We’re freshmen (18–20 years old), studying psychology. In one of my problematic classes, I had two friends: P (school friend) and S (college friend). One day in October, after two classes got canceled, a few of us were hanging out. While talking, I was wiping sweat off my face and S tried to take a photo of me. I clearly said no, but she took it anyway. This wasn’t the first time she did this.

Given the recent scare around deepfakes on campus, I was uncomfortable and repeatedly asked her to delete it. She refused. I even tried using her phone’s face ID when she closed her eyes to avoid it. After 15 minutes of begging, I took her AirPods and said I’d return them if she deleted the picture. She didn’t care. I even pretended to throw them out the window to pressure her, but I had them in my pocket.

P and another friend, SO, arrived. They found the AirPods in my pocket but thought the situation was just silly. After 45 minutes of pleading, I finally put the AirPods into a nearby clean dustbin with my hands, and S exploded— screaming, cussing, and humiliating me in front of others, while still refusing to delete the photo. She used personal things I’d told her in confidence to attack me.

Eventually, another classmate managed to delete the photo from her phone. But by then, I was having a breakdown and locked myself in the washroom. While I was crying, P approached me aggressively, demanding I listen to her. I wasn’t in the right mind to talk and screamed at her to leave me alone. Later, I found out P told others I had pushed her to the ground (completely false), and S spread lies that I smashed her AirPods and her parents wanted to sue me.

Neither P nor S checked on me afterward; instead, they treated me like I was the problem. Months later, when I confronted P, she gaslit me, saying I had "pushed her shoulder" and lacked empathy.

Since then, I’ve been silently dealing with indirect bullying and ostracization in class. Am I the a-hole?

PS: I know taking someone’s things to threaten them back isn’t saintly of me, but I honestly didn’t know what else to do in that situation. I knew it would also make things bad for me at some extent. I couldn’t have complained about this to higher authority because this isn’t school, no one cares here. If there was another peaceful way of getting to delete the picture without putting her property in the dustbin I would.