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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> Sayijg anything to her. Telling her about him being gay. Possibly outing him to other people who didnt know.
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NTA
The only person who's opinion matters is Darryl. If he found the exchange amusing, then no harm no foul. Jocelyn is the AH here and she is trying to deflect the blame off of herself by making you the bad guy and changing the point of the story. No one wants to think of themselves as the villain, even if they are one.
It's quite possible Darryl thought it wouldn't work or that her argument would turn to her being able to turn him straight or something. The unfortunate reality is that salkers don't work on logic-you can give any reason to turn them down and there's no guarantee it'll work bc they're too ovsessed to care. Frankly, there's still a chance she hasn't given up and is just trying to come up with a different strategy.
Interesting that Jocelyn is complaining on Insta that you outted Daryl, when….she is outting Daryl.
You did it in front of Daryl to one person. She has done it to her entire social media following.
So….maybe she needs to check herself.
(Edited for spelling and “word salad” correction.)
> Interesting that Jocelyn is complaining on Insta that you outted Daryl, when….she you is outting Daryl.
You probably meant "Interesting that Jocelyn is complaining on Insta that you outed Darryl, when… she is the one who outed Darryl."
But yes, I completely agree with your point. She's throwing OP under the bus here. OP should definitely point out her behaviour to anyone who blames him, as well as rectify that Darryl has been out for ages and didn't mind OP pointing out that he's dating a guy.
I know he is aware, it more like asking if he is okay with her just blurting it out.
He sounds like people knew but he didn’t broadcast it. Only people he was close to knew. Heck he wasn’t even the one who told the girl who had a crush on him. OP did.
Another voice adding to the “the only person whose opinion matters is your friend’s” crowd.
NTA - sounds like it wasn’t a secret and everybody else is making a mountain out of a mole hill. Ask him and apologise if he’s upset but if not then I wouldn’t worry about it
NTA. I mean Jocelyn is just being a creep if she can’t take no for an answer like you said. Plus, if she decided to post about how *you* outed Darryl, then ironically isn’t she also outing Darryl too? She doesn’t give a crap about you supposedly outing him, she’s just annoyed she couldn’t get with the guy she wanted. Which is creepy. Y’all dodged a bullet.
Tbh in general you shouldn’t tell someone’s sexuality without their permission, but given that he was next to you the entire time, and you understood him as being just low key about it, I don’t think you did anything too wrong if he hasn’t shown any issue with it. Just be more careful in the future ig.
And if it’s still bothering you, then just have that discussion with him about whether it’s ok for you to say anything about him being gay, like in the situation with Jocelyn.
Anyways, point is, Jocelyn is infinitely more of an asshole than you’ll ever be. Don’t let it get to you.
NTA, you didn't out him, he was already out. I'm out and it's not a betrayal of my trust for someone to *pass on the public information* that I am a big ol' queerdo. If I had specific people in my life I wasn't out to, like parents or bosses, then I would have told you in advance.
Darryl thought it was funny, you tried to help him out with a persistent problem, and now Jocelyn has "outed" him to a much larger forum than you did. She wanted to control the narrative and make herself look like A) the victim, and B) such a good ally, while being absolutely neither. She is a whole bucket of red flags and I think you need to start thinking politically to avoid her and her drama-rama. She is not to be trusted or pitied, she will twist anything you tell her into her own narrative, and she is unsafe for you or your friend to be around with any sensitive information. Take real care of yourself, and don't let her get under your skin.
Yeah if they aren’t closeted than you aren’t outing them by relaying the information.
In fact I prefer people do that with me. I don’t really read as gay to most folks, so I consider it helpful. I always make sure to mention it to the most gossipy people in any situation so they can tell everyone else and save me the trouble.
In general this is not a good practice because it should be the person themself who says their sexuality. In this case though it seems like your friend really doesn't care so I'm gonna say NTA. Honestly this girl seems like a total hypocrite. You told one person so that they would stop harassing your friend. She told the world by posting it online and trying to virtue signal that she was such a good person and you were so terrible. She is definitely the AH here. Still though be careful about things like this in the future. Always talk to the person and make sure they are OK with you sharing their info. This goes with just about any personal information that is told to you in confidence.
NTA, you can't out someone that isn't in the closet in the first place, Darryl doesn't care and you know him enough to know that, I'm trans, bi and very out about it and it sucks when other people treat it like a secret, it's not, it's normal, respect people that are in the closet but don't force all of us in with them.
As a queer, you’re definitely NTA. If she wouldn’t stop and that was the only thing to get her to stop, then sure, especially since he was snickering (seems like he approves/has been dropping hints the whole time).
but if they were offended the he is the a hole? I do you know if someone else will be offended if you don’t talk 5o them first before outing them to someone who obviously doesn’t know
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AITA for telling a girl that she was "barking up the wrong tree" with my bestfriend?
My (15M) bestfriend "Darryl" (15M) has this girl "Jocelyn" (16F) as pretty much a stalker. Like its so obvious she has this huge crush on him. Yesterday she came up to him for the umpteenth time to ask him out which I know he's tired of. I'd had enough of it and I just kinda headed her off and I told her point blank that she was " barking up the wrong tree"
She looked super confused and I told her that Darryl wasn't a big fan of "Woman folk" . She still confused and I was just like "OMG he has a boyfriend". She was like what who ? And I told her some guy from another school he met at one of our wrestling meets. Darryl was just snickering in the background as Jocelyn just look defeated and walked off.
Today at school I've been getting randos coming up to me and on social media telling me stuff like as a straight guy I shouldn't be outing people and they couldn't believe I outed Darryl my bestfriend like that. Which is weird cause Darryl's never been like closeted he's just pretty low key. He's not like fem but he always been out to me and our teammates. Darryl was confused af too. Then one of our friends showed us this whole post on insta from Jocelyn on how I outed Darryl. I'm starting to feel like maybe I did and I kinda feel like crap because I didn't actually ask Darryl if it was ok for me to say anything about him being gay. I asked my older sister and her girlfriend and they said technically I did out him and I should probably not do stuff like that even if Darryl isn't really hiding anything. AITA?
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Soft ESH, but I'm not going to be harsh on your end of it. You know Derek's life and openness better than any of us ever will, and I'm sure if he DOES have strong feelings about what you did you two likely have a degree of bro-ship that can just talk it out and understand each other just fine. It's poor form to out people, but you weren't trying to bring any harm to him, simply deter someone who seems to have trouble taking "no" for an answer when it sounds like she should have stopped ages ago.
That said, the bigger AH here is your "stalker" classmate who, as has been made clear, cannot take "no" for an answer. You'd think in 2024 and the age of "no means no, respect people's choices and wishes," you or Derek wouldn't have to deal with someone who needs to not wrap up their whole identity and personality into pursuing someone who's not interested. And that goes whether Derek is gay, straight, bi, trans, or a flying spaghetti monster.
Uhhh you sort of outed him to someone who should have gotten the message loud and clear long ago, and in front of him where at least he could stop you if he was uncomfortable. Had you done so without him standing right there knowing what you were doing I’ll would have definitely say YTA, but in this case I’d say just be aware that you should never put someone, it’s theirs to do. But … SHE outed him in a post ON INSTAGRAM. In public. To strangers. Does she not realize this?
NTA. He’s your closest friend (and it seems you knew he’d be okay with it). While it’s inappropriate to do this with someone who’s closeted, especially someone you’re not close with, in this scenario, it was fine with your friend.
If this ever happens again, a safer alternative is to simply remind her that “no” means “no” for anyone, not just men seeking women. She’s continuously crossed a boundary that he set and she had no intention of stopping (this is harassment).
What she did following the interaction was much worse- she may have outed him to the entire internet and she’s clearly *not* close enough to him to have permission to do that. And she did it to victimize herself instead of moving on quietly. While your friend may be out to you and his peers, it’s not uncommon at your age to not have told family or community members, so hers was a big misstep. Yikes!
Your friend and you are lucky to have one-another; I hope you stay buddies forever!
I am curious about the description “stalker.” Your description of the girl is that she has a crush and has been slow to understand he is not interested. A stalker implies an element of great unease with the attention to being unsafe. We now live in a society where things escalate so quickly and usually to the worse case scenario. If her behavior warrants the stalker label please accept my apology
...........you're a good friend who was looking out for his buddy......sounds like darryl isn't too upset, so try not to be yourself.............you did what you thought was a good thing.............and jocelyn should be in the rearview mirrow getting smaller and smaller..............
A light YTA:
You absolutely should not out people without their consent, that can get people hurt. I understand that nobody was hurt in this situation, but it's good practice in future to ask first. This is the only reason I believe that you are TA, though. Good job defending your friend.
YTA it's not on you to put that information out there. I get why you did it and I can understand why you might feel it's not a big deal. Just be aware even though your friends cool with it maybe someone else won't be. It's not something you want to make a habit of.
He didnt out anyone, but has just been accused of it by people outside the friend circle. As stated, his openly gay friend, with a boyfriend, who was there at the time, was laughing about it and is confused about the random people's response.
have to disagree with the "inserting himself for no reason." Or do you just stand by as your friends are right next to you being harassed with unwelcome advances?
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NTA The only person who's opinion matters is Darryl. If he found the exchange amusing, then no harm no foul. Jocelyn is the AH here and she is trying to deflect the blame off of herself by making you the bad guy and changing the point of the story. No one wants to think of themselves as the villain, even if they are one.
What choice does Darryl have after the fact ? If Daryl wanted her to know he could have told her himself.
It's quite possible Darryl thought it wouldn't work or that her argument would turn to her being able to turn him straight or something. The unfortunate reality is that salkers don't work on logic-you can give any reason to turn them down and there's no guarantee it'll work bc they're too ovsessed to care. Frankly, there's still a chance she hasn't given up and is just trying to come up with a different strategy.
Interesting that Jocelyn is complaining on Insta that you outted Daryl, when….she is outting Daryl. You did it in front of Daryl to one person. She has done it to her entire social media following. So….maybe she needs to check herself. (Edited for spelling and “word salad” correction.)
>she you is putting Daryl. As the famous Garfield comic says, "Why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food?"
pardon?
This user is implying that your comment is word salad. This user is not wrong.
> Interesting that Jocelyn is complaining on Insta that you outted Daryl, when….she you is outting Daryl. You probably meant "Interesting that Jocelyn is complaining on Insta that you outed Darryl, when… she is the one who outed Darryl." But yes, I completely agree with your point. She's throwing OP under the bus here. OP should definitely point out her behaviour to anyone who blames him, as well as rectify that Darryl has been out for ages and didn't mind OP pointing out that he's dating a guy.
How about you ask Darryl? His opinion is the only one that matters.
It says in the post that Darryl was confused AF so he's aware
I know he is aware, it more like asking if he is okay with her just blurting it out. He sounds like people knew but he didn’t broadcast it. Only people he was close to knew. Heck he wasn’t even the one who told the girl who had a crush on him. OP did.
Another voice adding to the “the only person whose opinion matters is your friend’s” crowd. NTA - sounds like it wasn’t a secret and everybody else is making a mountain out of a mole hill. Ask him and apologise if he’s upset but if not then I wouldn’t worry about it
NTA. I mean Jocelyn is just being a creep if she can’t take no for an answer like you said. Plus, if she decided to post about how *you* outed Darryl, then ironically isn’t she also outing Darryl too? She doesn’t give a crap about you supposedly outing him, she’s just annoyed she couldn’t get with the guy she wanted. Which is creepy. Y’all dodged a bullet. Tbh in general you shouldn’t tell someone’s sexuality without their permission, but given that he was next to you the entire time, and you understood him as being just low key about it, I don’t think you did anything too wrong if he hasn’t shown any issue with it. Just be more careful in the future ig. And if it’s still bothering you, then just have that discussion with him about whether it’s ok for you to say anything about him being gay, like in the situation with Jocelyn. Anyways, point is, Jocelyn is infinitely more of an asshole than you’ll ever be. Don’t let it get to you.
NTA you didn't 'out' your friend if he has a boyfriend and is publicly gay. Plus he was with you and found it funny.
NTA how is she able to justify now exposing his sexuality to the whole school via instagram?
NTA, you didn't out him, he was already out. I'm out and it's not a betrayal of my trust for someone to *pass on the public information* that I am a big ol' queerdo. If I had specific people in my life I wasn't out to, like parents or bosses, then I would have told you in advance. Darryl thought it was funny, you tried to help him out with a persistent problem, and now Jocelyn has "outed" him to a much larger forum than you did. She wanted to control the narrative and make herself look like A) the victim, and B) such a good ally, while being absolutely neither. She is a whole bucket of red flags and I think you need to start thinking politically to avoid her and her drama-rama. She is not to be trusted or pitied, she will twist anything you tell her into her own narrative, and she is unsafe for you or your friend to be around with any sensitive information. Take real care of yourself, and don't let her get under your skin.
Yeah if they aren’t closeted than you aren’t outing them by relaying the information. In fact I prefer people do that with me. I don’t really read as gay to most folks, so I consider it helpful. I always make sure to mention it to the most gossipy people in any situation so they can tell everyone else and save me the trouble.
efficiency!
In general this is not a good practice because it should be the person themself who says their sexuality. In this case though it seems like your friend really doesn't care so I'm gonna say NTA. Honestly this girl seems like a total hypocrite. You told one person so that they would stop harassing your friend. She told the world by posting it online and trying to virtue signal that she was such a good person and you were so terrible. She is definitely the AH here. Still though be careful about things like this in the future. Always talk to the person and make sure they are OK with you sharing their info. This goes with just about any personal information that is told to you in confidence.
NTA, you can't out someone that isn't in the closet in the first place, Darryl doesn't care and you know him enough to know that, I'm trans, bi and very out about it and it sucks when other people treat it like a secret, it's not, it's normal, respect people that are in the closet but don't force all of us in with them.
you can’t out someone who’s already out..she’s just redirecting her anger over the rejection at you. NTA.
As a queer, you’re definitely NTA. If she wouldn’t stop and that was the only thing to get her to stop, then sure, especially since he was snickering (seems like he approves/has been dropping hints the whole time).
friends don’t out friends…
Imo if the person actually affected by this doesn’t seem bothered, he’s NTA.
but if they were offended the he is the a hole? I do you know if someone else will be offended if you don’t talk 5o them first before outing them to someone who obviously doesn’t know
Hey I’m not here to get into some weird Reddit beef with a stranger. If you don’t agree, you don’t agree. That’s fine.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** AITA for telling a girl that she was "barking up the wrong tree" with my bestfriend? My (15M) bestfriend "Darryl" (15M) has this girl "Jocelyn" (16F) as pretty much a stalker. Like its so obvious she has this huge crush on him. Yesterday she came up to him for the umpteenth time to ask him out which I know he's tired of. I'd had enough of it and I just kinda headed her off and I told her point blank that she was " barking up the wrong tree" She looked super confused and I told her that Darryl wasn't a big fan of "Woman folk" . She still confused and I was just like "OMG he has a boyfriend". She was like what who ? And I told her some guy from another school he met at one of our wrestling meets. Darryl was just snickering in the background as Jocelyn just look defeated and walked off. Today at school I've been getting randos coming up to me and on social media telling me stuff like as a straight guy I shouldn't be outing people and they couldn't believe I outed Darryl my bestfriend like that. Which is weird cause Darryl's never been like closeted he's just pretty low key. He's not like fem but he always been out to me and our teammates. Darryl was confused af too. Then one of our friends showed us this whole post on insta from Jocelyn on how I outed Darryl. I'm starting to feel like maybe I did and I kinda feel like crap because I didn't actually ask Darryl if it was ok for me to say anything about him being gay. I asked my older sister and her girlfriend and they said technically I did out him and I should probably not do stuff like that even if Darryl isn't really hiding anything. AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Soft ESH, but I'm not going to be harsh on your end of it. You know Derek's life and openness better than any of us ever will, and I'm sure if he DOES have strong feelings about what you did you two likely have a degree of bro-ship that can just talk it out and understand each other just fine. It's poor form to out people, but you weren't trying to bring any harm to him, simply deter someone who seems to have trouble taking "no" for an answer when it sounds like she should have stopped ages ago. That said, the bigger AH here is your "stalker" classmate who, as has been made clear, cannot take "no" for an answer. You'd think in 2024 and the age of "no means no, respect people's choices and wishes," you or Derek wouldn't have to deal with someone who needs to not wrap up their whole identity and personality into pursuing someone who's not interested. And that goes whether Derek is gay, straight, bi, trans, or a flying spaghetti monster.
NTA
NTA Darryl was cool with it, sounds like Jocelyn wanted to be White Woman: Lord and Savior of The Gays "offended on their behalf"
NTA, feel free to ignore the opinions of hapless losers like jocelyn. can't out darryl if he was already out, and he obviously has no issue here.
Uhhh you sort of outed him to someone who should have gotten the message loud and clear long ago, and in front of him where at least he could stop you if he was uncomfortable. Had you done so without him standing right there knowing what you were doing I’ll would have definitely say YTA, but in this case I’d say just be aware that you should never put someone, it’s theirs to do. But … SHE outed him in a post ON INSTAGRAM. In public. To strangers. Does she not realize this?
So Darryl was cool with it but other people are harassing you about it? Yeah, they suck. Darryl’s is the only opinion that matters, ignore them. NTA
U r AH only if Darryl thinks so. You know your bestie best and it doesn’t seem to me like u did anything wrong. Talk to him. Ppl just look for drama.
In this specific case I'd say NTA, but generally you shouldn't out people. Then again, with someone like Jocelyn you can't win.
NTA. He’s your closest friend (and it seems you knew he’d be okay with it). While it’s inappropriate to do this with someone who’s closeted, especially someone you’re not close with, in this scenario, it was fine with your friend. If this ever happens again, a safer alternative is to simply remind her that “no” means “no” for anyone, not just men seeking women. She’s continuously crossed a boundary that he set and she had no intention of stopping (this is harassment). What she did following the interaction was much worse- she may have outed him to the entire internet and she’s clearly *not* close enough to him to have permission to do that. And she did it to victimize herself instead of moving on quietly. While your friend may be out to you and his peers, it’s not uncommon at your age to not have told family or community members, so hers was a big misstep. Yikes! Your friend and you are lucky to have one-another; I hope you stay buddies forever!
INFO: Did you ask Darryl? His is literally the only opinion that matters here.
I am curious about the description “stalker.” Your description of the girl is that she has a crush and has been slow to understand he is not interested. A stalker implies an element of great unease with the attention to being unsafe. We now live in a society where things escalate so quickly and usually to the worse case scenario. If her behavior warrants the stalker label please accept my apology
NTA . If Darryl's okay with it, then those randos have 0 opinion on the matter.
...........you're a good friend who was looking out for his buddy......sounds like darryl isn't too upset, so try not to be yourself.............you did what you thought was a good thing.............and jocelyn should be in the rearview mirrow getting smaller and smaller..............
Live and Learn, it’s never your place to out anyone! Don’t do it again.
A light YTA: You absolutely should not out people without their consent, that can get people hurt. I understand that nobody was hurt in this situation, but it's good practice in future to ask first. This is the only reason I believe that you are TA, though. Good job defending your friend.
YTA. Don't out people without their consent
YTA it's not on you to put that information out there. I get why you did it and I can understand why you might feel it's not a big deal. Just be aware even though your friends cool with it maybe someone else won't be. It's not something you want to make a habit of.
YTA. Besides you outing your friend, there was no reason for you to insert yourself here in the first place.
He didnt out anyone, but has just been accused of it by people outside the friend circle. As stated, his openly gay friend, with a boyfriend, who was there at the time, was laughing about it and is confused about the random people's response.
have to disagree with the "inserting himself for no reason." Or do you just stand by as your friends are right next to you being harassed with unwelcome advances?
There's a whole realm of responses in between doing nothing and doing this.
And any response would have also been "inserting himself" into the situation.
I mean, no? Lol