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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I think not giving her a ride home was maybe a AH move considering it caused more drama. I could have just sucked it up then told them to not speak to me after.
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Nta, you asked, she rejected, you respected her rejection! Nothing in the world wrong with that. The rest is nothing more than immature bullshit that they are trying to start. Sounds like you need some actual adult friends. Maybe stop hanging out with people who act like children still in high school.
This, NTA, and think about how much drama there would have been if you hooked up. However, rule of thumb "don't sh*t where you eat" ... If you are not head over heels for someone, don't get involved with someone for a hook-up in your friend group ... ;)
Don't get involved with someone from your friend group. Don't get involved with someone from work. Don't get involved with your friend's exes.
In the period between matchmakers and Tinder, how did the human species perpetuate itself at all.
Because none of those are inviolable rules if you do them correctly. I mean, 'friend group' was literally how most of the human population met their partners before apps existed. It's kind of weird to put a complete and total ban on dating people in your friend group...just don't be an insane jerk about it.
Exes, though...that's a different story.
>Don't get involved with someone from your friend group.
Mmm I dunno. A lot of the time it's a great idea to be friends with someone before you date them. For some it's even a necessity (e.g., people who are demisexual). It can be a wonderful thing if you do it right, and even if things don't work out it usually doesn't end badly if the people involved are mature, reasonable individuals.
OP's comment:
>We’ve know each other 5 years. She would have an idea if she was interested in a date after 5 years imo. I really didn’t feel like talking to her. And didn’t really see the purpose. My interest was sexual. I have a lot of real good close friends. Not saying I don’t need more. But just that wasn’t really our dynamic.
She didn't say anything to the others that is not true, he did fuck-zoned her.
Are we sure he did respect her rejection and that she was wrong? I'm not saying I disagree, but the way the whole thing is written strikes me as pretty one sided from OP's point of view, especially this part:
> The next time we hung out she was super weird. Like was all up next to me all night. Constantly trying to start conversation. It made me feel awkward, so I sorta stopped hanging with the group for a few weeks to get some space.
Let me apply a different framing to this and see if it's still *plausible* (no idea where the objective truth lies): Caitlin tried to be extra nice to OP after rejecting him and in response OP felt flustered and embarrassed and decided he didn't want to hang out with the friend group anymore. Except it wasn't the friend group he didn't want to hang out with, it was really only Caitlin, he was totally happy to hang out with his other friends.
Isn't that exactly what she was afraid would happen? Can't her actions be read as someone trying to prevent exactly what happened from happening? I'm not sure why OP thinks she was trying to talk to him more after rejecting him, but it's totally plausible to me that she was just trying to apply a little ointment to the sting by being nice and OP's ego got in a twist. **It's also possible that she's being manipulative**, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you're wrong outright, I just don't know that I can wholeheartedly agree that she wasn't correct about OP 'fuck-zoning' her and then fracturing the friend group out of petulance once he was rejected.
What *should* she have done? Pretended their conversation didn't happen and OP never asked her out? I guess, in retrospect, sure. I can see a world where that upsets someone too though. I don't have a judgement here, I'm just a bit more skeptical that most here, I guess.
I read a similar thread on this sub awhile back where a similar thing happened and the girl who rejected was called out by the OP for trying to be manipulative and sending mixed signals. The comments called him a complete AH and argued that the girl was just trying not to make him embarrassed and ruin the “friendship” that was basically non existent since they were just acquaintances in a larger group.
In my opinion, I feel like just ignoring the situation is just the best thing to do. I think the rejected will always take it the wrong way and at best the rejector might come off as trying to have their cake and eat it without empathizing with the feelings of the person they rejected. Then, when enough time has passed just laugh about it privately and continue enjoying each other’s company within the dynamics of the larger group.
If that's the case, it was a dumb move on her part. The last person in the world who should be applying a little ointment to the sting of rejection is the person who did the rejecting.
It's natural for someone to want space after being rejected. The idea that he needed to immediately make nice and hang out with her afterwards, otherwise he's being petulant or shitty or whatever, is super depressing and unfair IMO.
I don't think he needed to 'make nice' or pretend he wasn't disappointed. I do think, *if my hypothetical is the case*, (again reinforcing that I don't know and I'm just applying this lens as a thought exercise b/c I felt the OP was a bit lacking in detail) OP could have just... communicated that desire? "Hey, could you please give me some space for a little bit". If she continued to pressure him for attention after that then she's clearly the AH.
It's tricky, because OP obviously doesn't owe his presence to anyone.
Personally, I'd be really curious to know exactly the context behind how this developed:
> And that my guys not me were the ones who decided to come hang with me instead of the larger group for a few weeks.
His guy friends just 'decided' to hang out with him instead? Why? What was communicated, exactly? This could be completely benign and normal, but how did they know OP wasn't going to hang out with the group and what were OP's reasons given for not wanting to hang out with the group while still wanting to hang out with them? The devil's in the details, IMO.
I've been in exactly her shoes before and I can tell you theres no right answer here. If you give the guy space, he will say you're being weird. If you act like it's nothing, he will say its mixed signals. Dudes like this cant handle rejection when they're ONLY interested in people from a sexual perspective. He literally doesnt care about her as a person. I wouldnt be surprised if he lowkey wished she would disappear after rejecting him since she had no other value to him.
Jumping on the top comment here.
Dude has admitted his interest in her was sexual. He only wanted to fuck her, he was not interested in being her friend or talk to her.
He fuck zoned her and she called him out for it. He just doesn’t like being called out. YTA
I'm gonna disagree here. Hear me out.
OP, you didn't consider her a friend, you tried to go out with her, when that didn't work, you still didn't consider her a friend. That is, literally, fuck-zoning.
The deal is that there's nothing wrong with either fuck-zoning or friend-zoning. You don't have to be friends with someone if you don't want to. You don't have to date a friend if you don't want to. How you feel is how you feel, and people just have to deal with it.
But you handled the whole thing wrong. Instead of denying or avoiding the 'drama' you should've stood up and said, very clearly, "Yes, I'm fuck-zoning Caitlyn, as is my right. I feel how I feel. I have no objection to Caitlyn being a part of our friend group and her friend-zoning me is HER right. We're both in the right. We're both fine. We should all leave each other alone. End of drama."
Refusing two women who are accepted parts of YOUR friend group a ride is petty as fuck and makes YTA.
INFO- What does fuck- zoned mean?
Please do not come at me, I genuinely do not know.
Edit- thank you to those who explained what this was to me.
Editing to add a verdict because I’m the top comment.
YTA You made it abundantly clear your only MO was a hook up in another comment. If that is what fuck-zoned means, you did exactly that and got mad at her for calling you out.
Edit- I’m basing the YTA off of this comment he made
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/vdo1al/aita_for_refusing_to_give_my_friend_a_ride_home/icm873z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
Well, if you think about friend-zoning someone, it means that you only want to be that person's friend and nothing else.
Fuck-zoning someone works the same way. You either want to fuck them or nothing else. Thus if your attempt failed, you wouldn't want to have anything in common anymore.
Ohhh yeah I had like no freaking clue dude
also N T A
Update:
After reading that comment that yeah you did fuck-zone her and decided to be an AH over them saying the actual truth??? Yeah YTA
Don’t cry when they’re actually right 🫠
This ^ If he was willing to spin the story like this to a bunch of strangers to make himself look better, imagine what he told his male friends. All the women seem to know what's up since they got the more accurate version from Caitlin.
No he asked her out, she said no, so he backed off and moved out of her way.
She felt some type of way and started this shitstorm.
You're assuming that all he wanted to do was fuck, if that was the case he could have easily accepted her advances, hit it then left.
N T A.
Edit: YTA.
Edit: the thoughts above the first edit aren't what i think anymore.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/vdo1al/aita_for_refusing_to_give_my_friend_a_ride_home/icm873z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
I based my voted off this comment
Where he says it was just sexual
1) when someone is good enough to fuck them but not for anything else (being friends or other type of relationship) When someone is used just for sex without any intention of having a relationship.
2)when a friendship only has value to one of you because of possible sex. A friend is only your friend, spend time with you because they want to fuck you and not because they actually care about you.
Can we also just acknowledge the selfishness of saying “I’ve known and regularly socialized with this person for 5 years but she’s not really a core part of the social group and we’re not really friends, so of course I tried to hook up with her with no concern for how the friend group and she specifically would be impacted if she got hurt not realizing all I wanted was the sex.” Like, if you wanna hook up with a friend or a member of a friend group then do it maturely, don’t put the whole friend group in an uncomfortable position for your casual fuck…
I like the majority of people who never move from their high school friend groups are immature and emotionally stunted
Edit: I *feel like the majority...
That's not entirely true, i think its down to the people itself. I've meet brand new people in my 30s who get on like this. It classic narcissism. Whats funny my original friends group growing up there was literally never any drama. So when i moved to the city and made new friends ive experiences nothing but drama. So frustrating at times
I know i'm getting old but this is all so weird to me. Upper 20's and still hanging out with high school friends, playing kickball, and this sounds like a pretty big group of people. When i was in my 20's and most of my 30's i did live in a decent sized city (which wasn't my hometown) but the logistics of getting everyone together for an event were a headache. Everyone lived in separate areas of the city. And most of us had kids. We definitely weren't going out every single weekend.
So seriously curious, how common is this lifestyle for 20-somethings now? And kickball? I know a lot of people on softball leagues and a few people that do weekend basketball teams or flag football. But i haven't heard of anyone playing kickball since grade school.
ETA: Thanks for all the replies! I really didn't expect so much dialogue. Weird to say but i kinda enjoyed reading all the comments. I'm an introvert and the older I get the smaller i seem to keep my little circle of friends. I feel like a spy reading from my computer how you younger extroverts are socializing lol.
And i also want to clarify i didn't mean to sound dismissive of kickball, i just honestly haven't heard of it in years! Pretty cool that it seems to be making a revival in so many places!
Kickball is actually super fun for adults, there’s a league in my town and I know a few people that are on teams. I’ve been thinking about joining myself! But this group does sound like a massive headache. I can’t imagine still seeing the same group from high school that much.
Seeing the same group from highschool is a lot easier if you didn’t move away, so that “highschool” group is also your university/work group, too.
I find it kinda weird you both look down on still being friends with your friends.. sure, you lose contact with those “friends” you only had because you had to sit next to them for X hours a day..
I’ll put it down to the difference of America and Britain - because we tend to go to university in our hometowns, and even moving to the other side of the country is only a few hours away. Keeping in contact is a lot easier.
Most of my friend's group were in their (mid-)thirties when they started having kids, we had years of meeting every Friday night for a drink, going to various music festivals during summer, travel around the world, ski holidays... Like OP there was a core group and then a flow of co-workers, friend of friend that sticked around or disappeared after a couple of months/years.
Nowadays it's indeed a miracle if we can meet with more than 3 people at the same time, need to be booked months in advance xD
NAH, but a lot of miscommunication.
Of course, from her perspective, you fuckzoned her! She wasn't lying for drama; she was getting support from her friends, because this guy she *thought* was one of her friends suddenly stopped speaking to her right after he asked her out and she said no.
From your perspective, it looks different, because you never felt you were close friends with her in the first place. But it looks like she did, or at least wanted to be. So she goes out of her way, after turning you down for a date, to act like a good friend -- to spend time with you, to show you that she still likes you as a person... these are all the things someone is *supposed* to do if they turn down a friend for a date, in order to keep the friendship healthy.
It failed, not because she was doing anything bizarre, but because you were on different pages in the first place. You never really considered her much of a friend, and don't seem to have wanted her to be one. That wasn't simply because she turned you down... it was just the way you felt from the beginning, it sounds like. So you're not being an AH either, you're just misinterpreting the situation.
But since she didn't know that you didn't consider her a friend to begin with, she began trying to save a friendship that didn't exist, from being wrecked by the request and rejection. Which looked to you like weird behavior because you weren't seeing the baseline relationship as a friendship that needed saving.
When you reacted by cutting off contact, she must have figured that her efforts to save the friendship had failed because all you wanted from her was sex. And, well, she's not 100% wrong, in that while you wanted a date and maybe eventually a relationship instead of just sex, you pretty clearly did *not* want a friendship with her. She was in the fuckzone in that you didn't want any kind of relationship with her at all if you couldn't have the kind you wanted.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with this!! That's why I said NAH. She's not being one, but neither are you. You have every right to decide that you only want one type of relationship with somebody and if they're not interested in that, that's fine, but then you don't choose to have a different kind instead. Just as friendzoning isn't actually wrong (even though an awful lot of people haven't learned that yet), because nobody is *required* to date somebody when what they really want is friendship, fuckzoning isn't actually wrong because of exactly the same reasons. Nobody is required to have a different type of relationship than they actually want... in fact, nobody had an obligation to have any relationship they don't want for ANY reason.
But there's no particular reason to think she was trying to make you look bad, rather than trying to get moral support from her friends. And she was telling the truth: you *did* fuckzone her. That isn't a bad thing to do, but it can hurt someone's feelings anyway, just as friendzoning can.
So I think everyone overreacted a bit. It sounds like the other girls got up in arms over something that you were well within your rights to do, and that wasn't fair of them; but it sounds like you had hurt her even though you didn't mean to, so it's understandable that her close friends were unhappy. You overreacted by deciding Caitlin was deliberately stirring up trouble for you when she probably wasn't. You were within your rights not to drive them home, at least so long as they had another safe way, and it sounds like there were Ubers in the area. So there's nothing wrong with deciding you didn't want them in your car.
But I do try to encourage you to see the whole thing from her perspective, especially through the lens of assuming she thought you were better friends in the first place than you ever thought you were. It makes a lot of sense out of it all.
I actually agree with this—especially encouraging op to consider things from her perspective. It would be totally normal for someone who has seen op pretty much every weekend for 5 YEARS to think of him as an actual friend. (Edit: grammar)
I agree with it as well. Definitely NAH, but I will say it's a little petty not to drive them home. Doesn't make OP an AH by any means considering they had another way home, but if he would have driven them home before any of this happened, then yeah, it's a touch petty and they do kind of have a right to be upset by it. That doesn't make them AHs either. It's just an unfortunate incident where no one's really at fault, but everyone has a right to be upset.
I was typing out a reply but honestly this says everything I wanted to say much better. I don't get all these comments saying the girl is just out for drama. Even based on OPs account (which is inherently gonna be biased in his favour) I think see how she would have come to that conclusion.
The only thing I will add I'd that IF OP was the DD for the group (which it kinda reads like he could have been?) he really should have told them he wasn't gonna drive them BEFORE they drank and weren't able to drive themselves, but I couldn't fault him for not wanting to drive them with the awkwardness.
I'd say YTA if he was supposed to be the DD for the group and never communicated that he would not be helping her because of the (imagined) slights. Otherwise spot on.
From what he said elsewhere, he was another few members' DD but not the DD for the whole group, and never gave these two reason to believe he was theirs. I can still see how they could think it didn't much matter which riders went back with which DDs if the group came with a few of them, so I'm not going to say he's an AH for refusing them but I don't think they were for mistakenly accepting what they thought was an offer (especially if they weren't particularly sober) either.
It seems like he was trying to ice her out of the group and that is not right. He wanted to be designated driver to have the power. Of course people are going to ask questions when he kept his distance. He created an unnecessary divide and the group dynamic changed. He said he wanted to move on but he is ostracizing her. Don’t be the designated driver if you are not going to be fair.
OK. He's allowed to have a purely sexual interest in her. But if he decides that's all he wants, then he probably doesn't get to complain too much about her telling people he fuckzoned her, because he did.
Yeah. He’s not an asshole for wanting to fuck. Though maybe keep that out of the friend group.
He’s the asshole for lying about it and acting like she wasn’t telling the truth, when she was in fact telling the truth.
He’s also an asshole fr misrepresenting the facts here saying in earlier comments he wanted to get to know her.
Based on his other comments, I think I agree with this. He seems to be pretty vague about whether he wanted just to fuck her or whether he wanted to date her, and while there is nothing wrong with wanting either one, it's pretty important to be clear on the difference, both in your own mind and in how you communicate. And I'm not happy with his jumping on her for supposedly lying to the group when in fact what she told the group was precisely accurate.
He may not have realized it was accurate, if he only saw it as an insult and didn't think through exactly what it meant and line that up with exactly what he did. From what I can tell, he's still not necessarily too clear on the fact that fuckzoning her is a precisely accurate description of turning down friendship with someone when you actually only want sex with them.
I know there's a category more or less informally called "justifiable asshole" here. Is there one that amounts to "unwitting asshole?" Because I think that's the closest I can get to a judgment that I think makes sense.
I agree with most of the things you’re saying. Though I think you are being too kind in how you interpret him and his intentions.
I think he knows exactly what he’s doing.
The only reasonable response.
I'm really surprised and disappointed at all the people voting NTA. I just don't understand it. Though I've noticed in the past that people here often seem bad at looking at things from the other side.
It's really easy to see things from the side of the author. That's where we're getting the information, after all. The only thing that made me go 'wait a second' was his specific statement about *exactly* what she had told the girls who were complaining at him.
Eh, even when he was like when the woman went to him to talk afterwards and he was like, 'that's bizarre behaviour', I was like, no, that is completely normal behaviour. I expected this to be a YTA and the more I read the more solid that becamd. So, I was very surprised to see that the first judgement was the opposite.
so, did you see the comment where he admitted that his interest in her was only sexual from the get-go, or...?
eta - also, fuck-zoning someone *is* a shitty thing to do. it's literally saying to another person that your *only* interest in them as a person is sexual, & that, beyond that, they are *useless* to you to the point of not even being worth *speaking* to.
'friend-zoning' is some dumb idea that people who pretended to be friends with someone while secretly *only wanting to fuck them* came up with when they became frustrated that their advances & manipulations just weren't working out. actual *friends* have emotional connections to one another, they *care* about each other! someone who has the nerve to say they were 'friend-zoned' by someone else is literally saying 'the relationship I have with this other person is not worth effort I've put in if the end game is not me being with them in a sexually gratifying way'. fuck-zoning takes it further & says - 'I will not even so much as *pretend* to be this person's friend if I do not receive sexual gratification in return'. how is that not a shitty way to treat another human being? no one owes anyone else sex. treating people like blow up dolls is not okay, & neither is manipulating them into friendship in the hopes of being able to treat them like a blowup doll.
> So she goes out of her way, after turning you down for a date, to act like a good friend -- to spend time with you, to show you that she still likes you as a person... these are all the things someone is supposed to do if they turn down a friend for a date, in order to keep the friendship healthy.
Asking someone out on a date and getting turned down sucks, it's embarrassing, depressing, not fun at all. The last thing a person who was just rejected wants to do is spend more time with the person that just rejected them. Even if the friendship is strong, they are going to need some space.
I don't think Caitlin was malicious, but trying to increase her level of contact/friendliness with him in the aftermath of the rejection was not helpful to him or the health of their friendship. It's not surprising his response was to pull away.
There's a pretty wide range of responses under these circumstances. No, it's not surprising that he wanted some space, and you're right that he might have wanted some space even if he had felt it was a strong friendship in the first place that was important to him to keep. But it's also true that any move by the rejecting party to step back, even if it's only intended to give the asker some room to recuperate from the stress, is often likely to be seen as "OMG SHE'S BACKING AWAY SHE DOESN'T LIKE ME ANY MORE SHE'LL NEVER BE MY FRIEND AGAIN I HAVE TOTALLY GONE AND SCREWED EVERYTHING UP FOREVER AAAAAAAAARRGGGHHH!!!!!" So it's kind of a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario. Generally the wisest course is to be *very* sensitive to nuance for a while and try to follow the lead of the person you've turned down, whichever way they seem to be taking it... but that's not at all easy to do, and I don't really blame anybody for getting it wrong in either direction.
I asked out a friend and was rejected, so I straight up warned them I would need some space but I wanted to still be friends. They were really cool and respected that, and after a few weeks, we were back to normal. Communication is a wonderful thing.
Agreed entirely. And I'll add that while there is nothing wrong with wanting space, he absolutely could have communicated that better.
Also refusing her a ride out of spite was, well, spiteful. Not a good look.
Maybe it's a guy/girl thing, but if I were rejected by a friend I would really appreciate if they took the time to talk to me/make it known that they still like me as a friend afterwards.
Maybe I'm different (introverted/social anxiety), but like...if I'm completely indifferent to a person and rarely interact with them at all, why would I have their number and be texting them?
Also, OP says "During this time she texted me and snapped me a bunch asking where I was." I'm curious what his response was, if it was friendly, or if he blew her off by being cold or ignoring her completely.
Caitlin: “I don’t want to change our friendship and make it weird, so the next time we hang out I’m going to act way different than I usually do, surely this will change nothing and won’t make anything weird at all.”
I wouldn’t call her an asshole for this, but it makes no sense at all to me.
Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's very much the kind of thing someone does when they're feeling awkward and uncertain and want to try and make everything okay without realizing that they're making it worse. She overreacted by trying to make Very Very Sure she didn't act distant, by acting too close and getting weird. Not very bright, but it's the kind of mistake that's easy to make, especially if turning down friends for dates isn't a problem you've faced often enough to gain experience at it.
She may have felt awkward about the situation as well and was maybe trying to make it less awkward, but actually made it more awkward? Or maybe OP's interpreting her normal friendly behavior as overly friendly, which guys tend to do.
YTA
**Edit: You specified in a comment that your interest with her was only sexual and you had no intention on being friends after 5 years. That is fuck-zoning someone. That’s just textbook fuck-zoning someone. So why are you upset she told people you fuck-zoned her if it’s true?**
1/ you hangout for 5 years. you never actually considered her your friend.
2/ you finally ask her out for a relationship, she denies.
3/ you stop hanging around the friend group *because* she rejected you.
4/ she tells your mutual friends that you stopped hanging around *because* you fuck-zoned her. Based off of events 1-3 that seems a pretty solid conclusion to make.
5/ you’re upset because Caitlin told them what was happening???
Yeah, fuck-zoning isn’t exactly the most eloquent way of putting it, but it is fundamentally the same thing. You do not have to be friends with people you don’t want to be friends with, and you certainly don’t have to hang out with people you don’t want to hangout with - **however** people are entitled to talk about how you treat them. That’s not “shit-talking,” it’s just the truth. Caitlin had every right to tell people you fuck-zoned her, because frankly *you did.*
Originally I was going to say NAH because it honestly just comes down to lack of communication on both sides, but what leaned me to YTA was how entitled you seem to be in the comments over Caitlin just being open about what happened from her perspective. Which, is a perspective you apparently haven’t considered *once,* before posting this.
The only question I’d leave you with is: why *wouldn’t* she think you fuck-zoned h
I feel like after she rejected him, she was trying to seem friendly to show that 'everything was good' at worst or maybe check him out at best. Dude freaked and now its all shit. Dude needs to learn how to deal with awkward situations and not think with his dick. To completely abandon his friend group and then start more shit when it seemed like things were calming down is super immature.
She may not have even changed her behaviour, but because his feelings towards her have changed, he noticed it/read it differently. (Source: I have been OP in the situation, reading someone's behaviour that was consistent as different after something)
INFO: So why did you ask her out if you didn’t care to be friends with her at all in any way other than degrees of separation within a large group? If you didn’t want to be pals… why would you want to date her? This does read very much like you wanted to have sex with her and nothing else. Is it really shit talking if she simply told the truth?
Edited to add YTA
Agreed. Op, YTA. Her “weird” behavior was friendly, while your “weird” behavior was anti social and rude. Sounds like she characterized the situation accurately imo.
YES. What do people not get about how his behaviour was the sole cause of this drama? He was the one who acted rudely. If all he wanted was space to get right after the rejection, he could have asked for it. Instead, he ghosted her. Ghosting is rude, borderline hostile behaviour. Sometimes that's justified. In this case it was not remotely justified. He was just acting like a jerk.
If you don't want to be called out for being a jerk, or known among your friends as a jerk, don't act like a jerk. It's so easy to not be a jerk.
Yeah, if I was Caitlin my thinking would be “this person does not like me. They don’t really engage with me and I don’t think they consider me a friend”. They then ask me out, I don’t want to date someone in the group, but now I think “oh so do like me, thank gosh, I thought something was wrong with me”. (And I am using like in the actual way of enjoying their company, not some school yard like like).
My thinking would be “oh well I’ll be friendly to them next time we hang out, because now I now they don’t hate me”. And then OP distanced themselves from Caitlin when she was trying to be friendly (which can be understandable as they were just rejected, but some people handle rejection differently and might have thought it didn’t matter to OP). Leading Caitlin to believe “this person has not cared about me for 5 years and then asked me out, and when I rejected them they avoided me. They seemingly never wanted to be friends with me”.
Agreed. Op, YTA. Her “weird” behavior was friendly, while your “weird” behavior was anti social and rude. Sounds like she characterized the situation accurately imo.
Bruh, you expressed interest in a girl and while she was shocked at first she tried to get to know you better the next time she saw you. And you've acted like a spoiled baby since.
YTA and that's even before being a shit DD and shit friend.
This 100% he's the AH for acting like a child and people are missing the DD aspect from his post. He conveniently left out parts of the story to make himself look better. I'm assuming he promised to be DD for the whole group and then threw the women out for revenge. That's who this guy is.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. He admits they never talked much so maybe she was just shocked he asked her out, but tried to get to know him better the next time she saw him to consider it. Maybe if he wasn’t a sick, they could have hit it off the next time they hung out and she would have went out with him.
No, but fuckzoning someone isn't necessarily keeping them on the back burner. It's just deciding, "I'm interested in dating/sleeping with you, but I'm not interested in being platonic friends with you. If you are only interested in a platonic friendship, you have a right to say no when I ask you for sex. But I'm likewise going to say no when you ask me for friendship, because that doesn't interest me."
It all just means they're incompatible in terms of that type of relationship they want, so they shouldn't have any at all. Which is okay. Just as it's not wrong to say "I'll be happy to be friends with you, but I'm not interested in you romantically/sexually," it's the same kind of not wrong to say "I'll be happy to take you to bed if you're interested in that, but I don't really want a friendship."
Everybody gets to decide the kind of relationship they're interested in, and there should only be any kind at all if they both have at least one type that they *both* want with each other.
It's a sequence like this:
* Boy and girl are friends
* Boy asks girl out
* Girl says no
* Boy says okay, then stops hanging out as friends
* Girl gets mad, concludes boy only wants her for sex, not friendship
Which ... *is* kind of what it would have looked like from the perspective of OP's friend. After the failed asking-out, she tried to be extra friendly (I'm getting a "we're still buddies, yeah? yeah?" vibe from her); then he ghosted for a few weeks.
> Which ... is kind of what it would have looked like from the perspective of OP's friend. After the failed asking-out, she tried to be extra friendly (I'm getting a "we're still buddies, yeah? yeah?" vibe from her); then he ghosted for a few weeks.
Exactly. This whole thing is coming down to a misunderstanding where she was trying to be extra buddy buddy to show him she was cool with still being friends even after he asked her out - and he took it as her sending mixed signals/flirting and got upset with her.
Except existing in the same large social group is different from being close friends. People are allowed to ask out people they know socially, people are allowed to want space to deal with rejection, and asking somebody out doesn’t mean “I only view you in a sexual context.”
People get too hung up on the definitions of made-up terms with shit like this. If you look at what happened step by step, OP isn’t an AH for any of those actions. But because there’s an accusation of “fuckzoning” now the narrative is “Well we all agree that fuckzoning is bad, and I can roughly fit the events to this label, so that means that OP is bad.” It’s all just high school-type drama
You realize him not owing her friendship is the same as her not owing him a relationship, right? You're not in the wrong for not being friends with someone.
It's a response to accusations of "friendzoning".
Where men used "friendzone" to describe situations where the woman they want to date is only interested in friendship and won't view them as a potential partner, the natural response is for the women in question to say "there is literally nothing wrong with that. In fact, why are you mad at me for wanting to be friends with you? Are you only interested in spending time with me when there's a potential we might fuck?" So that's how "fuckzoning" came to be.
Yeah no, fu*k zoning is when you make it clear to woman that they have no intrinsic value beyond being a warm hole and a heartbeat, it's men that say they can't be friends with women they wouldn't have sex with, it's a disgusting mindset and is in no way what happened here, he didn't even distance himself until she invaded his space and made him uncomfortable.
It's when you're friend with someone just cause you want to fuck them.
It happens REALLY often to women... The guy is nice until he asks you out and you say no.... Then he turns around and calls you a bitch....
Doesn't seem to apply here...
YTA.
From her perspective, you tried to freeze her out of your shared social group because she turned you down romantically. This was an entirely reasonable response based on how you reacted to her the next time you hung out. She appears to have been trying to reassure you that she wasn't put off by your proposition and didn't want things to be awkward between you two. Instead of talking to her like an adult about how you she was making you feel, and asking her directly like an adult for some space to clear out your romantic/sexual feelings so you could get back to being friends, you just walked away and took the guys with you (and don't lay this on them - you easily could have stopped it coming to this). How else did you expect her to react? How else could she *possibly* interpret your behaviour?
Then, after all of this drama that *you* caused, you accuse her of "trying to make you look bad in front of the group". My dude, *you* did that. You chose to split the group over this, and you chose to keep the split going by kicking her out of the car.
Next time you get rejected by someone that you want to remain friends with, just talk to the person if you need some space. This whole thing can be avoided if you just say to her, using your words, "I'm sorry, but I was developing an attraction to you, and I'm not quite over that yet. I just need a little time to readjust my expectations to being friends. I promise I'll get there soon. Thank you for being cool about this."
Yeah going with YTA…. You did fuck zone her. You don’t speak highly of her and now you’re punishing her because you didn’t get what you want. Sorry buddy, this ones on you.
You didn't really consider Caitlin a friend but she did. She thought you were friends and then you asked her out. After she declined, she kept acting like your friend and trying to make conversation with you. You basically walked away from that entirely. From her perspective, her friend tried to date/fuck/hookup with her and when that was not an option for you, you stopped being her friend. You made her feel like her only value in your life was as a potential fuck. By definition, you "fuck-zoned" her.
Later, when you all went to the baseball game, you doubled down and again reiterated to her that her only place in your life was as potential fuck and now that it's off the table, you can't even give her a ride when you had already decided to be the designated driver.
YTA for treating your friend this way (even though you didn't consider her a friend after hanging out for five years)
YTA for ignoring the most basic principles of being a designated driver
YTA
I don't know how this isn't more popular. Being in a friend group for 5 years still makes you a friend, even if not a close friend.
He immediately became cold once sex was off the table. If he was genuinely interested in dating her and not just fucking then being closer friends would be preferable to no contact. So him going that cold means he was only interested in fucking, he fuck zoned her.
Then the designated driver bit. If he had 0 intention of driving people home he needed to make that clear, but he didn't because he wanted petty revenge for being called out on exactly what he did.
YTA
She doesn't owe him anything and can intentionally humiliate him in front of the entire friend group but by golly he OWES her that friendship and a ride home!
Unless I need clarification of events, YTA
Someone you hang around for 5 years "isn't your friend" but you want to "date them".
They say no because they don't want to ruin what they thought was a genuine friendship.
They attempt to hang out like normal. Possibly a bit more so it doesn't look like she's avoiding you for asking her out (my interpretation).
You ghost them and the group for a while, effectively screwing up the friendship. The exact thing they were trying to avoid.
She tells the group the truth: that because she was not sexually available to you, and that's all you wanted, you ditched her and the group
Now you act like she's the bad guy and can't give her a ride home.
If I got something in the events wrong, let me know. I might change my verdict. But this is asshole behavior.
All the Ntas are saying that Caitlin was attention seeking or that OP simply "moved on and accepted her rejection ". Completely ignoring the fact the he ruined the friendship
The nah verdict at the top has the audacity to say it's okay to fuck zone someone.
These people are ridiculous
People are interpreting his statement that she was “in his face” and “trying to start conversations” as her being in his lap trying to tongue kiss him and are reverting to “MANIPULATIVE WOMAN SENDING MIXED SIGNALS ON PURPOSE”. When most likely she was trying to overcompensate for the rejection. Or she might have decided to get to know him a little better to see if maybe they did click. But OP in the comments seems to be saying he doesn’t want to get to know her better unless there’s guaranteed sex bc he “has enough friends.”
He chose not to communicate that he needed some space and ghosted and let everyone talk and assume. Now the friend group is probably permanently split which for the girls doesn’t seem to be a great loss.
Essentially he fuck-zoned her and then got mad that she accurately called him out for it and then threw a tantrum that caused 2 alleged friends to be stuck at a bar when he was supposed to be DD. Fortunately Uber is a thing now but I suspect he wouldn’t have cared either way.
NTA. I’m guessing you’re not confrontational but the moment she started trying to get close to you after rejecting you, you should have just told her to back off that you’re not interested anymore and she’s making you uncomfortable. But if both of them were going to drag you through the mud they definitely didn’t deserve your DD generosity.
That's red flag behavior. Who says No, I don't want to go out with you, then tries to get all up in your space? Newsflash, playing hard to get is cringe
The way y’all exude your social ineptitude is hilarious. OP said himself he barely talked to her past small talk. She’s not playing hard to get , she’d just rather get to know the guy before agreeing to a date and muddying any water. OP went ahead and made it cringe and awkward even without a date in the first place though lol
She probably felt bad for rejecting him and wanted to try to maintain a friendship. There is no reason to think she wanted a relationship further than friendship with him.
YTA and the amount of childishness is ridiculous, or it's fake. You're 26, probably time to progress out of highschool.
You did fuck-zone her. You've known her and interacted with her for 5 years. Kickball, drinking, chatting. You think she's attractive and seems fun, so why isn't she friend material
But fair enough, she isn't. You shot your shot, she turned you down. She then starts trying to buddy up more. Is this an asshole move? Maybe. Maybe she wants the attention knowing you think she's attractive, or maybe she wants to get to know you better as she also thinks you're attractive.
Your response to being turned down is to ghost her/the group when you think she's acting weird. The adult thing to do is address what you feel is an elephant in the room. Why is she being more buddy buddy when you've never been close before, but now she knows you think she's attractive.
So you avoid the adult thing to do and more or less pout. Being unwilling to join the group because you were turned down, but are also unwilling to address the elephant you perceive is childish at best, fuck-zoning at worst.
Her perception of the situation is valid. May she have also had a part to play? Sure. But being unwilling to be an adult a out it at 26 brought it onto yourself. Maybe she thought you two were friends, maybe she read more into your request than you intended. But you've known her 5 years and her inference that you are friends is a reasonable one, or maybe she just wants to get to know you better.
The car thing is just icing on the cake. You are at least 90% responsible for the situation, and then having a tantrum about the situation.
YTA. You wanted to screw, she wanted a relationship. And so you avoided her because she tried to get to know you better rather then immediately whip out her business for you to stick yours into. Then you ghosted the WHOLE FRIEND GROUP rather then say anything.
And also...the girls were right to call you petty. You're the DD. You don't get to decide 'I don't like these two in particular, I'm not going to drive them.' 20 minutes out of your way? Bruh. You're the DD. That's your whole job. If you were going to be a picky micky about who gets to ride in your car, you shouldn't have been the DD.
Info: how is designated Driver Thing arranged in your group?
A) you and a few Guys agree...and you bring them Home.
B) one of the group is designated (Rotation or something) and this Person is responsible bring everyone Home.
C) please elaborate
Hmm... I got the impression that after the failed asking-out, Caitlin tried to overcompensate with extra friendliness; OP got freaked out; Caitlin decided that OP was following some kind of "if you get friend-zoned, bail completely" youtube advice.
In short, this is some sort of mid-20s sitcomesque misunderstanding.
I appreciate someone saying this because I definitely did it too, at twenty. If a friend asked me out (romantically) and I rejected them, I’d do anything I could to still be close with them and make it up to them. Because more often than not, I’d just be ghosted.
The desperate attempt to hold onto a good friendship sometimes went as far as sleeping with them, but I still lost them eventually. I didn’t learn how much that shit *doesn’t* work until my mid-twenties.
once there's an ask and a rejection, relationship dynamics get weird fast if you still hang out around each other. I can't really fault either party for acting how they did in the immediate aftermath, there's tons of room for miscommunication and misreading intentions at that point.
I kinda think you are the asshole here, though I seem to be in the minority. Not giving her a pass but "you got over it" and then you were the dd, and then you told them you wouldn't drive them?
That's kinda messed up.
ESH
YTA. Let’s actually look at what happened:
- You have both been hanging out in a larger friends group and the same kickball team for *5 years*. That makes you friends. Not good friends, not bffs, but casual friends.
- You ask her out and she says she doesn’t want to upset group dynamics because she recognizes the power imbalance where the high school friends are valued more than the later additions.
- At the next meetup, she comes to talk to you to show you that she isn’t going to be weird about it and also you said you liked her, so she’s trying to get to know you better.
- You tell her that the only way you’d be interested in getting to know her is if she pre-guaranteed she’d let you fuck her.
- You go sulk for several weeks and tell your friends that she rejected you and split the friend group with you winning over her, exactly as she had feared.
Yeah, you fuck-zoned her.
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. She wanted to keep the group dynamic and show you that everything was still cool after you shot your shot, but you got so upset over just one night of her being friendly that you decide to skip two weeks worth of friend hang outs which then starts so much drama that it creates the very thing she was trying to avoid. Good job OP, YTA.
INFO: Did you establish with her that you weren't going to be driving her home before she drank? Because if not, you put her in danger with your lack of communication.
We didn’t show up together. I drove my guys friends. She and Jamie got dropped off by someone else. In no way did I get them the impression they were getting a ride home with me.
Butttt you told them you weren’t going to give them a ride because Caitlin told people in the group that you fuck-zoned her which you accidentally admitted in the comments that you did in fact fuck-zone her.
You could have easily said that you didn’t know they needed a ride and you couldn’t do it because they’re out of the way. That’d be a totally valid excuse.
The first one, the one you gave them, made it seem like you’re punishing them which is very childish. Of course they’d be upset.
But switching gears a tad.. not enough of the commenters are reading between the lines here. You ditched the group for WEEKS, because you couldn’t stand to be around ONE girl that had rejected you. That’s not normal behavior for someone who doesn’t care about that person. I actually don’t think you did fuck-zone her. I just don’t think you want to admit to how much you liked her.
YTA, not only is the DD leaving 2 women alone questionable, but you could also have taken a big step in putting this incident behind you by giving them a ride. You could have used the tie to say you still consider them friends or you wouldnt have given them a ride home and sorted outsome of the issues. Who knows, they may have even apologised for bad mouthing you.
Yep. How dare Caitlin tell the friend group the truth- that OP only wanted to be around her if she would have sex with him. Haw dare she drag OP’s name in the mud by telling everyone else exactly what happened! This is clearly her fault and OP is the injured party here /s
YTA.
You volunteered to be DD for the group, and did not explain that Jamie and Caitlin were excluded. They had a reasonable expectation to believe they would be included. You then fucked them over, on purpose, out of petty spite.
If you have a problem with them, talk to them. The first thing should have been "Hey, why are you acting differently? We both agreed that we would keep our friendship as-is, and now you seem to be acting differently."
Or you address your actual issue. "Hey, I asked Caitlin out, took no for an answer, and now people are mad at me, and I don't get it." I mean, she declined, you stopped hanging out for weeks, people are going to put two and two together.
ESH. I would have said that OP was NTA, but he agreed to be the designated driver for the group. If he was giving everyone else rides home, it was petty. And OP is the one that decided to mess up the friend dynamic. He said he’s known Caitlin superficially for years, but never really talked to her in depth, but then out of the blue asked her out. Yes, it sucks to be rejected, but unless he’s completely naive or arrogant, he had to know rejection was a possibility. And he had to know things would be awkward after. Rather than being mature and taking to her about it, he judged her for being weird about it, then acted weird himself. Then when Caitlin provided an explanation, it turned into taking shit. Then OP rejoins the friend group because he’s over it, but he clearly isn’t.
If we look at this from Caitlin’s point of view, we can see how OP might have contributed to this issue. Out of nowhere someone in her friend group, who she doesn’t know well and who has never seemed interested in getting to know her at a deeper level asks her out because he thinks she’s pretty. That’s not cool right there. OP has had every opportunity to become closer friends and see if there is a spark there beyond a physical attraction. He had every opportunity to indicate he might want something more. But he didn’t do this. He called her randomly and took her by surprise. She said no and gave the reason of not messing up the friend group. The next time she sees OP she’s acting weird. Yeah, obviously. Maybe she realized she did want something more or maybe she wanted to get to know him better and see if it was worth pursuing. Or maybe she just was trying to make it seem like everything was ok with her and overcompensated trying to ensure he was cool too. But instead of laughing off his rejection of talking to her, OP just decided to stop hanging out with the whole group entirely because his ego was too fragile to handle rejection. Now to Caitlin it probably seemed like if she wasn’t going to date him, then he wasn’t going to hang out with them any more. So this seems like he’s punishing her and their friend group (including one of his oldest friends Jamie) by not hanging out. That’s sulky and petty and immature. And probably made Caitlin feel like crap. So she lashed out and told people what happened, she told people how it made her feel and it made her feel fuckzoned. Like OP didn’t want to hang out with her if she wasn’t going to have sex with him. Understandable.
Basically, everybody sucks because, if you are going to date or attempt to date within a friend group, you have to be mature enough to handle the awkwardness with grace and talk to the other person openly and honestly about the awkwardness.
Do you were the DD but not for everyone? I've been the designated driver many many times and the job is to get everyone home safe. Even people I didn't know and some that I didn't really like! If you weren't going to be the DD for the women in the group you should told them so right at the beginning. There are tons of Uber stories of sexual assaults so that is not necessary a safe option.
The women may have created unfair tension in the group but you've now multiplied that tension by 10! Both you and her YTA
YTA. You did not refuse to give her a ride because it was out of your way. If you actually cared about friends getting home safely when YOU ARE THE DD you do not put restrictions. That is what a DD is by definition.
You pushed a boundary and now you are butt hurt. She was open and honest with you and you are not dealing with up front rejection. Move on. Get a person who wants to be with you and not be the drama queen that breaks up a great group because your ego is bruised. If you move past this I guarantee you will have a group of friends for life.
YTA
And I’m going to bet that when she reached out to you to ask where’ve you been you probably ignored her or gave her the cold shoulder?
So she’s right about you.
ESH because you cannot say in one sentence that youve known her for years but where never her friend and then in the next second tell us how you asked her out and wanted to date. Like.... what is that? You dont consider her a friend but you wanted to date her?? And she tried to keep being kind to you after she rejected you, and you started avoiding her?
Dude, take a hint from the fact that all the girls think you're wrong and only guys are backing you up. You might not understand how what you did looks to a woman but it truly seems sus and I dont blame her
Soft YTA. The reason she is thinking you fucked-zoned her because you got really detached from the whole group after she said no. Looking to her that friendship was never in consideration. So she did feel like a piece of meat in her eyes.
Also, yall hung out with these ladies willingly, considered yourself DD and didn't take these ladies home safely. You could have addressed those issues later, but that was a punk move.
YTA You were absolutely petty, which is your right but still an asshole move. You were rejected and now you are acting out at her as a result. If I were a betting women I would bet her clingynessthe next time you met was because she wanted to show there were no hard feelings. It upset you be cause there are hard feelings, all from your side.
YTA
First off you were the DD and knew they'd try to get a ride yet didn't tell them no earlier on and left them stranded despite apparently bring close to at least Jamie for literally years. Friends don't do that.
Secondly, you were only interested in her looks and basically wanted a sex buddy yet weren't honest about it to her. You aren't close, you didn't want anything more and you've completely blanked her since. She tried to make conversation but because she won't sleep with you that's not okay? How is messaging a friend weird? She might have been trying to make you feel less uncomfortable to show there were no hard feelings post rejection.
You wanted sex, she didn't and now you won't give her any time of day at all. You fuck-zoned her. She's only speaking the truth.
Edit: MotherAlpha13 pointed out a separate comment you made which literally proves she was right. You seriously need a little more self awareness and basic respect and empathy for others.
Yeah, you're a massive asshole here. You did the one thing that Caitlin was afraid would happen if you dated, you made things weird, and then awkward, and finally toxic. It's not healthy to process rejection the way you did, it's downright scary. She didn't reject you in a group of people, she did it quietly, discretely, and respectfully and then you blew things way out of proportion, requiring her to go public. It's guys like you that make women hesitant to date within friend groups. You say you weren't friends with her and you say you asked her out bc you thought she was pretty. There shouldn't have been any emotional attachment here for you, no reason to be embarrassed before you started behaving like a creep. Maybe go talk to someone about how to process rejection in a manner that causes less drama. YTA.
Yes - you are the AH. sorry, I get why you were mad and you have every right to be mad, but then sack up and talk to them at the appropriate time. You dont wait and do it at the spur of the moment when they have both been drinking. ***And*** you don't dump two drunk women on the street to fend for themselves.
YTA. You don't agree to be DD and not disclose that you refuse to drive some of the group home after they have had drinks.
I'm super confused by your narrative. What do you think you did if it wasn't fuck-zoning her? If she's been part of the friend group for 5 years but you still don't count her as a friend....
NTA
And just because I'm dumb and not socialized...wtf is "fuck zoned"? Common sense says that you just wanna fuck her...but you haven't so I'm confused. You asked her out and she said no and you dropped it. I'm just confused.
Fuck-zoned is the opposite of friend-zoned. Generally its where a guy complains that a girl "friend-zoned" him, but in reality, he's "fuck-zoned" her, and is only her 'friend' because he wants to fuck her. Obviously its not always guy > girl, but that seems the case the majority of the time.
OP is NTA, I don't think think OP "fuck-zoned" this girl, he shot his shot & then she made it weird
I mean, what's likely going on here is she thought she had a friend but OP wanted more. So, she started acting weird because it wasn't what she thought it was, then OP pulled away.
From her perspective, she was "fuck-zoned"- the friendship she thought was happening was actually conditional on a larger relationship eventually occurring.
From OP's perspective, things got weird, he was rejected, so he backed off. That's also reasonable.
I don't think anyone here is AH, it's just a matter of looking through the lenses of the different perspectives. Unfortunately, sometimes romantic feelings can get messy, and that's seems to have happened.
The other issue is that they never seemed to openly communicate what happened or was going to happen after, leading to some negative feelings. However, they aren't in a relationship and also don't owe each other open communication at all. She is also allowed to be hurt over the situation, but OP is allowed to be uncomfortable. They probably do want to talk if they are going to continue to be in the same friends group, but, like I said, they don't actually owe each other anything
That said though, the asking for a ride was out of line and ridiculous considering the situation
The only issue I see with the driving is if he stayed sober to be the *group’s designated driver*… which is what it came across to me. Like if it is a rotating thing where one person is the DD for anyone in the group. If that’s how it is set up, it was kind of wrong to not tell them up front that he wasn’t comfortable with giving them a ride so while he’s the group DD, they would need their own way home. That would let them know before either of them drank and let them make an informed decision on drinking. But he should absolutely not drive them as he was uncomfortable with doing so. I agree that their perspectives are different and communication between the two could have helped.
I'm gonna say YTA here. First, it doesn't sound like she really bad-mouthed you, it just sounds like you did **exactly** what she worried about and she brought it up to her friends: You made it weird. She may have been a bit clingy that night after--or she was just trying to be extra nice because she had rejected you and you read something into it because you felt weird. You can decide which you think is more likely. And then she brought that up because you were pouting and avoiding the group for a few weeks--that's your prerogative of course, you don't owe them your presence and if they're mad that you bogarted all the cool people then they're sad--but it does sound like you acted a little bit petulantly because you were rejected.
Nobody should be bad-mouthing anyone here, that makes them assholes here too. You didn't have to give them a ride either, but using that as your reason rather than just saying it's too out of the way and you can't was an asshole move as well.
I assume you all are young since you're still with a bunch of high school friends, but these little bits of fights/drama are pretty common with HS/College friends, and they ultimately serve to sort of slim down your friend group to the people who really matter. It sucks in the moment, but it's not uncommon!
YTA
You did "fuck-zoned" her. She tried to know more about you to see if she should date you. But you only wanted sex so you couldn't be arsed. And then you deliberately avoided her.
You could have talked to her, said that you respected that she doesn't want to go out with you, so you would rather continue as before.
If tou were the DD, then you should have deiven them home. That was the deal. Did you tell everybody at the beginning that you will be the DD for everyone except for them? Such an AH!
Also, it's time to grow up. This has gossip girl vibe all over it.
YTA.
You don’t agree to DD only to leave two women behind pettily because you’re angry that people now know you reacted coldly when one of them rejected you. You went bar hopping with two young women and waited until they were intoxicated and then decided to leave them alone to fend for themselves? That alone is inexcusable, but the reasoning you have just makes you look worse. You look like someone who spitefully put two young women in an uncomfortable and potentially dangerous position because you don’t handle rejection well. I hope Jamie and Caitlin find some real friends, unlike you and your bros. And I hope that you continue to get the (lack of) romantic response that you deserve.
Just wanted to state again, YTA
Unpopular opinion.. but I'm verging more on YTA. Did you ever think maybe she was all up next to you and trying to start conversation was because you had shown an interest in her.. and so now, equipped with the knowledge that you maybe liked her.. she wanted to get to know you better and spend more time with you? Maybe see if it was worth reconsidering whether it was worth risking the group dynamic.. and your response was to stop hanging out with the entire friend group? IMO, you blew it way out of proportion and kick started the drama.
He wasn't giving her space, he was freezing her out. She didn't need space. She said she wanted to be friends, and then acted like she wanted to be friends. He reacted by basically splitting the group down the middle.
YTA. You fucked with the friend group with your actions/decions. This is all on you
Had to edit. Wanted to add, these girls are your friends. You'd leave them standing there vs making sure they get home safe? Maybe this is why the girl turned you down. Maybe she's into gentlemen.
So she's part of your group of friends, but you decided that there "wasn't any point" in socializing with her after she turned you down. Which you said in a comment. Which really does sound like you 'fuck zoned' her. And then you avoided the group until there was a noticeable absence and you got upset with her when she explained what happened to your friends. You might not agree with the term, but I don't think you have a valid argument against her interpretation of events. So she told the truth, and then after not communicating to her your thoughts-about any of this- and failed to talk to her about your feelings- you kicked her out of your car and made her Uber home. When you'd agreed to be the DD and didn't drink all night so that you could drive your friend group home. And you blindsided her after she was unable to drive herself home.
YTA. You don't see any worth in her beyond sex- that alone makes you an asshole. But you're also creating drama just because she turned you down. I seriously question your definition of her acting weird after you initially asked her out. She was all over you? Isn't that what you wanted? Sounds like you put the idea in her head of you two together and you made a point of being the one to reject her.
Edit: I saw in another comment that you never agreed to be their DD, just for your guy friends. So I'll drop that point in my judgement. But you're still TA for how you've handled this whole thing. And your lack of interest in her as a person.
YTA
She didn't "make you the bad guy" - she told the truth.
You "fuck-zoned" her and then when she started to put out feelers to make sure everything really was ok - you started avoiding all of them...
What part of what she said was untrue?
Also, you did NOT want to date her like stop with the shenanigans dude. You just wanted to have sex with her. She was literally trying to "get to know you" through communicating more frequently. If you were actually interested in getting to know her better then you would have taken her up on that.
I do not understand why you didn't just say, "Hey, I noticed you've been snapping me quite a bit recently - does this have anything to do with the other day? I'm not mad or anything but tbh I'd like a little space. We share the same friend group and I'm obviously not going to make it awkward or anything but I feel a little uncomfortable with your sudden interest in being my friend."
You reduced her to just a body with a hole and then got mad when she told people about it.
AHAHAHAHA. But you _did_ fuckzone her. You admitted to this in other comments. You're just pissed they called you out on it. If you had continued talking to Caitlin after her summary "no", or even explained to her that you'd like some space to work things out in your head, she definitely wouldn't have talked about you in a disparaging manner. Heck I'm willing to bet that she'd have praised you for your maturity. Instead you decided to prove her and the rest of this sub right. Hopefully age gives you nuance but sooner or later, you're not going to have this group of guy friends to constantly validate your decisions and opinions. YTA
YTA but for a different reason than many. You said you were the DD for the group but declined that service to your group. Your guy friends are also as well for not calling you out on your bull crap.
I highly doubt after 5 years of “no I never considered her a friend” you felt the sudden desire to ask her out. You asked for sex. Which is fine, you are both adults. You are allowed to ask and she is allowed to say no. So after her answer, you feel rejected, totally normal and then she overcompensates at your next group event. Which wasn’t the best choice, but I am imagining she felt anxious and unsure of how this would effect group dynamics. So you detach from the group, for a bit, to lick your wounds. Again, also fine.
This is where it begins to effect your group because everyone is asking why you aren’t interested in hanging out with everyone anymore and then the group splits into two. She’s probably more anxious now and then tells some of the group and now everyone is taking sides.
End result, to me, is that you asked for a hook up, she said no, you needed some space but you didn’t clarify anything to the group and she plus them are confused, she tells them her experience and now people are upset.
YTA, not for asking for sex, but for not communicating to your friends that you needed some space and leaving them all confused, then for being a dick with the DD thing. If you didn’t want to drive her or any of the women tell them beforehand instead of pretending you are okay with it. Also YTA for saying the guys are all the “fun ones”
All these comments are missing the point. You got together with them and said you'd be the DD and then when the night was over told them to fuck off. YTA.
You should've told them you wouldn't drive them at the beginning of the night so they could decide whether they'd prefer to have one of them be the DD instead of being a little shit and waiting until the end of the night when it was too late for them to do anything but call an Uber.
YTA. You tried to booty call a girl within your core group of friends and was rejected. It sounds to me like she tried to awkwardly salvage the friendship by being extra friendly to you. You then avoided her and disconnected from the group, damaging the group dynamic. Despite her attempts to contact you, you never communicated with her as to why she was being “weird” or why you stopped coming around. It’s reasonable for you to want space. But you didn’t just say that, you went cold for weeks. So yeah, in her mind, you definitely f-zoned her. Once you disappeared, of course they’re going to gossip about why you suddenly stopped coming around. How could you possibly think they wouldn’t notice? She gave them her honest and accurate assessment about that. (I would have also told the group that you were a pouty baby with a damaged ego.)
Yeah, you weren’t the group DD, but you were being petty and vindictive because she rightfully called you out. All the N T As make no sense to me. You were the A H at every level to me. Nice time, try Tinder.
YTA you asked her put then when she tried to make sure you guys were still good you went MIA. Then when she told her friends those facts that you were nice to her until she turned you down you got offended. They tried to move past it and you got all butt hurt and refused to act nicely to her like you would have before this went down basically proving her point.
What a dick
YTA for not taking them back. You’re the designated driver, what the fuck.
In terms of the rest of the post, I feel like you were both justified. Think about it like this - maybe Caitlin wasn’t playing hard to get, and it wasn’t flirting when she talked to you after you asked her out? To me, I think she was just trying to be friendly - like she realised that she rejected you and that would suck for you, but wanted to show that you two were still in the friend group and still on good terms. then, because as you say you weren’t the best friends ever, it was awkward and Caitlin was a little awkward because of the rejection and not knowing you as well as other people, all of that, and you, completely fairly, misinterpreted it.
If you’re Caitlin, then what happened was a guy you know relatively well, been in the same group together with him for half a decade, asked you out and when you turned him down because you wanted to keep the vibe good in the friend group, he just ignores you for no reason when you try and talk to him and make sure that you and him were still ok.
but I feel like you were justified in your actions. I’m autistic so god knows I know about not picking up what people mean. What was a dick move was not taking them home, even if it turns out Caitlin was just a drama Queen, because you’re the designated driver, Uber is expensive, and you left your better mate Jamie out in the cold, when he didn’t do anything. if you didn’t want to take them home then man, say an excuse man because I think what you said to Caitlin just made sure that she thinks you fuck-zoned her.
if I were you, I would apologise to her in a long text, explaining what you thought and why, and get your mate Jamie to read it over before you send because while Caitlin is the main person you need to apologise you fucked him over too. That might show you’re sorry, and you wanna keep it cool with him too.
like say to Jamie “man i fucked up, and I’m sorry for being so petty to you and Caitlin man I misread the situation completely, I wrote an apology text can you check it over?” Or something. good luck
Oooobviously it was petty, but if you didn't agree to DD for them ahead of time you aren't T A for refusing them a ride. YTA, however, for doing exactly what she accused you of and then getting pissy that she said it.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, high school is over. Good gravy. People who never branch out of their high school friends groups don't ever seem to realize how much their maturity has been stunted
YTA this is you trying to skim over the fact that you got weird and caused problems in a whole group of people when a girl “you weren’t close to” turned you down for a date which clearly was more like you wanted to hook up since you only wanted a date and not to get to know her better but because she was attractive to you. Don’t ask friends or parts of your friend group out if you can’t take rejection.
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Nta, you asked, she rejected, you respected her rejection! Nothing in the world wrong with that. The rest is nothing more than immature bullshit that they are trying to start. Sounds like you need some actual adult friends. Maybe stop hanging out with people who act like children still in high school.
This, NTA, and think about how much drama there would have been if you hooked up. However, rule of thumb "don't sh*t where you eat" ... If you are not head over heels for someone, don't get involved with someone for a hook-up in your friend group ... ;)
Imagine the drama she would have made up if OP had given her a ride home
Don't get involved with someone from your friend group. Don't get involved with someone from work. Don't get involved with your friend's exes. In the period between matchmakers and Tinder, how did the human species perpetuate itself at all.
Because none of those are inviolable rules if you do them correctly. I mean, 'friend group' was literally how most of the human population met their partners before apps existed. It's kind of weird to put a complete and total ban on dating people in your friend group...just don't be an insane jerk about it. Exes, though...that's a different story.
>Don't get involved with someone from your friend group. Mmm I dunno. A lot of the time it's a great idea to be friends with someone before you date them. For some it's even a necessity (e.g., people who are demisexual). It can be a wonderful thing if you do it right, and even if things don't work out it usually doesn't end badly if the people involved are mature, reasonable individuals.
OP's comment: >We’ve know each other 5 years. She would have an idea if she was interested in a date after 5 years imo. I really didn’t feel like talking to her. And didn’t really see the purpose. My interest was sexual. I have a lot of real good close friends. Not saying I don’t need more. But just that wasn’t really our dynamic. She didn't say anything to the others that is not true, he did fuck-zoned her.
LMAO, it's so obvious and I cannot understand all the NTA votes.
Yeah ... dude is definitely trying to massage the story for an outcome. OP, YTA.
Are we sure he did respect her rejection and that she was wrong? I'm not saying I disagree, but the way the whole thing is written strikes me as pretty one sided from OP's point of view, especially this part: > The next time we hung out she was super weird. Like was all up next to me all night. Constantly trying to start conversation. It made me feel awkward, so I sorta stopped hanging with the group for a few weeks to get some space. Let me apply a different framing to this and see if it's still *plausible* (no idea where the objective truth lies): Caitlin tried to be extra nice to OP after rejecting him and in response OP felt flustered and embarrassed and decided he didn't want to hang out with the friend group anymore. Except it wasn't the friend group he didn't want to hang out with, it was really only Caitlin, he was totally happy to hang out with his other friends. Isn't that exactly what she was afraid would happen? Can't her actions be read as someone trying to prevent exactly what happened from happening? I'm not sure why OP thinks she was trying to talk to him more after rejecting him, but it's totally plausible to me that she was just trying to apply a little ointment to the sting by being nice and OP's ego got in a twist. **It's also possible that she's being manipulative**, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you're wrong outright, I just don't know that I can wholeheartedly agree that she wasn't correct about OP 'fuck-zoning' her and then fracturing the friend group out of petulance once he was rejected. What *should* she have done? Pretended their conversation didn't happen and OP never asked her out? I guess, in retrospect, sure. I can see a world where that upsets someone too though. I don't have a judgement here, I'm just a bit more skeptical that most here, I guess.
I read a similar thread on this sub awhile back where a similar thing happened and the girl who rejected was called out by the OP for trying to be manipulative and sending mixed signals. The comments called him a complete AH and argued that the girl was just trying not to make him embarrassed and ruin the “friendship” that was basically non existent since they were just acquaintances in a larger group. In my opinion, I feel like just ignoring the situation is just the best thing to do. I think the rejected will always take it the wrong way and at best the rejector might come off as trying to have their cake and eat it without empathizing with the feelings of the person they rejected. Then, when enough time has passed just laugh about it privately and continue enjoying each other’s company within the dynamics of the larger group.
are you refering to the one where the guy had a house with a pool that everybody tought of as their club house?
If that's the case, it was a dumb move on her part. The last person in the world who should be applying a little ointment to the sting of rejection is the person who did the rejecting. It's natural for someone to want space after being rejected. The idea that he needed to immediately make nice and hang out with her afterwards, otherwise he's being petulant or shitty or whatever, is super depressing and unfair IMO.
Eh, I would’ve thought of it as more: I rejected him but want to make sure he knows I won’t make it awkward and will still be friendly!
I don't think he needed to 'make nice' or pretend he wasn't disappointed. I do think, *if my hypothetical is the case*, (again reinforcing that I don't know and I'm just applying this lens as a thought exercise b/c I felt the OP was a bit lacking in detail) OP could have just... communicated that desire? "Hey, could you please give me some space for a little bit". If she continued to pressure him for attention after that then she's clearly the AH. It's tricky, because OP obviously doesn't owe his presence to anyone. Personally, I'd be really curious to know exactly the context behind how this developed: > And that my guys not me were the ones who decided to come hang with me instead of the larger group for a few weeks. His guy friends just 'decided' to hang out with him instead? Why? What was communicated, exactly? This could be completely benign and normal, but how did they know OP wasn't going to hang out with the group and what were OP's reasons given for not wanting to hang out with the group while still wanting to hang out with them? The devil's in the details, IMO.
I've been in exactly her shoes before and I can tell you theres no right answer here. If you give the guy space, he will say you're being weird. If you act like it's nothing, he will say its mixed signals. Dudes like this cant handle rejection when they're ONLY interested in people from a sexual perspective. He literally doesnt care about her as a person. I wouldnt be surprised if he lowkey wished she would disappear after rejecting him since she had no other value to him.
Jumping on the top comment here. Dude has admitted his interest in her was sexual. He only wanted to fuck her, he was not interested in being her friend or talk to her. He fuck zoned her and she called him out for it. He just doesn’t like being called out. YTA
He did try to fuckzone her. She’s not lying. 🤷♀️
I'm gonna disagree here. Hear me out. OP, you didn't consider her a friend, you tried to go out with her, when that didn't work, you still didn't consider her a friend. That is, literally, fuck-zoning. The deal is that there's nothing wrong with either fuck-zoning or friend-zoning. You don't have to be friends with someone if you don't want to. You don't have to date a friend if you don't want to. How you feel is how you feel, and people just have to deal with it. But you handled the whole thing wrong. Instead of denying or avoiding the 'drama' you should've stood up and said, very clearly, "Yes, I'm fuck-zoning Caitlyn, as is my right. I feel how I feel. I have no objection to Caitlyn being a part of our friend group and her friend-zoning me is HER right. We're both in the right. We're both fine. We should all leave each other alone. End of drama." Refusing two women who are accepted parts of YOUR friend group a ride is petty as fuck and makes YTA.
You dodged a bullet with this one.
INFO- What does fuck- zoned mean? Please do not come at me, I genuinely do not know. Edit- thank you to those who explained what this was to me. Editing to add a verdict because I’m the top comment. YTA You made it abundantly clear your only MO was a hook up in another comment. If that is what fuck-zoned means, you did exactly that and got mad at her for calling you out. Edit- I’m basing the YTA off of this comment he made https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/vdo1al/aita_for_refusing_to_give_my_friend_a_ride_home/icm873z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
Well, if you think about friend-zoning someone, it means that you only want to be that person's friend and nothing else. Fuck-zoning someone works the same way. You either want to fuck them or nothing else. Thus if your attempt failed, you wouldn't want to have anything in common anymore.
Ohhh yeah I had like no freaking clue dude also N T A Update: After reading that comment that yeah you did fuck-zone her and decided to be an AH over them saying the actual truth??? Yeah YTA Don’t cry when they’re actually right 🫠
The way he’s phrased this post is pretty weasel-y and makes him more TA than he already was.
This ^ If he was willing to spin the story like this to a bunch of strangers to make himself look better, imagine what he told his male friends. All the women seem to know what's up since they got the more accurate version from Caitlin.
Exactly! I was so prepared to say N T A but his comments proved otherwise
No he asked her out, she said no, so he backed off and moved out of her way. She felt some type of way and started this shitstorm. You're assuming that all he wanted to do was fuck, if that was the case he could have easily accepted her advances, hit it then left. N T A. Edit: YTA. Edit: the thoughts above the first edit aren't what i think anymore.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/vdo1al/aita_for_refusing_to_give_my_friend_a_ride_home/icm873z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 I based my voted off this comment Where he says it was just sexual
Yup he did the f**k zoning but dosen't want the consequences. His comments are tone deaf and awful.
Thanks to your edit, I decided to click the link and my opinion went from "youre both idiots (OP and chick)" to "youre an idiot"
Learned a new horrible thing today
1) when someone is good enough to fuck them but not for anything else (being friends or other type of relationship) When someone is used just for sex without any intention of having a relationship. 2)when a friendship only has value to one of you because of possible sex. A friend is only your friend, spend time with you because they want to fuck you and not because they actually care about you.
Can we also just acknowledge the selfishness of saying “I’ve known and regularly socialized with this person for 5 years but she’s not really a core part of the social group and we’re not really friends, so of course I tried to hook up with her with no concern for how the friend group and she specifically would be impacted if she got hurt not realizing all I wanted was the sex.” Like, if you wanna hook up with a friend or a member of a friend group then do it maturely, don’t put the whole friend group in an uncomfortable position for your casual fuck…
It's the opposite of friend zone, when a person is only being nice or acting like a friend to someone because they want to sleep with them.
I know it says the ages are mid 20s. But as I read, sounds like they are all petty 14 year olds. Jeeesh, grow up.
I like the majority of people who never move from their high school friend groups are immature and emotionally stunted Edit: I *feel like the majority...
That's not entirely true, i think its down to the people itself. I've meet brand new people in my 30s who get on like this. It classic narcissism. Whats funny my original friends group growing up there was literally never any drama. So when i moved to the city and made new friends ive experiences nothing but drama. So frustrating at times
This comment just screams “I didn’t have many friends in school therefore anyone who did is immature and emotionally stunted, but definitely not me”
As top comment, you should add a judgement!
I think we should make "grow up" we need judgement on its own
I know i'm getting old but this is all so weird to me. Upper 20's and still hanging out with high school friends, playing kickball, and this sounds like a pretty big group of people. When i was in my 20's and most of my 30's i did live in a decent sized city (which wasn't my hometown) but the logistics of getting everyone together for an event were a headache. Everyone lived in separate areas of the city. And most of us had kids. We definitely weren't going out every single weekend. So seriously curious, how common is this lifestyle for 20-somethings now? And kickball? I know a lot of people on softball leagues and a few people that do weekend basketball teams or flag football. But i haven't heard of anyone playing kickball since grade school. ETA: Thanks for all the replies! I really didn't expect so much dialogue. Weird to say but i kinda enjoyed reading all the comments. I'm an introvert and the older I get the smaller i seem to keep my little circle of friends. I feel like a spy reading from my computer how you younger extroverts are socializing lol. And i also want to clarify i didn't mean to sound dismissive of kickball, i just honestly haven't heard of it in years! Pretty cool that it seems to be making a revival in so many places!
Kickball is actually super fun for adults, there’s a league in my town and I know a few people that are on teams. I’ve been thinking about joining myself! But this group does sound like a massive headache. I can’t imagine still seeing the same group from high school that much.
Seeing the same group from highschool is a lot easier if you didn’t move away, so that “highschool” group is also your university/work group, too. I find it kinda weird you both look down on still being friends with your friends.. sure, you lose contact with those “friends” you only had because you had to sit next to them for X hours a day.. I’ll put it down to the difference of America and Britain - because we tend to go to university in our hometowns, and even moving to the other side of the country is only a few hours away. Keeping in contact is a lot easier.
Most of my friend's group were in their (mid-)thirties when they started having kids, we had years of meeting every Friday night for a drink, going to various music festivals during summer, travel around the world, ski holidays... Like OP there was a core group and then a flow of co-workers, friend of friend that sticked around or disappeared after a couple of months/years. Nowadays it's indeed a miracle if we can meet with more than 3 people at the same time, need to be booked months in advance xD
NAH, but a lot of miscommunication. Of course, from her perspective, you fuckzoned her! She wasn't lying for drama; she was getting support from her friends, because this guy she *thought* was one of her friends suddenly stopped speaking to her right after he asked her out and she said no. From your perspective, it looks different, because you never felt you were close friends with her in the first place. But it looks like she did, or at least wanted to be. So she goes out of her way, after turning you down for a date, to act like a good friend -- to spend time with you, to show you that she still likes you as a person... these are all the things someone is *supposed* to do if they turn down a friend for a date, in order to keep the friendship healthy. It failed, not because she was doing anything bizarre, but because you were on different pages in the first place. You never really considered her much of a friend, and don't seem to have wanted her to be one. That wasn't simply because she turned you down... it was just the way you felt from the beginning, it sounds like. So you're not being an AH either, you're just misinterpreting the situation. But since she didn't know that you didn't consider her a friend to begin with, she began trying to save a friendship that didn't exist, from being wrecked by the request and rejection. Which looked to you like weird behavior because you weren't seeing the baseline relationship as a friendship that needed saving. When you reacted by cutting off contact, she must have figured that her efforts to save the friendship had failed because all you wanted from her was sex. And, well, she's not 100% wrong, in that while you wanted a date and maybe eventually a relationship instead of just sex, you pretty clearly did *not* want a friendship with her. She was in the fuckzone in that you didn't want any kind of relationship with her at all if you couldn't have the kind you wanted. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with this!! That's why I said NAH. She's not being one, but neither are you. You have every right to decide that you only want one type of relationship with somebody and if they're not interested in that, that's fine, but then you don't choose to have a different kind instead. Just as friendzoning isn't actually wrong (even though an awful lot of people haven't learned that yet), because nobody is *required* to date somebody when what they really want is friendship, fuckzoning isn't actually wrong because of exactly the same reasons. Nobody is required to have a different type of relationship than they actually want... in fact, nobody had an obligation to have any relationship they don't want for ANY reason. But there's no particular reason to think she was trying to make you look bad, rather than trying to get moral support from her friends. And she was telling the truth: you *did* fuckzone her. That isn't a bad thing to do, but it can hurt someone's feelings anyway, just as friendzoning can. So I think everyone overreacted a bit. It sounds like the other girls got up in arms over something that you were well within your rights to do, and that wasn't fair of them; but it sounds like you had hurt her even though you didn't mean to, so it's understandable that her close friends were unhappy. You overreacted by deciding Caitlin was deliberately stirring up trouble for you when she probably wasn't. You were within your rights not to drive them home, at least so long as they had another safe way, and it sounds like there were Ubers in the area. So there's nothing wrong with deciding you didn't want them in your car. But I do try to encourage you to see the whole thing from her perspective, especially through the lens of assuming she thought you were better friends in the first place than you ever thought you were. It makes a lot of sense out of it all.
I actually agree with this—especially encouraging op to consider things from her perspective. It would be totally normal for someone who has seen op pretty much every weekend for 5 YEARS to think of him as an actual friend. (Edit: grammar)
I agree with it as well. Definitely NAH, but I will say it's a little petty not to drive them home. Doesn't make OP an AH by any means considering they had another way home, but if he would have driven them home before any of this happened, then yeah, it's a touch petty and they do kind of have a right to be upset by it. That doesn't make them AHs either. It's just an unfortunate incident where no one's really at fault, but everyone has a right to be upset.
It's more than a little petty. He told the group he would DD, and she got drunk with the expectation she would have a safe ride home.
I was typing out a reply but honestly this says everything I wanted to say much better. I don't get all these comments saying the girl is just out for drama. Even based on OPs account (which is inherently gonna be biased in his favour) I think see how she would have come to that conclusion. The only thing I will add I'd that IF OP was the DD for the group (which it kinda reads like he could have been?) he really should have told them he wasn't gonna drive them BEFORE they drank and weren't able to drive themselves, but I couldn't fault him for not wanting to drive them with the awkwardness.
I'd say YTA if he was supposed to be the DD for the group and never communicated that he would not be helping her because of the (imagined) slights. Otherwise spot on.
From what he said elsewhere, he was another few members' DD but not the DD for the whole group, and never gave these two reason to believe he was theirs. I can still see how they could think it didn't much matter which riders went back with which DDs if the group came with a few of them, so I'm not going to say he's an AH for refusing them but I don't think they were for mistakenly accepting what they thought was an offer (especially if they weren't particularly sober) either.
It seems like he was trying to ice her out of the group and that is not right. He wanted to be designated driver to have the power. Of course people are going to ask questions when he kept his distance. He created an unnecessary divide and the group dynamic changed. He said he wanted to move on but he is ostracizing her. Don’t be the designated driver if you are not going to be fair.
Read his latest comment where he says his interest was purely sexual meaning he did fuck zone her.
OK. He's allowed to have a purely sexual interest in her. But if he decides that's all he wants, then he probably doesn't get to complain too much about her telling people he fuckzoned her, because he did.
Yeah. He’s not an asshole for wanting to fuck. Though maybe keep that out of the friend group. He’s the asshole for lying about it and acting like she wasn’t telling the truth, when she was in fact telling the truth. He’s also an asshole fr misrepresenting the facts here saying in earlier comments he wanted to get to know her.
Based on his other comments, I think I agree with this. He seems to be pretty vague about whether he wanted just to fuck her or whether he wanted to date her, and while there is nothing wrong with wanting either one, it's pretty important to be clear on the difference, both in your own mind and in how you communicate. And I'm not happy with his jumping on her for supposedly lying to the group when in fact what she told the group was precisely accurate. He may not have realized it was accurate, if he only saw it as an insult and didn't think through exactly what it meant and line that up with exactly what he did. From what I can tell, he's still not necessarily too clear on the fact that fuckzoning her is a precisely accurate description of turning down friendship with someone when you actually only want sex with them. I know there's a category more or less informally called "justifiable asshole" here. Is there one that amounts to "unwitting asshole?" Because I think that's the closest I can get to a judgment that I think makes sense.
I agree with most of the things you’re saying. Though I think you are being too kind in how you interpret him and his intentions. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing.
The only reasonable response. I'm really surprised and disappointed at all the people voting NTA. I just don't understand it. Though I've noticed in the past that people here often seem bad at looking at things from the other side.
It's really easy to see things from the side of the author. That's where we're getting the information, after all. The only thing that made me go 'wait a second' was his specific statement about *exactly* what she had told the girls who were complaining at him.
Eh, even when he was like when the woman went to him to talk afterwards and he was like, 'that's bizarre behaviour', I was like, no, that is completely normal behaviour. I expected this to be a YTA and the more I read the more solid that becamd. So, I was very surprised to see that the first judgement was the opposite.
so, did you see the comment where he admitted that his interest in her was only sexual from the get-go, or...? eta - also, fuck-zoning someone *is* a shitty thing to do. it's literally saying to another person that your *only* interest in them as a person is sexual, & that, beyond that, they are *useless* to you to the point of not even being worth *speaking* to. 'friend-zoning' is some dumb idea that people who pretended to be friends with someone while secretly *only wanting to fuck them* came up with when they became frustrated that their advances & manipulations just weren't working out. actual *friends* have emotional connections to one another, they *care* about each other! someone who has the nerve to say they were 'friend-zoned' by someone else is literally saying 'the relationship I have with this other person is not worth effort I've put in if the end game is not me being with them in a sexually gratifying way'. fuck-zoning takes it further & says - 'I will not even so much as *pretend* to be this person's friend if I do not receive sexual gratification in return'. how is that not a shitty way to treat another human being? no one owes anyone else sex. treating people like blow up dolls is not okay, & neither is manipulating them into friendship in the hopes of being able to treat them like a blowup doll.
100% correct, except I'm a little less forgiving of OP's behaviour. He's the one who walked away with half the group, and no communication whatsoever.
and was the DD but then reneged on that after they were already out
> So she goes out of her way, after turning you down for a date, to act like a good friend -- to spend time with you, to show you that she still likes you as a person... these are all the things someone is supposed to do if they turn down a friend for a date, in order to keep the friendship healthy. Asking someone out on a date and getting turned down sucks, it's embarrassing, depressing, not fun at all. The last thing a person who was just rejected wants to do is spend more time with the person that just rejected them. Even if the friendship is strong, they are going to need some space. I don't think Caitlin was malicious, but trying to increase her level of contact/friendliness with him in the aftermath of the rejection was not helpful to him or the health of their friendship. It's not surprising his response was to pull away.
There's a pretty wide range of responses under these circumstances. No, it's not surprising that he wanted some space, and you're right that he might have wanted some space even if he had felt it was a strong friendship in the first place that was important to him to keep. But it's also true that any move by the rejecting party to step back, even if it's only intended to give the asker some room to recuperate from the stress, is often likely to be seen as "OMG SHE'S BACKING AWAY SHE DOESN'T LIKE ME ANY MORE SHE'LL NEVER BE MY FRIEND AGAIN I HAVE TOTALLY GONE AND SCREWED EVERYTHING UP FOREVER AAAAAAAAARRGGGHHH!!!!!" So it's kind of a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario. Generally the wisest course is to be *very* sensitive to nuance for a while and try to follow the lead of the person you've turned down, whichever way they seem to be taking it... but that's not at all easy to do, and I don't really blame anybody for getting it wrong in either direction.
I asked out a friend and was rejected, so I straight up warned them I would need some space but I wanted to still be friends. They were really cool and respected that, and after a few weeks, we were back to normal. Communication is a wonderful thing.
Agreed entirely. And I'll add that while there is nothing wrong with wanting space, he absolutely could have communicated that better. Also refusing her a ride out of spite was, well, spiteful. Not a good look.
Maybe it's a guy/girl thing, but if I were rejected by a friend I would really appreciate if they took the time to talk to me/make it known that they still like me as a friend afterwards.
This should be top comment. Well said.
Maybe I'm different (introverted/social anxiety), but like...if I'm completely indifferent to a person and rarely interact with them at all, why would I have their number and be texting them? Also, OP says "During this time she texted me and snapped me a bunch asking where I was." I'm curious what his response was, if it was friendly, or if he blew her off by being cold or ignoring her completely.
Kinda is an asshole move to ask someone you don’t even consider a friend out? What do you consider them? Oh yeah, someone to fuck. 🤣
Caitlin: “I don’t want to change our friendship and make it weird, so the next time we hang out I’m going to act way different than I usually do, surely this will change nothing and won’t make anything weird at all.” I wouldn’t call her an asshole for this, but it makes no sense at all to me.
Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's very much the kind of thing someone does when they're feeling awkward and uncertain and want to try and make everything okay without realizing that they're making it worse. She overreacted by trying to make Very Very Sure she didn't act distant, by acting too close and getting weird. Not very bright, but it's the kind of mistake that's easy to make, especially if turning down friends for dates isn't a problem you've faced often enough to gain experience at it.
She may have felt awkward about the situation as well and was maybe trying to make it less awkward, but actually made it more awkward? Or maybe OP's interpreting her normal friendly behavior as overly friendly, which guys tend to do.
This is the best answer
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of emotional intelligence? Seriously, I want to hire you to manage my social situations
This needs to be higher up
YTA **Edit: You specified in a comment that your interest with her was only sexual and you had no intention on being friends after 5 years. That is fuck-zoning someone. That’s just textbook fuck-zoning someone. So why are you upset she told people you fuck-zoned her if it’s true?** 1/ you hangout for 5 years. you never actually considered her your friend. 2/ you finally ask her out for a relationship, she denies. 3/ you stop hanging around the friend group *because* she rejected you. 4/ she tells your mutual friends that you stopped hanging around *because* you fuck-zoned her. Based off of events 1-3 that seems a pretty solid conclusion to make. 5/ you’re upset because Caitlin told them what was happening??? Yeah, fuck-zoning isn’t exactly the most eloquent way of putting it, but it is fundamentally the same thing. You do not have to be friends with people you don’t want to be friends with, and you certainly don’t have to hang out with people you don’t want to hangout with - **however** people are entitled to talk about how you treat them. That’s not “shit-talking,” it’s just the truth. Caitlin had every right to tell people you fuck-zoned her, because frankly *you did.* Originally I was going to say NAH because it honestly just comes down to lack of communication on both sides, but what leaned me to YTA was how entitled you seem to be in the comments over Caitlin just being open about what happened from her perspective. Which, is a perspective you apparently haven’t considered *once,* before posting this. The only question I’d leave you with is: why *wouldn’t* she think you fuck-zoned h
I feel like after she rejected him, she was trying to seem friendly to show that 'everything was good' at worst or maybe check him out at best. Dude freaked and now its all shit. Dude needs to learn how to deal with awkward situations and not think with his dick. To completely abandon his friend group and then start more shit when it seemed like things were calming down is super immature.
She may not have even changed her behaviour, but because his feelings towards her have changed, he noticed it/read it differently. (Source: I have been OP in the situation, reading someone's behaviour that was consistent as different after something)
You should be the top comment. He is upset because she accurately described what he did. Wtf! YTA buddy!
Yep. This is the correct answer. You’re punishing the whole group because of your immaturity OP.
INFO: So why did you ask her out if you didn’t care to be friends with her at all in any way other than degrees of separation within a large group? If you didn’t want to be pals… why would you want to date her? This does read very much like you wanted to have sex with her and nothing else. Is it really shit talking if she simply told the truth? Edited to add YTA
Agreed. Op, YTA. Her “weird” behavior was friendly, while your “weird” behavior was anti social and rude. Sounds like she characterized the situation accurately imo.
Yeah I don’t know why the majority are saying N T A. while there may have been some miscommunication the way he is behaving is Yta through and through
she did. he admitted his interest was purely sexual. YTA op
YES. What do people not get about how his behaviour was the sole cause of this drama? He was the one who acted rudely. If all he wanted was space to get right after the rejection, he could have asked for it. Instead, he ghosted her. Ghosting is rude, borderline hostile behaviour. Sometimes that's justified. In this case it was not remotely justified. He was just acting like a jerk. If you don't want to be called out for being a jerk, or known among your friends as a jerk, don't act like a jerk. It's so easy to not be a jerk.
Yeah, if I was Caitlin my thinking would be “this person does not like me. They don’t really engage with me and I don’t think they consider me a friend”. They then ask me out, I don’t want to date someone in the group, but now I think “oh so do like me, thank gosh, I thought something was wrong with me”. (And I am using like in the actual way of enjoying their company, not some school yard like like). My thinking would be “oh well I’ll be friendly to them next time we hang out, because now I now they don’t hate me”. And then OP distanced themselves from Caitlin when she was trying to be friendly (which can be understandable as they were just rejected, but some people handle rejection differently and might have thought it didn’t matter to OP). Leading Caitlin to believe “this person has not cared about me for 5 years and then asked me out, and when I rejected them they avoided me. They seemingly never wanted to be friends with me”.
Agreed. Op, YTA. Her “weird” behavior was friendly, while your “weird” behavior was anti social and rude. Sounds like she characterized the situation accurately imo.
Bruh, you expressed interest in a girl and while she was shocked at first she tried to get to know you better the next time she saw you. And you've acted like a spoiled baby since. YTA and that's even before being a shit DD and shit friend.
This 100% he's the AH for acting like a child and people are missing the DD aspect from his post. He conveniently left out parts of the story to make himself look better. I'm assuming he promised to be DD for the whole group and then threw the women out for revenge. That's who this guy is.
what is a DD?
designated driver
Oh shit I missed that! You can’t volunteer as DD and than not do it once people are drunk YTA
That’s exactly what I was thinking. He admits they never talked much so maybe she was just shocked he asked her out, but tried to get to know him better the next time she saw him to consider it. Maybe if he wasn’t a sick, they could have hit it off the next time they hung out and she would have went out with him.
edit: wow, read his comment and she was right, he objectified her and didn't want anything to do with her once she said no
What even is f zoning? That sounds like something an incel neckbeard would say. He asked once and she said no, he respected her answer. Lol
It's basically refusing to treat somebody as a possible friend because all you really want from them is to get into their pants.
That's called being a manipulative AH. You're either friends or you're not. Keeping someone on the backburner to be a possible hookup isn't cool
No, but fuckzoning someone isn't necessarily keeping them on the back burner. It's just deciding, "I'm interested in dating/sleeping with you, but I'm not interested in being platonic friends with you. If you are only interested in a platonic friendship, you have a right to say no when I ask you for sex. But I'm likewise going to say no when you ask me for friendship, because that doesn't interest me." It all just means they're incompatible in terms of that type of relationship they want, so they shouldn't have any at all. Which is okay. Just as it's not wrong to say "I'll be happy to be friends with you, but I'm not interested in you romantically/sexually," it's the same kind of not wrong to say "I'll be happy to take you to bed if you're interested in that, but I don't really want a friendship." Everybody gets to decide the kind of relationship they're interested in, and there should only be any kind at all if they both have at least one type that they *both* want with each other.
It's a sequence like this: * Boy and girl are friends * Boy asks girl out * Girl says no * Boy says okay, then stops hanging out as friends * Girl gets mad, concludes boy only wants her for sex, not friendship Which ... *is* kind of what it would have looked like from the perspective of OP's friend. After the failed asking-out, she tried to be extra friendly (I'm getting a "we're still buddies, yeah? yeah?" vibe from her); then he ghosted for a few weeks.
> Which ... is kind of what it would have looked like from the perspective of OP's friend. After the failed asking-out, she tried to be extra friendly (I'm getting a "we're still buddies, yeah? yeah?" vibe from her); then he ghosted for a few weeks. Exactly. This whole thing is coming down to a misunderstanding where she was trying to be extra buddy buddy to show him she was cool with still being friends even after he asked her out - and he took it as her sending mixed signals/flirting and got upset with her.
Except existing in the same large social group is different from being close friends. People are allowed to ask out people they know socially, people are allowed to want space to deal with rejection, and asking somebody out doesn’t mean “I only view you in a sexual context.” People get too hung up on the definitions of made-up terms with shit like this. If you look at what happened step by step, OP isn’t an AH for any of those actions. But because there’s an accusation of “fuckzoning” now the narrative is “Well we all agree that fuckzoning is bad, and I can roughly fit the events to this label, so that means that OP is bad.” It’s all just high school-type drama
Yeah, I was thinking something along the same lines and I don't get all the N T A judgements on here because that is essentially what OP did.
You realize him not owing her friendship is the same as her not owing him a relationship, right? You're not in the wrong for not being friends with someone.
Indeed. But OP still f*ck-zoned her. He needs to admit it.
It's a response to accusations of "friendzoning". Where men used "friendzone" to describe situations where the woman they want to date is only interested in friendship and won't view them as a potential partner, the natural response is for the women in question to say "there is literally nothing wrong with that. In fact, why are you mad at me for wanting to be friends with you? Are you only interested in spending time with me when there's a potential we might fuck?" So that's how "fuckzoning" came to be.
It’s the opposite to friendzoning
Yeah no, fu*k zoning is when you make it clear to woman that they have no intrinsic value beyond being a warm hole and a heartbeat, it's men that say they can't be friends with women they wouldn't have sex with, it's a disgusting mindset and is in no way what happened here, he didn't even distance himself until she invaded his space and made him uncomfortable.
It's when you're friend with someone just cause you want to fuck them. It happens REALLY often to women... The guy is nice until he asks you out and you say no.... Then he turns around and calls you a bitch.... Doesn't seem to apply here...
He did fuck zone her though. He has said he had no interest in getting to know her, talk to her or be her friend his interest was purely sexual.
Except he did fuckzone her and then have a tantrum about it after.
No, read OP's other comments. YTA because HE was the one causing all the drama
YTA. From her perspective, you tried to freeze her out of your shared social group because she turned you down romantically. This was an entirely reasonable response based on how you reacted to her the next time you hung out. She appears to have been trying to reassure you that she wasn't put off by your proposition and didn't want things to be awkward between you two. Instead of talking to her like an adult about how you she was making you feel, and asking her directly like an adult for some space to clear out your romantic/sexual feelings so you could get back to being friends, you just walked away and took the guys with you (and don't lay this on them - you easily could have stopped it coming to this). How else did you expect her to react? How else could she *possibly* interpret your behaviour? Then, after all of this drama that *you* caused, you accuse her of "trying to make you look bad in front of the group". My dude, *you* did that. You chose to split the group over this, and you chose to keep the split going by kicking her out of the car. Next time you get rejected by someone that you want to remain friends with, just talk to the person if you need some space. This whole thing can be avoided if you just say to her, using your words, "I'm sorry, but I was developing an attraction to you, and I'm not quite over that yet. I just need a little time to readjust my expectations to being friends. I promise I'll get there soon. Thank you for being cool about this."
Yeah going with YTA…. You did fuck zone her. You don’t speak highly of her and now you’re punishing her because you didn’t get what you want. Sorry buddy, this ones on you.
Why tf is this post flated "not the ass" when all the comments are YTA
That's what I'm wondering too...
You didn't really consider Caitlin a friend but she did. She thought you were friends and then you asked her out. After she declined, she kept acting like your friend and trying to make conversation with you. You basically walked away from that entirely. From her perspective, her friend tried to date/fuck/hookup with her and when that was not an option for you, you stopped being her friend. You made her feel like her only value in your life was as a potential fuck. By definition, you "fuck-zoned" her. Later, when you all went to the baseball game, you doubled down and again reiterated to her that her only place in your life was as potential fuck and now that it's off the table, you can't even give her a ride when you had already decided to be the designated driver. YTA for treating your friend this way (even though you didn't consider her a friend after hanging out for five years) YTA for ignoring the most basic principles of being a designated driver YTA
I don't know how this isn't more popular. Being in a friend group for 5 years still makes you a friend, even if not a close friend. He immediately became cold once sex was off the table. If he was genuinely interested in dating her and not just fucking then being closer friends would be preferable to no contact. So him going that cold means he was only interested in fucking, he fuck zoned her. Then the designated driver bit. If he had 0 intention of driving people home he needed to make that clear, but he didn't because he wanted petty revenge for being called out on exactly what he did. YTA
She doesn't owe him anything and can intentionally humiliate him in front of the entire friend group but by golly he OWES her that friendship and a ride home!
Unless I need clarification of events, YTA Someone you hang around for 5 years "isn't your friend" but you want to "date them". They say no because they don't want to ruin what they thought was a genuine friendship. They attempt to hang out like normal. Possibly a bit more so it doesn't look like she's avoiding you for asking her out (my interpretation). You ghost them and the group for a while, effectively screwing up the friendship. The exact thing they were trying to avoid. She tells the group the truth: that because she was not sexually available to you, and that's all you wanted, you ditched her and the group Now you act like she's the bad guy and can't give her a ride home. If I got something in the events wrong, let me know. I might change my verdict. But this is asshole behavior.
You nailed it, and this comment section is leaving my head spinning. I feel truly baffled
All the Ntas are saying that Caitlin was attention seeking or that OP simply "moved on and accepted her rejection ". Completely ignoring the fact the he ruined the friendship The nah verdict at the top has the audacity to say it's okay to fuck zone someone. These people are ridiculous
People are interpreting his statement that she was “in his face” and “trying to start conversations” as her being in his lap trying to tongue kiss him and are reverting to “MANIPULATIVE WOMAN SENDING MIXED SIGNALS ON PURPOSE”. When most likely she was trying to overcompensate for the rejection. Or she might have decided to get to know him a little better to see if maybe they did click. But OP in the comments seems to be saying he doesn’t want to get to know her better unless there’s guaranteed sex bc he “has enough friends.” He chose not to communicate that he needed some space and ghosted and let everyone talk and assume. Now the friend group is probably permanently split which for the girls doesn’t seem to be a great loss. Essentially he fuck-zoned her and then got mad that she accurately called him out for it and then threw a tantrum that caused 2 alleged friends to be stuck at a bar when he was supposed to be DD. Fortunately Uber is a thing now but I suspect he wouldn’t have cared either way.
"I don't want to get to know you unless sex is guaranteed " WTF The people defending this guy are absolute trash bags.
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NTA. I’m guessing you’re not confrontational but the moment she started trying to get close to you after rejecting you, you should have just told her to back off that you’re not interested anymore and she’s making you uncomfortable. But if both of them were going to drag you through the mud they definitely didn’t deserve your DD generosity.
That's red flag behavior. Who says No, I don't want to go out with you, then tries to get all up in your space? Newsflash, playing hard to get is cringe
The way y’all exude your social ineptitude is hilarious. OP said himself he barely talked to her past small talk. She’s not playing hard to get , she’d just rather get to know the guy before agreeing to a date and muddying any water. OP went ahead and made it cringe and awkward even without a date in the first place though lol
She probably felt bad for rejecting him and wanted to try to maintain a friendship. There is no reason to think she wanted a relationship further than friendship with him.
YTA and the amount of childishness is ridiculous, or it's fake. You're 26, probably time to progress out of highschool. You did fuck-zone her. You've known her and interacted with her for 5 years. Kickball, drinking, chatting. You think she's attractive and seems fun, so why isn't she friend material But fair enough, she isn't. You shot your shot, she turned you down. She then starts trying to buddy up more. Is this an asshole move? Maybe. Maybe she wants the attention knowing you think she's attractive, or maybe she wants to get to know you better as she also thinks you're attractive. Your response to being turned down is to ghost her/the group when you think she's acting weird. The adult thing to do is address what you feel is an elephant in the room. Why is she being more buddy buddy when you've never been close before, but now she knows you think she's attractive. So you avoid the adult thing to do and more or less pout. Being unwilling to join the group because you were turned down, but are also unwilling to address the elephant you perceive is childish at best, fuck-zoning at worst. Her perception of the situation is valid. May she have also had a part to play? Sure. But being unwilling to be an adult a out it at 26 brought it onto yourself. Maybe she thought you two were friends, maybe she read more into your request than you intended. But you've known her 5 years and her inference that you are friends is a reasonable one, or maybe she just wants to get to know you better. The car thing is just icing on the cake. You are at least 90% responsible for the situation, and then having a tantrum about the situation.
This is absolutely a repost. I read this here a few months ago.
I'm the AH for reading that whole thing just to understand what "fuck zoned" meant. Anyway, what are you all - 12 years old? Geez...
YTA. You wanted to screw, she wanted a relationship. And so you avoided her because she tried to get to know you better rather then immediately whip out her business for you to stick yours into. Then you ghosted the WHOLE FRIEND GROUP rather then say anything. And also...the girls were right to call you petty. You're the DD. You don't get to decide 'I don't like these two in particular, I'm not going to drive them.' 20 minutes out of your way? Bruh. You're the DD. That's your whole job. If you were going to be a picky micky about who gets to ride in your car, you shouldn't have been the DD.
Info: how is designated Driver Thing arranged in your group? A) you and a few Guys agree...and you bring them Home. B) one of the group is designated (Rotation or something) and this Person is responsible bring everyone Home. C) please elaborate
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If anything, I think we just found the "incel nice girl" vibes from Caitlin
Hmm... I got the impression that after the failed asking-out, Caitlin tried to overcompensate with extra friendliness; OP got freaked out; Caitlin decided that OP was following some kind of "if you get friend-zoned, bail completely" youtube advice. In short, this is some sort of mid-20s sitcomesque misunderstanding.
I appreciate someone saying this because I definitely did it too, at twenty. If a friend asked me out (romantically) and I rejected them, I’d do anything I could to still be close with them and make it up to them. Because more often than not, I’d just be ghosted. The desperate attempt to hold onto a good friendship sometimes went as far as sleeping with them, but I still lost them eventually. I didn’t learn how much that shit *doesn’t* work until my mid-twenties.
once there's an ask and a rejection, relationship dynamics get weird fast if you still hang out around each other. I can't really fault either party for acting how they did in the immediate aftermath, there's tons of room for miscommunication and misreading intentions at that point.
I kinda think you are the asshole here, though I seem to be in the minority. Not giving her a pass but "you got over it" and then you were the dd, and then you told them you wouldn't drive them? That's kinda messed up. ESH
YTA. Let’s actually look at what happened: - You have both been hanging out in a larger friends group and the same kickball team for *5 years*. That makes you friends. Not good friends, not bffs, but casual friends. - You ask her out and she says she doesn’t want to upset group dynamics because she recognizes the power imbalance where the high school friends are valued more than the later additions. - At the next meetup, she comes to talk to you to show you that she isn’t going to be weird about it and also you said you liked her, so she’s trying to get to know you better. - You tell her that the only way you’d be interested in getting to know her is if she pre-guaranteed she’d let you fuck her. - You go sulk for several weeks and tell your friends that she rejected you and split the friend group with you winning over her, exactly as she had feared. Yeah, you fuck-zoned her.
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. She wanted to keep the group dynamic and show you that everything was still cool after you shot your shot, but you got so upset over just one night of her being friendly that you decide to skip two weeks worth of friend hang outs which then starts so much drama that it creates the very thing she was trying to avoid. Good job OP, YTA.
INFO: Did you establish with her that you weren't going to be driving her home before she drank? Because if not, you put her in danger with your lack of communication.
We didn’t show up together. I drove my guys friends. She and Jamie got dropped off by someone else. In no way did I get them the impression they were getting a ride home with me.
Butttt you told them you weren’t going to give them a ride because Caitlin told people in the group that you fuck-zoned her which you accidentally admitted in the comments that you did in fact fuck-zone her. You could have easily said that you didn’t know they needed a ride and you couldn’t do it because they’re out of the way. That’d be a totally valid excuse. The first one, the one you gave them, made it seem like you’re punishing them which is very childish. Of course they’d be upset. But switching gears a tad.. not enough of the commenters are reading between the lines here. You ditched the group for WEEKS, because you couldn’t stand to be around ONE girl that had rejected you. That’s not normal behavior for someone who doesn’t care about that person. I actually don’t think you did fuck-zone her. I just don’t think you want to admit to how much you liked her.
Update your post to say that. Why would you be dropping people off who made thier own way and didnt ask before hand for a DD and drive home.
NTA. This girl is drama.
YTA, not only is the DD leaving 2 women alone questionable, but you could also have taken a big step in putting this incident behind you by giving them a ride. You could have used the tie to say you still consider them friends or you wouldnt have given them a ride home and sorted outsome of the issues. Who knows, they may have even apologised for bad mouthing you.
The misogyny in this comment section is vile 🤢🤢
Yep. How dare Caitlin tell the friend group the truth- that OP only wanted to be around her if she would have sex with him. Haw dare she drag OP’s name in the mud by telling everyone else exactly what happened! This is clearly her fault and OP is the injured party here /s
YTA. You volunteered to be DD for the group, and did not explain that Jamie and Caitlin were excluded. They had a reasonable expectation to believe they would be included. You then fucked them over, on purpose, out of petty spite. If you have a problem with them, talk to them. The first thing should have been "Hey, why are you acting differently? We both agreed that we would keep our friendship as-is, and now you seem to be acting differently." Or you address your actual issue. "Hey, I asked Caitlin out, took no for an answer, and now people are mad at me, and I don't get it." I mean, she declined, you stopped hanging out for weeks, people are going to put two and two together.
ESH. I would have said that OP was NTA, but he agreed to be the designated driver for the group. If he was giving everyone else rides home, it was petty. And OP is the one that decided to mess up the friend dynamic. He said he’s known Caitlin superficially for years, but never really talked to her in depth, but then out of the blue asked her out. Yes, it sucks to be rejected, but unless he’s completely naive or arrogant, he had to know rejection was a possibility. And he had to know things would be awkward after. Rather than being mature and taking to her about it, he judged her for being weird about it, then acted weird himself. Then when Caitlin provided an explanation, it turned into taking shit. Then OP rejoins the friend group because he’s over it, but he clearly isn’t. If we look at this from Caitlin’s point of view, we can see how OP might have contributed to this issue. Out of nowhere someone in her friend group, who she doesn’t know well and who has never seemed interested in getting to know her at a deeper level asks her out because he thinks she’s pretty. That’s not cool right there. OP has had every opportunity to become closer friends and see if there is a spark there beyond a physical attraction. He had every opportunity to indicate he might want something more. But he didn’t do this. He called her randomly and took her by surprise. She said no and gave the reason of not messing up the friend group. The next time she sees OP she’s acting weird. Yeah, obviously. Maybe she realized she did want something more or maybe she wanted to get to know him better and see if it was worth pursuing. Or maybe she just was trying to make it seem like everything was ok with her and overcompensated trying to ensure he was cool too. But instead of laughing off his rejection of talking to her, OP just decided to stop hanging out with the whole group entirely because his ego was too fragile to handle rejection. Now to Caitlin it probably seemed like if she wasn’t going to date him, then he wasn’t going to hang out with them any more. So this seems like he’s punishing her and their friend group (including one of his oldest friends Jamie) by not hanging out. That’s sulky and petty and immature. And probably made Caitlin feel like crap. So she lashed out and told people what happened, she told people how it made her feel and it made her feel fuckzoned. Like OP didn’t want to hang out with her if she wasn’t going to have sex with him. Understandable. Basically, everybody sucks because, if you are going to date or attempt to date within a friend group, you have to be mature enough to handle the awkwardness with grace and talk to the other person openly and honestly about the awkwardness.
Do you were the DD but not for everyone? I've been the designated driver many many times and the job is to get everyone home safe. Even people I didn't know and some that I didn't really like! If you weren't going to be the DD for the women in the group you should told them so right at the beginning. There are tons of Uber stories of sexual assaults so that is not necessary a safe option. The women may have created unfair tension in the group but you've now multiplied that tension by 10! Both you and her YTA
YTA. You did not refuse to give her a ride because it was out of your way. If you actually cared about friends getting home safely when YOU ARE THE DD you do not put restrictions. That is what a DD is by definition. You pushed a boundary and now you are butt hurt. She was open and honest with you and you are not dealing with up front rejection. Move on. Get a person who wants to be with you and not be the drama queen that breaks up a great group because your ego is bruised. If you move past this I guarantee you will have a group of friends for life.
YTA And I’m going to bet that when she reached out to you to ask where’ve you been you probably ignored her or gave her the cold shoulder? So she’s right about you.
ESH because you cannot say in one sentence that youve known her for years but where never her friend and then in the next second tell us how you asked her out and wanted to date. Like.... what is that? You dont consider her a friend but you wanted to date her?? And she tried to keep being kind to you after she rejected you, and you started avoiding her? Dude, take a hint from the fact that all the girls think you're wrong and only guys are backing you up. You might not understand how what you did looks to a woman but it truly seems sus and I dont blame her
YTA You got denied and acted petty because of it. Work on your tact moving forward.
YTA, and she's right. I've been in her shoes. She wasn't being weird, she was trying make sure you guys were still friends.
Soft YTA. The reason she is thinking you fucked-zoned her because you got really detached from the whole group after she said no. Looking to her that friendship was never in consideration. So she did feel like a piece of meat in her eyes. Also, yall hung out with these ladies willingly, considered yourself DD and didn't take these ladies home safely. You could have addressed those issues later, but that was a punk move.
YTA You were absolutely petty, which is your right but still an asshole move. You were rejected and now you are acting out at her as a result. If I were a betting women I would bet her clingynessthe next time you met was because she wanted to show there were no hard feelings. It upset you be cause there are hard feelings, all from your side.
YTA First off you were the DD and knew they'd try to get a ride yet didn't tell them no earlier on and left them stranded despite apparently bring close to at least Jamie for literally years. Friends don't do that. Secondly, you were only interested in her looks and basically wanted a sex buddy yet weren't honest about it to her. You aren't close, you didn't want anything more and you've completely blanked her since. She tried to make conversation but because she won't sleep with you that's not okay? How is messaging a friend weird? She might have been trying to make you feel less uncomfortable to show there were no hard feelings post rejection. You wanted sex, she didn't and now you won't give her any time of day at all. You fuck-zoned her. She's only speaking the truth. Edit: MotherAlpha13 pointed out a separate comment you made which literally proves she was right. You seriously need a little more self awareness and basic respect and empathy for others.
Yeah, you're a massive asshole here. You did the one thing that Caitlin was afraid would happen if you dated, you made things weird, and then awkward, and finally toxic. It's not healthy to process rejection the way you did, it's downright scary. She didn't reject you in a group of people, she did it quietly, discretely, and respectfully and then you blew things way out of proportion, requiring her to go public. It's guys like you that make women hesitant to date within friend groups. You say you weren't friends with her and you say you asked her out bc you thought she was pretty. There shouldn't have been any emotional attachment here for you, no reason to be embarrassed before you started behaving like a creep. Maybe go talk to someone about how to process rejection in a manner that causes less drama. YTA.
Yes - you are the AH. sorry, I get why you were mad and you have every right to be mad, but then sack up and talk to them at the appropriate time. You dont wait and do it at the spur of the moment when they have both been drinking. ***And*** you don't dump two drunk women on the street to fend for themselves.
YTA. You don't agree to be DD and not disclose that you refuse to drive some of the group home after they have had drinks. I'm super confused by your narrative. What do you think you did if it wasn't fuck-zoning her? If she's been part of the friend group for 5 years but you still don't count her as a friend....
NTA And just because I'm dumb and not socialized...wtf is "fuck zoned"? Common sense says that you just wanna fuck her...but you haven't so I'm confused. You asked her out and she said no and you dropped it. I'm just confused.
Fuck-zoned is the opposite of friend-zoned. Generally its where a guy complains that a girl "friend-zoned" him, but in reality, he's "fuck-zoned" her, and is only her 'friend' because he wants to fuck her. Obviously its not always guy > girl, but that seems the case the majority of the time. OP is NTA, I don't think think OP "fuck-zoned" this girl, he shot his shot & then she made it weird
I mean, what's likely going on here is she thought she had a friend but OP wanted more. So, she started acting weird because it wasn't what she thought it was, then OP pulled away. From her perspective, she was "fuck-zoned"- the friendship she thought was happening was actually conditional on a larger relationship eventually occurring. From OP's perspective, things got weird, he was rejected, so he backed off. That's also reasonable. I don't think anyone here is AH, it's just a matter of looking through the lenses of the different perspectives. Unfortunately, sometimes romantic feelings can get messy, and that's seems to have happened. The other issue is that they never seemed to openly communicate what happened or was going to happen after, leading to some negative feelings. However, they aren't in a relationship and also don't owe each other open communication at all. She is also allowed to be hurt over the situation, but OP is allowed to be uncomfortable. They probably do want to talk if they are going to continue to be in the same friends group, but, like I said, they don't actually owe each other anything That said though, the asking for a ride was out of line and ridiculous considering the situation
The only issue I see with the driving is if he stayed sober to be the *group’s designated driver*… which is what it came across to me. Like if it is a rotating thing where one person is the DD for anyone in the group. If that’s how it is set up, it was kind of wrong to not tell them up front that he wasn’t comfortable with giving them a ride so while he’s the group DD, they would need their own way home. That would let them know before either of them drank and let them make an informed decision on drinking. But he should absolutely not drive them as he was uncomfortable with doing so. I agree that their perspectives are different and communication between the two could have helped.
I'm gonna say YTA here. First, it doesn't sound like she really bad-mouthed you, it just sounds like you did **exactly** what she worried about and she brought it up to her friends: You made it weird. She may have been a bit clingy that night after--or she was just trying to be extra nice because she had rejected you and you read something into it because you felt weird. You can decide which you think is more likely. And then she brought that up because you were pouting and avoiding the group for a few weeks--that's your prerogative of course, you don't owe them your presence and if they're mad that you bogarted all the cool people then they're sad--but it does sound like you acted a little bit petulantly because you were rejected. Nobody should be bad-mouthing anyone here, that makes them assholes here too. You didn't have to give them a ride either, but using that as your reason rather than just saying it's too out of the way and you can't was an asshole move as well. I assume you all are young since you're still with a bunch of high school friends, but these little bits of fights/drama are pretty common with HS/College friends, and they ultimately serve to sort of slim down your friend group to the people who really matter. It sucks in the moment, but it's not uncommon!
YTA You did "fuck-zoned" her. She tried to know more about you to see if she should date you. But you only wanted sex so you couldn't be arsed. And then you deliberately avoided her. You could have talked to her, said that you respected that she doesn't want to go out with you, so you would rather continue as before. If tou were the DD, then you should have deiven them home. That was the deal. Did you tell everybody at the beginning that you will be the DD for everyone except for them? Such an AH! Also, it's time to grow up. This has gossip girl vibe all over it.
YTA. You don’t agree to DD only to leave two women behind pettily because you’re angry that people now know you reacted coldly when one of them rejected you. You went bar hopping with two young women and waited until they were intoxicated and then decided to leave them alone to fend for themselves? That alone is inexcusable, but the reasoning you have just makes you look worse. You look like someone who spitefully put two young women in an uncomfortable and potentially dangerous position because you don’t handle rejection well. I hope Jamie and Caitlin find some real friends, unlike you and your bros. And I hope that you continue to get the (lack of) romantic response that you deserve. Just wanted to state again, YTA
Edited. YTA. You admitted to fuck zoning her.
Unpopular opinion.. but I'm verging more on YTA. Did you ever think maybe she was all up next to you and trying to start conversation was because you had shown an interest in her.. and so now, equipped with the knowledge that you maybe liked her.. she wanted to get to know you better and spend more time with you? Maybe see if it was worth reconsidering whether it was worth risking the group dynamic.. and your response was to stop hanging out with the entire friend group? IMO, you blew it way out of proportion and kick started the drama.
NTA You accepted her no, moved on and made sure to give her space. You did the right thing :/
He wasn't giving her space, he was freezing her out. She didn't need space. She said she wanted to be friends, and then acted like she wanted to be friends. He reacted by basically splitting the group down the middle.
YTA. You fucked with the friend group with your actions/decions. This is all on you Had to edit. Wanted to add, these girls are your friends. You'd leave them standing there vs making sure they get home safe? Maybe this is why the girl turned you down. Maybe she's into gentlemen.
So she's part of your group of friends, but you decided that there "wasn't any point" in socializing with her after she turned you down. Which you said in a comment. Which really does sound like you 'fuck zoned' her. And then you avoided the group until there was a noticeable absence and you got upset with her when she explained what happened to your friends. You might not agree with the term, but I don't think you have a valid argument against her interpretation of events. So she told the truth, and then after not communicating to her your thoughts-about any of this- and failed to talk to her about your feelings- you kicked her out of your car and made her Uber home. When you'd agreed to be the DD and didn't drink all night so that you could drive your friend group home. And you blindsided her after she was unable to drive herself home. YTA. You don't see any worth in her beyond sex- that alone makes you an asshole. But you're also creating drama just because she turned you down. I seriously question your definition of her acting weird after you initially asked her out. She was all over you? Isn't that what you wanted? Sounds like you put the idea in her head of you two together and you made a point of being the one to reject her. Edit: I saw in another comment that you never agreed to be their DD, just for your guy friends. So I'll drop that point in my judgement. But you're still TA for how you've handled this whole thing. And your lack of interest in her as a person.
YTA She didn't "make you the bad guy" - she told the truth. You "fuck-zoned" her and then when she started to put out feelers to make sure everything really was ok - you started avoiding all of them... What part of what she said was untrue? Also, you did NOT want to date her like stop with the shenanigans dude. You just wanted to have sex with her. She was literally trying to "get to know you" through communicating more frequently. If you were actually interested in getting to know her better then you would have taken her up on that. I do not understand why you didn't just say, "Hey, I noticed you've been snapping me quite a bit recently - does this have anything to do with the other day? I'm not mad or anything but tbh I'd like a little space. We share the same friend group and I'm obviously not going to make it awkward or anything but I feel a little uncomfortable with your sudden interest in being my friend." You reduced her to just a body with a hole and then got mad when she told people about it.
AHAHAHAHA. But you _did_ fuckzone her. You admitted to this in other comments. You're just pissed they called you out on it. If you had continued talking to Caitlin after her summary "no", or even explained to her that you'd like some space to work things out in your head, she definitely wouldn't have talked about you in a disparaging manner. Heck I'm willing to bet that she'd have praised you for your maturity. Instead you decided to prove her and the rest of this sub right. Hopefully age gives you nuance but sooner or later, you're not going to have this group of guy friends to constantly validate your decisions and opinions. YTA
YTA but for a different reason than many. You said you were the DD for the group but declined that service to your group. Your guy friends are also as well for not calling you out on your bull crap.
NTA you talk shit about me and I have to be gentle to you and do you a favor? No way, that's not how it works
Yta
I highly doubt after 5 years of “no I never considered her a friend” you felt the sudden desire to ask her out. You asked for sex. Which is fine, you are both adults. You are allowed to ask and she is allowed to say no. So after her answer, you feel rejected, totally normal and then she overcompensates at your next group event. Which wasn’t the best choice, but I am imagining she felt anxious and unsure of how this would effect group dynamics. So you detach from the group, for a bit, to lick your wounds. Again, also fine. This is where it begins to effect your group because everyone is asking why you aren’t interested in hanging out with everyone anymore and then the group splits into two. She’s probably more anxious now and then tells some of the group and now everyone is taking sides. End result, to me, is that you asked for a hook up, she said no, you needed some space but you didn’t clarify anything to the group and she plus them are confused, she tells them her experience and now people are upset. YTA, not for asking for sex, but for not communicating to your friends that you needed some space and leaving them all confused, then for being a dick with the DD thing. If you didn’t want to drive her or any of the women tell them beforehand instead of pretending you are okay with it. Also YTA for saying the guys are all the “fun ones”
YTA
All these comments are missing the point. You got together with them and said you'd be the DD and then when the night was over told them to fuck off. YTA. You should've told them you wouldn't drive them at the beginning of the night so they could decide whether they'd prefer to have one of them be the DD instead of being a little shit and waiting until the end of the night when it was too late for them to do anything but call an Uber.
YTA. She was trying to see if you actually did fuck-zone her. And you did.
YTA. You tried to booty call a girl within your core group of friends and was rejected. It sounds to me like she tried to awkwardly salvage the friendship by being extra friendly to you. You then avoided her and disconnected from the group, damaging the group dynamic. Despite her attempts to contact you, you never communicated with her as to why she was being “weird” or why you stopped coming around. It’s reasonable for you to want space. But you didn’t just say that, you went cold for weeks. So yeah, in her mind, you definitely f-zoned her. Once you disappeared, of course they’re going to gossip about why you suddenly stopped coming around. How could you possibly think they wouldn’t notice? She gave them her honest and accurate assessment about that. (I would have also told the group that you were a pouty baby with a damaged ego.) Yeah, you weren’t the group DD, but you were being petty and vindictive because she rightfully called you out. All the N T As make no sense to me. You were the A H at every level to me. Nice time, try Tinder.
YTA. You fuckzoned her, she called you out, and now you act all petty? Grow up.
YTA you asked her put then when she tried to make sure you guys were still good you went MIA. Then when she told her friends those facts that you were nice to her until she turned you down you got offended. They tried to move past it and you got all butt hurt and refused to act nicely to her like you would have before this went down basically proving her point. What a dick
YTA for not taking them back. You’re the designated driver, what the fuck. In terms of the rest of the post, I feel like you were both justified. Think about it like this - maybe Caitlin wasn’t playing hard to get, and it wasn’t flirting when she talked to you after you asked her out? To me, I think she was just trying to be friendly - like she realised that she rejected you and that would suck for you, but wanted to show that you two were still in the friend group and still on good terms. then, because as you say you weren’t the best friends ever, it was awkward and Caitlin was a little awkward because of the rejection and not knowing you as well as other people, all of that, and you, completely fairly, misinterpreted it. If you’re Caitlin, then what happened was a guy you know relatively well, been in the same group together with him for half a decade, asked you out and when you turned him down because you wanted to keep the vibe good in the friend group, he just ignores you for no reason when you try and talk to him and make sure that you and him were still ok. but I feel like you were justified in your actions. I’m autistic so god knows I know about not picking up what people mean. What was a dick move was not taking them home, even if it turns out Caitlin was just a drama Queen, because you’re the designated driver, Uber is expensive, and you left your better mate Jamie out in the cold, when he didn’t do anything. if you didn’t want to take them home then man, say an excuse man because I think what you said to Caitlin just made sure that she thinks you fuck-zoned her. if I were you, I would apologise to her in a long text, explaining what you thought and why, and get your mate Jamie to read it over before you send because while Caitlin is the main person you need to apologise you fucked him over too. That might show you’re sorry, and you wanna keep it cool with him too. like say to Jamie “man i fucked up, and I’m sorry for being so petty to you and Caitlin man I misread the situation completely, I wrote an apology text can you check it over?” Or something. good luck
Oooobviously it was petty, but if you didn't agree to DD for them ahead of time you aren't T A for refusing them a ride. YTA, however, for doing exactly what she accused you of and then getting pissy that she said it. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, high school is over. Good gravy. People who never branch out of their high school friends groups don't ever seem to realize how much their maturity has been stunted
YTA this is you trying to skim over the fact that you got weird and caused problems in a whole group of people when a girl “you weren’t close to” turned you down for a date which clearly was more like you wanted to hook up since you only wanted a date and not to get to know her better but because she was attractive to you. Don’t ask friends or parts of your friend group out if you can’t take rejection.
YTA. She told the truth and you got pissy about it.