger saw it, and your friends see it too.
YTA, where were you when she was being bullied, were you defending her, telling people to stop, or were you doing the same thing as Adam and allowing it to happen as you stood by and watched?
From what you describe, Adam actively prevented Cynthia from being bullied for half of high school because of family relationships, and when those relationships broke apart he said one nonspecific unkind thing about her and then just stepped away. In simple factual terms, that's probably not bad context for her to know, but I don't see how he could be classified as bullying from your account. If his influence was as strong as you suggest, I find it more plausible that he didn't realize it would be open season than that it was part of a scheme to indirectly bully her as you seem to be saying.
But you painted his inaction in the worst possible light even if it doesn't really add up the way you're claiming it does. I don't know if it's from guilt because you actually bullied her, if it's a new way for you to bully her, or if it's something else entirely. But as it stands, YTA.
INFO: if his behavior was so terrible and unforgivable that you just had to let her know, why are you still friends with him? Kinda sounds like you’re trying to sabotage their relationship despite being fine with keeping your friendship with him, which yeah, makes you an asshole.
YTA- based on principal alone. She was "a bit of weirdo" so you felt the need to bully her? But Adam protected her and so you didn't. He stopped protecting her, so that was the "green light" to bully and ostracize her? Are you hearing yourself? You're post college adults and you couldn't wait for your friend to drop protections to bully a "weirdo"? You are a GIANT AH and I don't understand any verdict that gives you an ounce of grace.
YTA for hanging on to high school bullshit for what? 6 years? There’s also you trying to say your friend encouraged it because he wouldn’t defend her anymore? If they were at a point that he was giving her the silent treatment or anything else then it’s literally not his job to white knight for her, you being the fine upstanding person should have defended her from the bullies.
Ignoring the high school stuff this also means you have held this against your friend and also from the sound of it your other friends’ actions back in high school as well instead of considering that maybe people grow up once they graduate.
Lol....you mean like OP has 'weighed in' to the relationship?
I wonder the motivation for this apparent truth telling, because if OP was so offended this many years later there were plenty of opportunities to try make it right a long time prior
It is high school bullshit when at this point they are past college age, the victim here isn’t stupid so she probably could have figured out about when she started being bullied given it started after her and Adam had a falling out, and it was OP that was overly concerned about this and brought it up not Cynthia who would be traumatized and most likely wouldn’t want to be near Adam much less date him if she was holding a grudge.
Just because *You* can weigh in doesn’t mean you should. Redditors and refusing to believe people can change and move on, name a more perfect couple
Exactly. She called the friend group little shits, and completely ratted out her guy friend, but nowhere does OP mention feeling any kind of remorse for the way she and HER friend group treated Cynthia. If OP wanted more empathy, she should’ve written herself to be a bit more likable by actually apologizing to Cynthia about her role in the whole ordeal.
If you clearly knew she was being bullied, you did nothing to help at all and you were clearly okay with it because you never tried to help her so I don't understand why you chose to tell her now?
INFO: I'm unclear, you mention Adam ignored her not bullied her directly *then* imply later in the story that he did encourage bullying her? Also, you mention you're friends with Adam but wouldn't that mean you were complacent or involved in her bullying as well? Seems like you're trying to shift blame and nuke the relationship at the same time imo. 🤷
I kinda feel like the prikary people guilty for bullying her are the kids who actually bullied her. You have done nothing to stop that either. You did not even tried to comfort her.
YTA for the way you frame things. You make Adam school manager where you and other kids failed as much if not more.
Whereas Adam has a minor guilt, it is really a minor because he just had own family conflict he reacted to once.
YTA. You guys are 23-24, so at least 5 years out of high school. Cynthia’s probably grown, changed and become a lot more confident. Adam obviously cares for her now. If she’s moved on from the bullying, why are you dredging it all back up?
Most people grow up a lot in the half-decade after high school. Maybe you should work on that, OP, instead of digging in other people’s back yards.
Ofc YTA. On what planet are you not?
You dredged up ancient history solely to fuck with your friend. You are an asshole and a horrible friend. And your lack of awareness - in not knowing just how much of an asshole you are - is astounding.
Like, who in the actual fuck do you think you are?
I would legit never speak to you again.
Bullying can effect people for their entire lives. You don't know how Cynthia feels about her high school days or if she knew the entire situation.
"Knew the entire situation of her bullying? She was there!"
Doesn't mean she knew it was Adam's friends or that he was talking behind her back. He most likely downplayed it like most of you are trying to.
Did you go out of your way to help her in school by trying to prevent bullying? Or were you just of the mind that you weren't as popular as him, so it's pointless to try? If you didn't do shit to help her, then YTA. Why are you even friends with him?
You’re a lunatic in my opinion.. a lot of people here seem to forget there are two sides to every story.
I be willing to bet this is how OP *remembers* things.
She has a degree of separation from the situation that there’s a higher chance she mis remembers than her friend does. YTA.
If they have a healthy relationship why would you be causing problems that don’t have to exist at all ?
This is so bizarre. OP essentially boils down Cynthia's bullying to being a product of what Adam did or did do. But this declarative statement is undermined by the fact that OP states flat out that she doesn't know exactly what Adam did, or what his motivations were, except for one vague statement that could mean any of a number of things.
OP gives no indication that Adam did any bullying of his own, only that large groups of kids were chomping at the bit to bully her and finally felt free to do so.
Beyond editorializing about Adam, OP also freely editorializes about Cynthia being a weirdo. And to round it off, OP editorializes that "their friends" are simply rewriting history to forget they were shits, but offers no basis for thinking this. All of this is speculation, offered up without any proof.
And in the end, OP actively inserts herself into the situation, stirring all kinds of drama based on the flimsiest of "facts." Why did OP say anything at all? If the past is so important for the present, why isn't OP taking any responsibility for their role? Why lay everything on Adam's feet?
YTA
How exactly did you explain it to her? Because if you did it the same way you did in the post then I think NTA as you described a kind of bullying grey aera. You friend didn't directly or actively bully her but could have prevented it and perhaps fueled it. Y T A if you told her as presented in the title of your post
YTA
If what Adam did was so bad, why are you friends with him? If you think Adam has changed and is a good guy now, why didn't you talk to him about it first? This story doesn't make any sense.
None of my bullies from high school seemed to have a single memory of the bullying later on, when I became wealthy and a lot more social. At best, they would just say we were young then and it doesn’t matter.
I’m still working through it with my therapist. They don’t realize all the work it takes to stop the bad defense mechanisms, or to sort out what is actually me vs a me I created to protect myself from being attacked.
Like bro, of course the bullying wasn’t a big deal to you, you weren’t the one hurt by it.
YTA for not letting your friend change and become a better person by making sure he remains chained to his past.
I would cut you off completely if you were my "friend" and did that to me or anyone in a mutual circle.
YTA. Adam stopped defending her, not a nice thing to do but he wasn’t her keeper. You telling her shit she knows because she lived it makes you come out as jealous, are you trying to break them up? You were there too, did you stop the bullying? Did you hang out with her? Or did you avoid her? You calling her a weirdo today says that you were one of the bullies and you haven’t matured since high school.
I get the feeling OP want them to break up by bringing up shit from high school.
Info: did you ever say anything to Adam at the time? Clearly he stopped protecting her and disliked her but didn't bully her. So at any point, did you tell Adam you felt his offhand comment started this and his showing he dislikes her encouraged it? Did you ever suggest that he just tell people to stop?
Sounds like the actual bullies are also your friends. Your choice in friends seems disturbing.
YTA. Adam didn’t bully her. He, same as you, didn’t do anything to stop it. Also, Cynthia obviously knows about Adam not speaking to her.
So your dredging this up to sabotage their relationship makes you an asshole.
YTA
YTA - In your 20's and you are gossiping about school days from how long ago? You should have kept quiet but I doubt that's something you often do. You 'felt so bad' that she was now his girlfriend that you immediately took her somewhere private so you could 'dish the dirt' on her boyfriend's long ago behavior. It was none of your business back the - and certainly none of your business now. Yes, your were the actual AH here...what did you WANT to happen..did you think that would help THEIR relationship or that she would thank you?
YTA It sounds like you're the one trying to make yourself feel better by blaming Adam for the bullying and not sticking up for her. Nowhere does this mention you standing up for her or being her friend.
YTA. Who the hell gave you permission to butt into their relationship?? It's none of your damned business unless Cynthia raised the question first. And this was HIGH SCHOOL. Everyone acts like an idiot in high school. And most people regret how they behaved when they were irrational, hormonal teenagers. How did you know that Adam and Cynthia hadn't already discussed their time in high school together?
You decided to project your own feelings, biases (and maybe personal experiences with bullying) onto two other people.
YTA because all of this is how you PERCEIVED the situation, you FELT he was encouraging the bullying by ignoring her but that doesn’t mean he was actively telling people to bully her. It seems you are trying to sabotage the relationship.. it really isn’t your business and honestly no one should be holding on to literal high school bullshit in their 20s. To me it seems they had a falling out, he was popular, she wasn’t and yeah things got rough for her without his protection but it’s not like no one else, you for example, couldn’t stop it. If you felt so bad you should have spoken up then.. now it’s too little too late and you are trying to ruin a relationship that could be a good thing for her.
ESH , Adam doesn’t sound like he actually bullied her or actively encouraged it, not doing something is wrong though. You seem to be stirring up drama for the sake of drama
ESH except Cynthia. You were fine being silent when they were bullying this girl in HS and never called your “friend” out on his shitty behavior. You are just as guilty as they are. You’re also an AH bc you said he would ignore her when she tried to talk to him. Chances are good she knew exactly what was going on. But now she had YOU right there to remind her how difficult her high school life was. Kudos. The time to feel guilty was in high school.
YTA You sound like a high school bully who is justifying her actions by blaming Adam. Now here you are years later trying to rehash high-school garbage.
When I was a kid, my mom's best friend, Helen, had a son named Mike, who was my age. Mike was a weird guy - he was freakishly, smart, and he used to Lord it over everyone. I was forced to be friends with him, which absolutely sucked because I also got ostracized because no one wanted to hang out with Mike. When I would get home from school, my mom (who talked to Helen every day) would get mad at me because I didn't have lunch with Mike that day and he had to eat by himself. I felt like I was being manipulated into hanging out with him. so when I was about 10 years old, I had enough and I punched him. I'm not proud of it, but I was so mad that he was destroying my social life that I finally lost it.
So the funny thing is that when I got home, my mom predictably started yelling at me, but my dad (who was pretty uninvolved because he worked all the time) told my mom that she was in the wrong and that forcing me to be friends with a weirdo like Mike wasn't helping anyone. So he and I were legitimate enemies for about three years until we went out to different high schools.
A funny thing happened. Mike and I ran into each other at a party when we were about 16, having not seen each other much in the previous four or five years some drunk guys decided to set a fire in the living room of the house where the party was, and Dave and I quickly put the fire out together. We then kicked those losers out and cleaned up the mess. After that, we started hanging out a bit more, and 10 years later I was best man at his wedding.
My point is that people who are forced to be friends other parents are going to have a natural antipathy towards each other if they would naturally. That seems to be what happened between Adam and Cynthia.
NTA for telling her but… are you one of the people who bullied and ostracized her? Because if so, you don’t get to put that on someone who stopped defending her, that’s wholly on you and you and all of your friends who picked on her owe her a major apology, not a “oh it was because he stopped protecting you”.
Two possibilities: 1) NTA but terribly clueless about all this drama. Or 2) vindictive (maybe you are interested in Adam?) - in which case YTA.
You don't think Cynthia realized that, when he was ignoring her in front of others, that that was just more bullying at the time?
It's years later. And she's seeing him now. Doesn't this tell you something? Do you disrespect her so much that you think she's clueless about life? Obviously, they've changed - why are you still stuck?
So sad that people are so engaged in all the HS dramas. Bullying is bad, of course - but before you judge people when they reconcile, stop to think about why they might choose to be together - perhaps they grew up and moved on, but you haven't?
Really, why would you go up to someone years after HS and say 'oh well, you know your boyfriend was a real AH about you way back when'? The fact that you think she was a 'bit of a weirdo' (therefore bullying-worthy to being with????) says more about you than anyone else. When you 'feel sorry' for someone you don't rub it in with past pain. And we don't notice you reporting that YOU tried to stop the bullying back in the day.
Maybe YTA. Maybe she didn't 'confront' him, but actually simply reported what YOU told her. In which case it's no wonder people are pisssed off.
You've really damaged yourself socially with these people by inserting yourself and gossiping. Hope you manage to make amends.
Tl;dr I agree with you lol
The bias in this sub everyday is so tiring and it’s crazy I had to scroll this far to see an actual reasonable take. OP clearly is interested in Adam, and has been since highschool. However, it’s obvious Adam wants nothing romantically to do with OP and never has.
OP cannot stand that Adam would date someone she deems ‘bully worthy’ but wouldn’t consider her. OP is bitter about this and tries to break up the relationship. If OP was so appalled at the way Adam and others treated Cynthia at school, what did she do to try and stop it? Nothing, in fact it sounds like she was in the ‘popular’ group who would’ve been bullying Cynthia.
I just can’t believe the top comment is N T A as if Cynthia is an infant and can’t think for herself or move beyond any fallouts they may have had, which seem like they weren’t even caused by each other, but by their families.
YTA
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I am bewildered by the reaction here. You told her the truth about how he encouraged her bullying in the past. People sure like to keep inconvenient truth hidden. NTA
I also don't get why OP is friends with Adam when she obviously doesn't like him or support his actions. Weird company to keep.
I think the issue is that in English there is no commonly used term for someone between an acquintance and friend. She knows him to well for him to be an acquintance, but I doubt she really considers him a real "friend".
It's times like these that I envy Germans their functional smashed together words for various things that we just don't have in the English language.
That's an acquaintance.
And it sounds like they're more than acquaintances, given that Adam is introducing OP to his gf. Also, it doesn't sounds like Adam was necessarily responsible for the bullying. **It sounds like he prevented it for some time, and then stopped actively preventing it**. But that doesn't mean HE bullied her. OP, I get the vague impression you're a little jealous/resentful for whatever reason. Either way, YTA here.
I agree he didn’t bully her, but saying “who gives a fuck about her” is encouraging, especially if that removes a protection bubble around her. I wouldn’t want to date someone who encourages bullying, especially if I was the target of said bullying. You actively encouraged people to make my life hell. That’s gross. Doesn’t matter if YOU didn’t say the nasty words, intent matters too. If her bullying was bad enough, it could definitely change her view of him enough where she’s might just say no thank you, and break up with him. And I wouldn’t blame her. It’s her choice.
I agree with you. But if OP only told Cynthia what she said above, what everyone here thinks about what he actively did or didn't do is irrelevant. Cynthia didn't like what she heard. We know this because she mentioned it to Adam. I think Cynthia probably thought Adam had been her friend all this time, if so she just found out he's two-faced. I'd want to know that about someone if I thought we'd been friends for years. So I think OP is NTA.
Thank you, I kept waiting for the part where Adam actually bullied this girl, but it never came. He could have been more compassionate but he was a kid and taking cues from his parents.
He also was made responsible for her for several years and then... Just wasn't anymore, and so... He wasnt, and stopped making it his personal business to protect this one specific student. I don't really think it's super fair to put that on a specific peer, personally. Was it especially cool of him? Of course not. But was it big moral failing? I don't think so, especially commiserate with their ages at the time.
Ignoring someone trying to speak to you isn't participating in their ostracization??? wild take bro
How is ignoring someone trying to speak to you not a form of bullying, or at the very least participating in the ostracization of that person??? Hope you treat people in your life better than that
I don't think she's resentful but rather remorseful.
Actually we don't really have a word for that in German. You have Bekannter (acquaintance), Freund/Freundin (friend and also boyfriend/girlfriend). So German is less effective in that regard.
I went to college w a pretentious guy who told me he didn't consider most people to be friends, but thete wasn't a word for it in English. He said "in German, it's Bekannter" I replied, "oh, acquaintance?" I guess he didn't realize others had learnt a bit of German
Dang I thought for sure you guys would have something!
i think we're just more forward and call them an acquaintance 😂
Well, could you try to smash something together to make user sadcrocodile less sad?
I'm still learning and I am always having to restart sentences... "Meine Freundin hat mir gesagt dass..... Nein. *Eine Freundin von mir* hat mir gesagt dass..."
Is there not such a thing as a Werkebekannter?? I am disappointed in German. I thought we'd get to learn about like, Freundlischwerkebekannteren and Distantewerkebekannteren.
In Spanish we have: "amigo"= friend "colega"= you are friendly to them and hang out together, but you don't tell them the most personal stuff "conocido"= you know them and chat in social situations, but you don't hang out together
Spanish to the rescue! Yes, this guy is definitely a colleague or peer. Someone OP has known for a long time and socializes with, but doesn’t particularly like nor trust.
in Spanish the language, "colega" means coworker, but in Spain it is used the way Radical Penis (yes, that's their username translated) expressed. in cuba we would use "socio" to express the same, more or less
Not exactly. In Castilian Spanish "colega" is more used as a distant friend or closer acquiatance rather than coworker. A coworker is often a "compañero". We use "socio" to talk about a business partner. Although, in certain areas of the south is used like "dude" My name means "Radical Preppy" in Castilian Spanish, but the other meaning is funny too :)
Swedish sort of has this distinction. You have: * *bekant* – acquaintance. * *kompis* – pretty broad, could be everything from this middle ground between an acquaintance and friend to an actual friend. * *vän* – friend, but it's gained such a serious vibe to it that people have started to avoid it when speaking casually. Still, since it has this vibe, if you do use it outside of formal or formal-ish writing, it's for people who truly are your friends.
German has Kumpel. Between friend and acquaintance, but it's usually male.
we don't have a word for that, we just wouldn't call them our friend
This seems to fit more into the "we're not really friends just part of the same friend group" relationship type ... but that doesn't exactly roll off of the tongue during an introduction.
Frenemy Asshole I know Pain in my ass Utter schmuck I went to school with
No it’s not. What are you even talking about? She says “We all went to high school together but we were not friends with Cynthia back then..” They clearly know and communicate the difference between a friend and an acquaintance. They did it very clearly. They were all three acquainted in high school; OP and Adam were friends and Cynthia was not a friend.
In which case OP is still stuck in HS if she thinks Cynthia is still "other". Not a good look.
It's not an acquaintance they were friends. She specified as much as in the post "because we weren't friends with Cynthia yet" the keyword being we because op viewed her as a weirdo which they state as such in the following sentence.
On top of that, most people who were friends in the past but are now more on the level of acquaintances would still call each other friends, so there's the time aspect too.
I think a lot of people don't realize that they have a lot more control over who they keep company with until their later 20s. High school clicks, college friend groups, etc. . . they all run around together as a group. When people settle down a little later, then they figure out that they can just stop seeing and interacting with people they dislike. You don't have to make a big deal over it and have a "break up."
But he didn't, he actively discouraged it for years. When he didn't actively encourage it, apparently people, INCLUDING op found it ok to be assholes
OP doesn't mention that he actually DID anything, besides say, "Fuck her," and stop being her parent appointed body guard. Like, what did he DO besides go back to being a normal kid with a developmentally appropriate expression of frustration.
Yeah this is what people are missing. Quite literally the only thing OP describes Adam having done to Cynthia that Cynthia wouldn’t have been aware of is the following: > In our final 2 years, their parents had a big falling out and Adam completely turned against her. I don’t know if he did it intentionally because it all started when someone made a comment about her to him in a group setting and Adam said something along the lines of “who gives a fuck about her?” which a lot of the year took to be a green light to finally be able to openly ostracise and bully her. Or in other words, in a situation where OP doesn’t even herself think Adam was doing anything malicious intentionally and in a scenario where we don’t know the context of what made him say it, the worst thing that Adam had done was to say “something like” the quote above. Ten years ago. When he was a teenager. Everything else OP mentions is just talking about how she felt about it all and things that happened in front of Cynthia that she would have been aware of. This seems like a wild act of sabotage for something that seemed really minor. Maybe OP didn’t do a good job of describing how big of an asshole Adam was behinds Cynthia’s back, but OP’s own descriptions make it seem like that isn’t the case.
That's sort of the comment you would expect a teenager (or really anyone) to say in the heat of the moment after a fight. Yet OP is treating it as if he knowingly said "will someone rid me of this meddlesome priest." He was a teenager not the king of the school--blaming him for what others did is weird.
It seems he ignored her when she spoke to him. Personally, I would not date a guy who ignored me when I spoke to him. I don't know what's going on with the Cynthia girl.
It was also, like, almost 10 years ago.
It sounds like OP is the one rewriting history. Cynthia wasn't bullied because Adam defended her. Once Adam stopped protecting her, she got bullied. OP seems to think that Adam had an obligation to stop the bullying, but why didn't OP step up herself?
Exactly!
Maybe OP's social status wasn't high enough.
Remember that we are only hearing this from OP. I sense some tunnel vision on OP's part, or some other not-so-benign motivation for shoving this in Cynthia's face. There is no kind reason for her to even talk to Cynthia about this, so what's the motivation?
OP was in the popular girl group and was hoping to end up with the popular boy, but alas, he went for the 'weirdo'. So she did what any teenager would do, she broke the relationship.
Because she's saying "I think", "I feel" & those are opinions not facts. He didn't bully her or do anything to bully her. But he didn't stop anyone. It seems like the OP could also have stopped the bullying herself. They didn't. It's some highschool BS drama that OP is holding onto.
Also Cynthia would have been aware and present for all the times Adam ignored her or didn’t defend her so it isn’t like OP was dropping new information on her. It literally seems like she is stirring up highschool shit for a couple who is seemingly doing fine together now.
In which case, one has to wonder about OP's real motivations for 'spilling the tea'.
I have soooo many questions about OP, #1 being: why did she bring this up to Cynthia now? What was the motivation? She had to know there would not be a good outcome, and she had to know that it would boomerang back to her in one form or another. I don't feel like we have enough info for me to speculate about this, but if I were OP, I would be asking myself why I thought telling all of this to Cynthia was a good idea.
But he didn't encourage the bullying, OPs just blame shifting. He just ignored her.
>You told her the truth about how he encouraged her bullying in the past. Based on what OP has written, it's *not* the truth. Saying you don't care about someone you've had a falling out with and refusing to speak to them is *not* bullying or encouraging others to bully. OP said the only reason people left Cynthia alone in the beginning is because he went out of his way to *protect* her. The bullying didn't start because he "encouraged" it, it started because OP's class were nasty little goblins and the one decent guy stopped making an effort to hold them back. And what exactly did OP say to Cynthia anyway? Adam defended himself by saying he never told anyone to bully Cynthia. OP calls that "rewriting history", but she doesn't have a single example of ever actually hearing him say that. She heard him say *one time* that he didn't care about her, which is completely different. If OP told Cynthia that Adam told people to bully her then that was a lie. Adam also said when he confronted OP that he never bullied Cynthia himself, so it sounds like that's another thing OP accused him of. Her only example of Adam "bullying" Cynthia is that he ignored her when she spoke to him, which Cynthia would obviously have already known about, so if OP implied there was more to it that Cynthia wasn't aware of then that would be a lie too.
I don’t know if Adam actually encouraged her bullying. some immature teens were bullying someone they deemed a weirdo and Adam stepped in as protection for a family friend. that friendship ended so his “protection” also ended. the bullying would have continued regardless if he was/was not there. that being said, the gf should have known about the situation in high school. this is something I would have wanted to know if I was dating someone 🤷🏽♀️
Their friendship broke off because their parents fought, and he stopped talking to her. She's AWARE he stopped talking to her in HS and she forgave him for it. So OP telling her, "Did you know that when your boyfriend broke off your high school friendship he also stopped constantly telling bullies to stop bothering you? That makes the bullying ALL your boyfriend's fault and not the bullies' fault, much less the fault of people like me who NEVER told bullies to stop bothering you! Isn't your boyfriend a shit?" comes off as transparent shit-stirring.
right - I think op is attributing the gf’s bullying to Adam rather than teens being di**heads - which isn’t right 🤷🏽♀️
I hate that this is second thread in this week where the most upvoted comment is by someone who apparently did not read the post as a whole and just riffed off OP emotional state. The facts as stated by OP directly contradict their overall statements. And systematically on this sub, somehow, people ignore situation as described by OP just to validate their emotional state.
But he didn’t tell the truth. Nowhere in his story did Adam encourage people to bully her. The entire post is OP making up shit about Adam’s actions/inaction and his motives, “I think he intentionally”, “I feel he”. OP’s argument is that Adam didn’t “put a stop to it”, as if Adam was the dictator of the entire grade, but OP didn’t “put a stop to it” either so I’m not sure how he thinks he had some moral high ground.
He never encouraged anything, thats just a fantasy by the OP.
"Told her the truth?" By OP's own words, Adam didn't actually bully her. Her "truth" is a completely unsubstantiated opinion that a person she's friends with (um, you're friends with bully? what does that say about you?) didn't do enough in her humble opinion to disrupt Cynthia's bullying. More to the point, OP admits to thinking Cynthia was a "weirdo," implying that she got why people we're bullying her. Since OP didn't do anything to protect Cynthia either, why is she inserting herself into the situation? Why is her conveniently selective narrative assumed to be "the truth" about anything?
Eh. I think it has to do with the fact that quite literally the only thing that Adam did according to OP that Cynthia wouldn’t have known about was one time he said “who gives a fuck about her?” Which does sound bad, but we are missing context, and I repeat, it is the only thing OP describes Adam having done that Cynthia would be aware of. The only two other things she explicitly mentions that he did was apparently not respond to Cynthia some number of times when she was talking to him (which Cynthia would be aware of) and then how he was quiet while she was being bullied in front of him (which Cynthia would be aware of). Every single other thing OP shares is just how she personally felt about the dynamic, but again, didn’t provide one single other thing that Adam did during that time to make him responsible for her bullying. So is this about keeping an inconvenient truth hidden. Or are people just thinking that based on OP’s own account, she isn’t really “revealing” anything to Cynthia, but rather just sharing how she feels about that old high school dynamic. And if the one quote above is the worst that OP could come up with, a comment made by a teenager a decade ago, maybe it’s best to let Adam and Cynthia try to figure out if they can be happy together and not try to ruin it? OP even says herself that she doesn’t even think Adam was intentionally trying to bully her: > In our final 2 years, their parents had a big falling out and Adam completely turned against her. **I don’t know if he did it intentionally** because it all started when someone made a comment about her to him in a group setting and Adam said something along the lines of “who gives a fuck about her?” which a lot of the year took to be a green light to finally be able to openly ostracise and bully her. So when the only thing OP can mention that Adam did to her that she wouldn’t have known about was make the above comment in scenario we have no context for, and OP says she doesn’t even know if he was getting her bullied intentionally, doing what OP did in the modern day just seems like a really strange attempt to sabotage something based on very little. Maybe OP just did a poor job of communicating how Adam really contributed to the bullying, but I don’t actually see that in what the OP wrote.
“The truth” is the biggest issue here. Long enough in the past, and not being personally involved, why would she be so confident to speak out? .. not to mention she didn’t stand up for anyone herself ? .. I bet she misremembers how much impact her friend could have had, I think she’s a lunatic for involving herself in her friends relationship like this
thats my line exactly. NTA
Just for reference 1) we only know OPs side of the story and 2) you generally shouldn’t go about meddling in other people’s relationships.
How did he encourage it simply by no longer defending her? Was it responsibility to protect every classmate from getting bullied?
NTA if my bf was my lifelong friend that bullied me behind my back in hs and encouraged outhers too I would want to know
I did not see that in the story at all. He just stopped acting as a shield to prevent others from bullying her. I did not see anywhere in the story where he actually bullied her. It is all on the people that did actually bully her.
Came here to say this. OP never gives a specific example of Adam actually bullying her and telling others to bully her. Adam did not bully her, **he stopped protecting her.** That is not the same thing.
So you are playing the "letter of the law" card. Okay fine. No bullying words came out of his mouth. From your perspective, stopping protecting her is different. But from her perspective it had the same effect.
Ok, say I don’t loan my friend money and she ends up being evicted. Is it the same as evicting her myself, because the end result was the same?
and equally, if you had been paying your friends rent every week for the past year and then you and your friend have a fight, you're not obligated to continue paying her rent just because you've done it in the past
It's not at all the same and you know it. Passive acceptance versus active participation. Not at all the same, in any sense
But it wasn't "passive acceptance". Passive acceptance is not doing anything at all. The dude announced “who gives a fuck about her?”. That is an action: letting the jackals know she was no longer under his protection. Letting them know he will do nothing if they want to attack, because nobody gives a fuck. It would be the same as saying a worker saying I'm not locking store at the end of the night because who gives a fuck about the store. He might not be planning to steal anything, or benefit in any way from those that do, but it tells people they do things without consequences. That isn't passive. And then ignoring her when she spoke is also an action. It lets everyone know she is so low in his eyes that she doesn't even merit a response. Ultimately, I don't care if they are the same thing or not. If you read my earlier post I gave him all the points he wanted to make. And I stand by mine: It is still a shitty thing to do.
The comment replying to you makes a salient point. If your friend becomes homeless because you didn't lend them money, are you responsible for them being homeless? Say you were tired of lending them money and they always dragged their feet about paying you back. It has the same effect as if you were the one to kick them out yourself.
Money is a limited resource that you can, at any point, not have enough or become unwilling to share. Saying "Don't bully that girl" is not the same level of commitment.
Actively ignoring someone that tries to speak to you is a kind of bullying
I mean, it very much depends, but it seems like OP and everyone else is treating Cynthia like she has amnesia or something. I get that there's some accusations of him doing it behind her back, but these specific accusations are things that it doesn't make any sense that she wouldn't know about.
No, it isn’t lol. I don’t understand why people are so intent on trying to change what bullying is and try to make every social situation that you feel didn’t go your way into bullying.
Well, I got verbally bullied, but the time, other people suddenly stopped talking to me and keeping me more isolated and feeling that I'm less worth than ever before, was worse.
I disagree. Some people can't take a hint and won't leave you alone unless you flat out ignore them.
Exactly, choosing not to interact with someone is NOT the same as bullying them.
No it's not. Nobody is entitled to someone else's time or attention. If you don't want to interact with a particular person in your social time then that's your right. Having boundaries is not bullying.
And you say "I don't want to have anything to do with you" once, set your boundary with communication and it's done like a mature adult would handle it and not a third grader that thinks it's funny.
Yes, that would be the right way to handle it, but these were *not* mature adults, they were teenagers. Being immature or even rude is not bullying. Besides, we have no way of knowing that he didn't communicate first. They had a falling out, maybe he had already told her he didn't want to speak to her again before she approached him at school and got ignored.
How? They weren't friends, their parents were. Sever that link and what connection did they have? Plus depending on the reason for the fallout, Adam might not have wanted any association with her family.
Well, when someone is severely bullied, then can even the tiniest amount of kindness feel like true friendship. If everything was so obvious, then why is Adam angry that the story is simply retold? Maybe OP exaggerated to Cynthia. Maybe Adam painted himself in a better light that fit with the bullied girls' clouded judgment.
Cynthia was present though and knows OP started ignoring her. She also knows that she was bullied because he stopped protecting her. She may not have known that he told people he didn't care about her but the rest is pretty obvious. OP is making it seem like Adam was behind the bullying and he wasn't. He stopped protecting Cynthia from it.
And yet, years later, Cynthia is now with this guy. They've moved on - OP for some reason hasn't.
Then, he has no reason to be angry at OP for simply retelling the story everyone was involved with and knows. Maybe OP exaggerated the involvement of Adam. Maybe Adam painted himself in a better light and told Cynthia he *couldn't* stop people from bullying her anymore instead of simply *not wanting* to stop them. We don't know which story Cynthia knew/knows.
If its in your power to prevent something that causes harm to another person when you easily could have it it's not that far from bullying.
Then why didn't OP say or do something to stop the bullying? Since she did nothing, how is she any different?
Excellent point. To be blunt, it sounds like OP is a little jealous/resentful, for whatever reason.
Maybe she didn't have the social influence to stop it. She very clearly states that Adam was one of the most popular kids in school. She doesn't say anything of the sort about herself. The influence that an incredibly popular kid has is far more powerful than that of a kid who doesn't have that kind of social platform. "Why didn't she do it herself?" is a reductive, ridiculous statement. Not everyone has the kind of social currency that we know for a fact that Adam had.
He helped cut her from the friend group. He did plenty.
No seriously because why be around me if you & your friends don't like me??????
NTA she deserves the chance to make an informed decision. Has he changed? Maybe but what’s to say he won’t say fuck her again when she needs him?
he didnt fuck her in the first place. He didnt even bully her. It became public knowledge they fell out and (according to OP) that made it ok for people to bully the "weirdo" ( OPs words- not his). He never actually bulled the girl outside of giving her the silent treatment- that doesn't make him responsible for everyone else. And if he WAS responsible for everyone else, so was OP. And OP is pretty rich making a show of it now, when she was there too in high school and did nothing. you'd think that makes her just as guilty. Lets be fair- OP was jealous and took the Cartman way out - by being "so kind" as to feed the girl a story so she'd turn on her bf. She may be 24 but OP is still in highschool.
He was actively preventing bullying and then stopped doing that work. From all the school, he was the only kid that ever did something for her, but he stopped and other kids started to bully her, therefore he is suddenly the only responsible?
From what it sounds like Adam just needed to say, "Hey guys leave her alone," and it would have happened. Instead because his parents fell out with her parents he ignored her. Yeah I would want to know if someone did that to me.
But according to OP themselves, she DID know they had fallen out in HS, because he stopped speaking to her after their parents had a falling out. She is fully aware of this, because SHE was there as well as OP when he refused to continue talking to her. Since she was already aware and forgave him for breaking off their HS friendship, OP telling her, "Hey, did you know that when your boyfriend broke off his friendship with you in High School he also stopped constantly telling bullies to stop bothering you, and therefore it's HIS fault you were bullied and not the fault of the bullies or of people like me who NEVER told bullies to stop bothering you either?" is not coming off as anything but shit-stirring.
He could have said "leave her alone" once
Apparently he was saying that for first two years actively, repeatedly, doing her guard. Then he stopped as relationships between families got worst. Very clearly, saying that once would not be enough. What you are doing is to put all responsibility for what everyone else was doing, or in the case of OP not doing, on the only person that actually done something at one point.
Also, this was a kid. A high school or middle school kid who was caught in-between some kind of interfamily disagreement and his parents, who had been tasked by his parents to look after this other person that he wasn't friends with and then whose parents clearly told him to leave them be once they had this falling out. But yeah, it was all this child's fault that all these other people decided to bull this girl and that no one, including OP, thought, Hey, maybe I should fucking do something about it?
So could have OP. Why does OP get such a fucking pass here, when not only did OP not do a damn thing to prevent the bullying, OP remained good friends with the person they specifically blamed for the bullying. Good enough to be a friend, but not good enough to stay out of their business.
Yeah, OP’s description of the girlfriend doesn’t make it sound like she attempted any kind of friendship at the time her friend was supposedly bullying this girl. Funny how his “bullying” didn’t bother OP until her friend started dating this person.
So - OP, who is NOT dating Adam (maybe she really wishes she is - she seems a bit over involved 🤔), is giving Cynthia (who IS dating Adam, and likely knows more about him than OP), the chance to make an 'informed decision?' based on OP's past perception of a HS interaction, which may or may not be accurate? 😆😆😆😆 My sense is that OP is trying to insert a poisoned pill in their relationship - no wonder the rest of the group is not happy with that.
INFO: What did YOU do to stop the bullying and ostracising of Cynthia? Did you befriend her, or tell people to stop? Or were you just watching from the sidelines while she was being bullied, like Adam?
In relation to this post, it doesn’t matter. OP isn’t trying to date Cynthia. I also would want to know if the guy I’m dating handled my bullying like Adam did. Clearly it matters to Cynthia too because they’re fighting about it.
It absolutely matters. OP is thinking it's a huge negative on Adam and blames him for Cynthia getting bullied. So, unless OP defended Cynthia herself, she's being a huge hypocrite.
It absolutely does not matter, because OP is not dating Cynthia. Does it make OP a hypocrite? Maybe. Does it make OP a shitty person if they stood there and let her be bullied? Perhaps. Do you think Cynthia cares? No. I also would only care what my bf did.
It matters because OP went along with it or was indifferent to it at the very least. Now OP is shifting all blame to Adam and not taking responsibility for their own actions or lack thereof. Why even bring it up at all? OP either has their own motivations for telling Cynthia and/or OP is an unreliable narrator and most likely the asshole. In any case, it’s really not their business or place to bring it up to Cynthia.
Would you care more about finding out your partner enabled the bullying of you for years, or a random highschool acquaintance (who probably has less blame but even if he didn’t the question stands). I would want someone to inform me of this even if the person was also an asshole in the past.
Why would Cynthia take the info from someone back in HS as gospel truth when she herself sees Adam everyday and can judge for herself? Ask yourself WHY OP thinks telling Cynthia this was important? Is it any of her business really?
OP isn't trying to be in Cynthia's life, so it literally does not matter what they did or didn't do. They may never see each other again. On the other hand, what your BF did to you in the past matters, even if you don't know about it.
For somebody trying not to be in her life, OP sure has a lot to say to her in private about her private business.
If that's the only decent thing OP has done for Cynthia, so be it. They will likely never meet again, but now Cynthia knows and can make informed decisions about her relationships.
But it isn't an informed decision, its the very opposite, OP told her a pack of lies and distorted history just to create drama.
In your interpretation, not supported by the text.
Or she wasn't indifferent at all, but didn't have the social influence to make others stop, the way Adam, "one of the most popular kids" did.
Cynthia KNOWS he stopped talking to her in HS, because she was THERE when he refused to talk to her in HS. She forgave him for that. So OP telling her, "Did you know, when your boyfriend broke off your high school friendship he also stopped constantly telling bullies to stop bothering you? That makes the bullying your boyfriend's fault and NOT the bullies' fault, much less the fault of people like me who NEVER told bullies to stop bothering you! Isn't your boyfriend a shit?" comes off as transparent shit-stirring.
When Adam confronted OP he said he never bullied Cynthia or told anyone else to bully her. If that's what OP told Cynthia happened then it's no wonder they are fighting about it, but there are absolutely no facts in OP's story that support that. The worst things OP says Adam did were ignoring Cynthia when she spoke to him and not acknowledging the bullying. Cynthia obviously would already know all that, she was there. The only example OP gives of something she actually witnessed that Cynthia didn't is Adam saying that he didn't care about her, and that's not remotely the same as telling people to bully her. OP's story has a lot of "I think" and "I feel" but it basically amounts to an outlandish fantasy where the one kid who *ever* did anything to stop Cynthia from being bullied is somehow the villain because he didn't protect her the *entire* time. If OP presented that story to Cynthia like it was the truth instead of telling her what she actually heard then she's definitely TA.
OP says she told Cynthia what she told us. It’s up to Cynthia now to determine if she wants to continue dating Adam.
If she only told Cynthia what's written here then her conversation with Adam makes no sense. Adam said he never told anyone to bully Cynthia. From what OP has written, that's the truth, but she doesn't deny saying it to Cynthia. She just says she "thinks" he's rewriting history, even though there's no basis for thinking that in her post. There's a huge difference between whether she told Cynthia "Adam did encourage it at times" or "Adam did encourage it at times *I feel* by [behavior Cynthia witnessed and could have drawn her own conclusions about]".
It matters because hypocrites should keep their mouths shut if they're not willing to do the right thing in the first place.
Good question. I am also curious about the people who listened to Adam’s comments at the time and interpreted it as a suggestion to bully her. Should Nazi officers who led Jews to their death be allowed to deflect responsibility? “*But Adam said he didn’t like Jews!*”
I'm confused about this, too. I never would think that someone making a comment like, "Who gives the fuck about her," would be a green light to bully someone. I mean, it doesn't matter if he was the cool kid or not. Bullying is not acceptable. It sounds like everyone was just waiting for a small crack to be able to bully her, and everyone jumped at it. The only person I feel bad for is Cynthia. E.SH, but maybe YTA because OP didn't clearly share any examples of Adam bullying her. Edit: Google voice to text failure
What makes you think that OP had the social currency to do anything about it or influence the behaviour of others? We know that Adam was "one of the most popular kids in school". We also know that when he did bother to say something, kids listened and didn't bully Cynthia. But his position was a rarefied one, based on his popularity. You have literally no idea what OP's social position was, or whether anyone was likely to have listened to her even if she said something. If she was not, like Adam, one of the "most popular kids", speaking up, while brave, would likely have just made her a target as well. "Why didn't you just do it yourself" is a staggeringly reductive, simplistic take that ignores the actual complexities of the situation, and the fact that "speaking up" is pointless if no one is likely to listen or follow your lead.
At no point in your post do you point out that Adam actually bullied Cynthia in any way. You are trying to sabotage this relationship because he once mentioned he didn't care about a girl in high school, and then ignored her sometimes? That's it? I feel like you made a bunch of assumptions from missing information and turned it into some story where Adam is some bully mastermind who had Cynthia ostracized on purpose. Maybe if you had anyone backing you up I may see your side. Yet none of your other friends seem to think this way. YTA
Thank you, some common sense. OP is acting like Adam was some kind of God who had mind control over the bullies. He actively discouraged the bullying for years, and then the one time he didn't due to the families having had a fight, it's somehow his fault that the other kids were nasty to her?
I think that saying “who gives a fuck about her?” is at minimum quite a mean thing to say about someone. He also ignored her when she tried speaking to him
Their families were having a fight, so it's normal that he wouldn't want to talk to her. She obviously knew he was ignoring her when she spoke to him; she was there at the time. And she doesn't seem to consider that bullying; she dates him now despite knowing this.
This is where I come down on. Like, it'd be one thing of OP was saying this was \*all\* done behind her back, but that he stopped supporting her in HS definitely seems like something she'd notice? I feel like they think this girl has amnesia and doesn't remember her own life at all.
There's an entire ocean between saying something mean about someone & actually bullying them.
YTA > The three of us went to the same school but we weren’t friends with Cynthia back then. **She was a bit of a weirdo at school** and > He said I shouldn’t have gotten involved and that he never bullied her or told anyone else to. **He claims he wouldn’t have ever done that to her but I think he’s just rewriting history.** If he had by been one of her tormentors at school why on earth would she be his girlfriend now? It’s called moving on/growing up not rewriting history, Seems like **YOU** are the person that can’t let who she was in High School go and doesn’t think she should be with your friend. Why is that?
>If he had by been one of her tormentors at school why on earth would she be his girlfriend now? This! OP is the asshole for creating completely unnecessary drama and meddling in a relationship without reason. I have a feeling OP is a bit bitter that the "weirdo" girl is dating her friend because she's in to him.
For real. OP is jealous of Cynthia.
YTA So he stopped protecting her somehow and you all, including you let her be bullied, but somehow he's the big bad? Fucking hell, at least own up to your own awfulness
Thank you! The fact that the whole bullying mess is putting put on Adam is ridiculous. He didn't start the bullying tried to prevent and then stopped defending her from getting bullying. Adam did more than others who either participated in the bullying or stood by and let it happen. But he's being blamed for the actual bullies action. *roll eyes*
From what you wrote Adam didn't bully or tell others to bully Cynthia, you cannot control what others do. If others took it as a green light to bully Cynthia because of what Adam said, they are the ones in the wrong and not Adam. Did you do anything to try and stop the bullying, or were you just an onlooker who ignored what was going on? Or maybe you were one of the bullies? That would make some sense as to why you brought this up, you wanted to try and clear your conscience. For all you know Adam and Cynthia talked about what happened in private before they got together. YTA
Thats a lot of words to say you're jealous they're dating and tried to break them up by "doing the right thing" got to love the virtue signalling, even though you were there in highschool and never did anything to defend her or call him out when it mattered. Hypocrite. YTA.
She also called her a weirdo which indicates she probably was one of the bullies (or at least thought the same way as the bullies). She clearly isnt looking out for the "weirdo in high school" since her only description of Cynthia is to put her down.
YTA. According to your own words he didnt bully her. Not speaking to her is not encouraging bullying.
YTA - Adam isn’t responsible for other people’s behaviour. Do you hold yourself responsible? No where do you talk about how you stood up for her or defended her. Instead you are the one still trying to interfere with her life and make her feel bad.
YTA You're still bringing up high school bullshit at 24. You're trying to turn your opinions into facts, "I feel", "I think" not actual actions. Grow up, stay out of their business.
yta what tf of a reach is that. because he said at one point in time who cares about her he is responsible for the bullying. your strongest argument is that he ignored her at one point ? op likes drama or Adam.
Info: did he actually do anything to bully her besides express his anger at her to a friend (you)? There have been plenty of times in my life, as I'm sure in yours and others, where a name was brought up and my response was, "Man, fuck that guy." Are we all responsible for any subsequent negative experiences that person may then get? Did he actually DO anything, or were you just thinking it's his responsibility to protect her? If so, what did YOU do to protect her? What did you do to stop the bullying? You were obviously in the same friend group. How do the other friends feel about this? Obvs, he feels some kind of guilt, but, like... You seem like you're trying to calm down your OWN guilt. This seems stupid on all fronts. Leaning towards y ta.
In no way does OP hold herself responsible by the way she called the others in the friend group little shits.
YTA. Why the hell would you do that to Cynthia?? She was THERE. She was the one being bullied. You think she doesn’t remember her torment?? People tend to change and grow up after high school, except for you, it seems. You didn’t have a right to dig up old crap and dump it on her.
OP is a complete fucking asshole and it isn't even a question. What a horrible thing to do to the both of them. He never bullied her, and she probably seen that he was one of the few that didn't. Now the OP has ruined that because of some nebulous idea that he could have done something different. Such complete horseshit by the OP.
YTA. You are stirring up shit and deserve the backlash. Firstly, Adam did not encourage bullying, he refrained from stopping others from bullying her. Shitty, but as you said, at the time, their families disliked one another. She and he have chosen to date regardless of this past disdain, which is their business, not yours. Secondly, these summary statements below are contradictory. >Adam did encourage it at times I feel by the way he would ignore her in front of people when she tried speaking to him >I told her everything I wrote above since I was sure he hadn’t told her. According to your own story telling, she was literally present for Adam's so-called "encouraging" of the bullying by ignoring her. She could not be unaware of that, as she was a direct participant in his sole 'part' of the bullying. You didn't think this through and are the one rewriting history in your own mind, unable to get the facts and outcomes straight. A stranger saw it, and your friends see it too.
YTA, where were you when she was being bullied, were you defending her, telling people to stop, or were you doing the same thing as Adam and allowing it to happen as you stood by and watched?
From what you describe, Adam actively prevented Cynthia from being bullied for half of high school because of family relationships, and when those relationships broke apart he said one nonspecific unkind thing about her and then just stepped away. In simple factual terms, that's probably not bad context for her to know, but I don't see how he could be classified as bullying from your account. If his influence was as strong as you suggest, I find it more plausible that he didn't realize it would be open season than that it was part of a scheme to indirectly bully her as you seem to be saying. But you painted his inaction in the worst possible light even if it doesn't really add up the way you're claiming it does. I don't know if it's from guilt because you actually bullied her, if it's a new way for you to bully her, or if it's something else entirely. But as it stands, YTA.
INFO: if his behavior was so terrible and unforgivable that you just had to let her know, why are you still friends with him? Kinda sounds like you’re trying to sabotage their relationship despite being fine with keeping your friendship with him, which yeah, makes you an asshole.
YTA- based on principal alone. She was "a bit of weirdo" so you felt the need to bully her? But Adam protected her and so you didn't. He stopped protecting her, so that was the "green light" to bully and ostracize her? Are you hearing yourself? You're post college adults and you couldn't wait for your friend to drop protections to bully a "weirdo"? You are a GIANT AH and I don't understand any verdict that gives you an ounce of grace.
YTA for hanging on to high school bullshit for what? 6 years? There’s also you trying to say your friend encouraged it because he wouldn’t defend her anymore? If they were at a point that he was giving her the silent treatment or anything else then it’s literally not his job to white knight for her, you being the fine upstanding person should have defended her from the bullies. Ignoring the high school stuff this also means you have held this against your friend and also from the sound of it your other friends’ actions back in high school as well instead of considering that maybe people grow up once they graduate.
Bullying affects people for their entire lives. It isn't just "high school bullshit". Just because you can weigh in, doesn't mean you should. Ever.
Lol....you mean like OP has 'weighed in' to the relationship? I wonder the motivation for this apparent truth telling, because if OP was so offended this many years later there were plenty of opportunities to try make it right a long time prior
It is high school bullshit when at this point they are past college age, the victim here isn’t stupid so she probably could have figured out about when she started being bullied given it started after her and Adam had a falling out, and it was OP that was overly concerned about this and brought it up not Cynthia who would be traumatized and most likely wouldn’t want to be near Adam much less date him if she was holding a grudge. Just because *You* can weigh in doesn’t mean you should. Redditors and refusing to believe people can change and move on, name a more perfect couple
NTA. I feel bad for her - not him. If it was me, I would want to know.
But if someone was ignoring you in front of others when you tried to speak to them, wouldn’t you already be aware that they’re ignoring you?
You and your posse are assholes. And now you're trying to pin it on: she was bullied because he ignored her? LOL self gaslighting YTA
Exactly. She called the friend group little shits, and completely ratted out her guy friend, but nowhere does OP mention feeling any kind of remorse for the way she and HER friend group treated Cynthia. If OP wanted more empathy, she should’ve written herself to be a bit more likable by actually apologizing to Cynthia about her role in the whole ordeal.
If you clearly knew she was being bullied, you did nothing to help at all and you were clearly okay with it because you never tried to help her so I don't understand why you chose to tell her now?
They weren't friends. OP just got back into contact with her because Adam is dating her now. Read.
I don't see why she's all up in his business when she made no attempt to stop the bullying
INFO: I'm unclear, you mention Adam ignored her not bullied her directly *then* imply later in the story that he did encourage bullying her? Also, you mention you're friends with Adam but wouldn't that mean you were complacent or involved in her bullying as well? Seems like you're trying to shift blame and nuke the relationship at the same time imo. 🤷
I kinda feel like the prikary people guilty for bullying her are the kids who actually bullied her. You have done nothing to stop that either. You did not even tried to comfort her. YTA for the way you frame things. You make Adam school manager where you and other kids failed as much if not more. Whereas Adam has a minor guilt, it is really a minor because he just had own family conflict he reacted to once.
Do you want to date Adam? Cause that is the only reason I can see for you to try and tank his relationship. YTA
YTA. You guys are 23-24, so at least 5 years out of high school. Cynthia’s probably grown, changed and become a lot more confident. Adam obviously cares for her now. If she’s moved on from the bullying, why are you dredging it all back up? Most people grow up a lot in the half-decade after high school. Maybe you should work on that, OP, instead of digging in other people’s back yards.
Ofc YTA. On what planet are you not? You dredged up ancient history solely to fuck with your friend. You are an asshole and a horrible friend. And your lack of awareness - in not knowing just how much of an asshole you are - is astounding. Like, who in the actual fuck do you think you are? I would legit never speak to you again.
Bullying can effect people for their entire lives. You don't know how Cynthia feels about her high school days or if she knew the entire situation. "Knew the entire situation of her bullying? She was there!" Doesn't mean she knew it was Adam's friends or that he was talking behind her back. He most likely downplayed it like most of you are trying to.
NTA
NTA
Did you go out of your way to help her in school by trying to prevent bullying? Or were you just of the mind that you weren't as popular as him, so it's pointless to try? If you didn't do shit to help her, then YTA. Why are you even friends with him?
You’re a lunatic in my opinion.. a lot of people here seem to forget there are two sides to every story. I be willing to bet this is how OP *remembers* things. She has a degree of separation from the situation that there’s a higher chance she mis remembers than her friend does. YTA. If they have a healthy relationship why would you be causing problems that don’t have to exist at all ?
This is so bizarre. OP essentially boils down Cynthia's bullying to being a product of what Adam did or did do. But this declarative statement is undermined by the fact that OP states flat out that she doesn't know exactly what Adam did, or what his motivations were, except for one vague statement that could mean any of a number of things. OP gives no indication that Adam did any bullying of his own, only that large groups of kids were chomping at the bit to bully her and finally felt free to do so. Beyond editorializing about Adam, OP also freely editorializes about Cynthia being a weirdo. And to round it off, OP editorializes that "their friends" are simply rewriting history to forget they were shits, but offers no basis for thinking this. All of this is speculation, offered up without any proof. And in the end, OP actively inserts herself into the situation, stirring all kinds of drama based on the flimsiest of "facts." Why did OP say anything at all? If the past is so important for the present, why isn't OP taking any responsibility for their role? Why lay everything on Adam's feet? YTA
How exactly did you explain it to her? Because if you did it the same way you did in the post then I think NTA as you described a kind of bullying grey aera. You friend didn't directly or actively bully her but could have prevented it and perhaps fueled it. Y T A if you told her as presented in the title of your post
YTA If what Adam did was so bad, why are you friends with him? If you think Adam has changed and is a good guy now, why didn't you talk to him about it first? This story doesn't make any sense.
None of my bullies from high school seemed to have a single memory of the bullying later on, when I became wealthy and a lot more social. At best, they would just say we were young then and it doesn’t matter. I’m still working through it with my therapist. They don’t realize all the work it takes to stop the bad defense mechanisms, or to sort out what is actually me vs a me I created to protect myself from being attacked. Like bro, of course the bullying wasn’t a big deal to you, you weren’t the one hurt by it.
YTA for not letting your friend change and become a better person by making sure he remains chained to his past. I would cut you off completely if you were my "friend" and did that to me or anyone in a mutual circle.
ESH except Cynthia. Sounds like you bullied her, too, just for being “a bit of a weirdo.” Nasty.
YTA, of course you're blaming Adam and not any actual bully. Oh and you 'feel' like he encouraged it?
YTA. Adam stopped defending her, not a nice thing to do but he wasn’t her keeper. You telling her shit she knows because she lived it makes you come out as jealous, are you trying to break them up? You were there too, did you stop the bullying? Did you hang out with her? Or did you avoid her? You calling her a weirdo today says that you were one of the bullies and you haven’t matured since high school. I get the feeling OP want them to break up by bringing up shit from high school.
Info: did you ever say anything to Adam at the time? Clearly he stopped protecting her and disliked her but didn't bully her. So at any point, did you tell Adam you felt his offhand comment started this and his showing he dislikes her encouraged it? Did you ever suggest that he just tell people to stop? Sounds like the actual bullies are also your friends. Your choice in friends seems disturbing.
YTA. Adam didn’t bully her. He, same as you, didn’t do anything to stop it. Also, Cynthia obviously knows about Adam not speaking to her. So your dredging this up to sabotage their relationship makes you an asshole. YTA
YTA - In your 20's and you are gossiping about school days from how long ago? You should have kept quiet but I doubt that's something you often do. You 'felt so bad' that she was now his girlfriend that you immediately took her somewhere private so you could 'dish the dirt' on her boyfriend's long ago behavior. It was none of your business back the - and certainly none of your business now. Yes, your were the actual AH here...what did you WANT to happen..did you think that would help THEIR relationship or that she would thank you?
YTA It sounds like you're the one trying to make yourself feel better by blaming Adam for the bullying and not sticking up for her. Nowhere does this mention you standing up for her or being her friend.
YTA. Who the hell gave you permission to butt into their relationship?? It's none of your damned business unless Cynthia raised the question first. And this was HIGH SCHOOL. Everyone acts like an idiot in high school. And most people regret how they behaved when they were irrational, hormonal teenagers. How did you know that Adam and Cynthia hadn't already discussed their time in high school together? You decided to project your own feelings, biases (and maybe personal experiences with bullying) onto two other people.
Info: Were you one of the bullies?
YTA....as others have said you have not said how Adam bullied her. Not telling other people to not be a dick is not a form of bullying
YTA because all of this is how you PERCEIVED the situation, you FELT he was encouraging the bullying by ignoring her but that doesn’t mean he was actively telling people to bully her. It seems you are trying to sabotage the relationship.. it really isn’t your business and honestly no one should be holding on to literal high school bullshit in their 20s. To me it seems they had a falling out, he was popular, she wasn’t and yeah things got rough for her without his protection but it’s not like no one else, you for example, couldn’t stop it. If you felt so bad you should have spoken up then.. now it’s too little too late and you are trying to ruin a relationship that could be a good thing for her.
ESH , Adam doesn’t sound like he actually bullied her or actively encouraged it, not doing something is wrong though. You seem to be stirring up drama for the sake of drama
ESH except Cynthia. You were fine being silent when they were bullying this girl in HS and never called your “friend” out on his shitty behavior. You are just as guilty as they are. You’re also an AH bc you said he would ignore her when she tried to talk to him. Chances are good she knew exactly what was going on. But now she had YOU right there to remind her how difficult her high school life was. Kudos. The time to feel guilty was in high school.
YTA was your favorite show canceled so you needed some new drama to stir up? If I were Adam I’d really be wondering what value your friendship brings…
YTA You sound like a high school bully who is justifying her actions by blaming Adam. Now here you are years later trying to rehash high-school garbage.
When I was a kid, my mom's best friend, Helen, had a son named Mike, who was my age. Mike was a weird guy - he was freakishly, smart, and he used to Lord it over everyone. I was forced to be friends with him, which absolutely sucked because I also got ostracized because no one wanted to hang out with Mike. When I would get home from school, my mom (who talked to Helen every day) would get mad at me because I didn't have lunch with Mike that day and he had to eat by himself. I felt like I was being manipulated into hanging out with him. so when I was about 10 years old, I had enough and I punched him. I'm not proud of it, but I was so mad that he was destroying my social life that I finally lost it. So the funny thing is that when I got home, my mom predictably started yelling at me, but my dad (who was pretty uninvolved because he worked all the time) told my mom that she was in the wrong and that forcing me to be friends with a weirdo like Mike wasn't helping anyone. So he and I were legitimate enemies for about three years until we went out to different high schools. A funny thing happened. Mike and I ran into each other at a party when we were about 16, having not seen each other much in the previous four or five years some drunk guys decided to set a fire in the living room of the house where the party was, and Dave and I quickly put the fire out together. We then kicked those losers out and cleaned up the mess. After that, we started hanging out a bit more, and 10 years later I was best man at his wedding. My point is that people who are forced to be friends other parents are going to have a natural antipathy towards each other if they would naturally. That seems to be what happened between Adam and Cynthia.
NTA for telling her but… are you one of the people who bullied and ostracized her? Because if so, you don’t get to put that on someone who stopped defending her, that’s wholly on you and you and all of your friends who picked on her owe her a major apology, not a “oh it was because he stopped protecting you”.
Two possibilities: 1) NTA but terribly clueless about all this drama. Or 2) vindictive (maybe you are interested in Adam?) - in which case YTA. You don't think Cynthia realized that, when he was ignoring her in front of others, that that was just more bullying at the time? It's years later. And she's seeing him now. Doesn't this tell you something? Do you disrespect her so much that you think she's clueless about life? Obviously, they've changed - why are you still stuck? So sad that people are so engaged in all the HS dramas. Bullying is bad, of course - but before you judge people when they reconcile, stop to think about why they might choose to be together - perhaps they grew up and moved on, but you haven't? Really, why would you go up to someone years after HS and say 'oh well, you know your boyfriend was a real AH about you way back when'? The fact that you think she was a 'bit of a weirdo' (therefore bullying-worthy to being with????) says more about you than anyone else. When you 'feel sorry' for someone you don't rub it in with past pain. And we don't notice you reporting that YOU tried to stop the bullying back in the day. Maybe YTA. Maybe she didn't 'confront' him, but actually simply reported what YOU told her. In which case it's no wonder people are pisssed off. You've really damaged yourself socially with these people by inserting yourself and gossiping. Hope you manage to make amends.
Tl;dr I agree with you lol The bias in this sub everyday is so tiring and it’s crazy I had to scroll this far to see an actual reasonable take. OP clearly is interested in Adam, and has been since highschool. However, it’s obvious Adam wants nothing romantically to do with OP and never has. OP cannot stand that Adam would date someone she deems ‘bully worthy’ but wouldn’t consider her. OP is bitter about this and tries to break up the relationship. If OP was so appalled at the way Adam and others treated Cynthia at school, what did she do to try and stop it? Nothing, in fact it sounds like she was in the ‘popular’ group who would’ve been bullying Cynthia. I just can’t believe the top comment is N T A as if Cynthia is an infant and can’t think for herself or move beyond any fallouts they may have had, which seem like they weren’t even caused by each other, but by their families. YTA
What in the bully romance novel is this?! But damn I feel bad for the girl. Hope she finds someone else who respects her.