I think I’ve had enough time to cool off since this situation happened.

It’s my senior year of high school, and things have been going great, but there have been some rocky moments. At the end of junior year, one of my closest friends, Cam (17), got a girlfriend, Harper (18). At first, no one had a problem with her, but by summer, she came off as extremely bossy, selfish, and overall not a nice person to anyone except Cam. Over Halloween, our group gave her a second chance, and she basically blew it.

My best friend of four years, Darren (17), started dating a girl named Belinda (18) in December. Originally, Belinda and Harper were friends, but after Halloween, everyone stopped associating with Harper, including Belinda. Harper and Belinda constantly talked behind each other’s backs.

In February, I got a girlfriend, Mary (18), who happens to be in the same friend group as Belinda. Mary is one of the nicest, most genuine people I’ve ever met. She calls me out on my shit, even if it upsets me, which I appreciate.

Fast forward to yesterday. My friend was hosting a function, and I was in charge of organizing food and drinks. When tallying everyone’s preferences in the main group chat, the vote was split. So, I thought it would be efficient to ask the girls to break the tie. To make things easier, I created a group chat with Belinda, her friends, and Harper, and I sent two messages asking them to react to the option they preferred.

At first, everything was fine—until Belinda opened the chat. She immediately kicked Harper out before she even got a chance to vote. Then, she texted Darren, who bombarded me with messages calling me an idiot and saying I should’ve known better.

I re-added Harper and told Belinda to stop, explaining that this was just to get a number and we needed to be civil. But Belinda kicked her out again. So, I kicked Belinda out and apologized to her friends, including Mary.

After that, Belinda sent me a barrage of texts, accusing me of uninviting her (even though it wasn’t my event) and calling me stupid. She blamed me for the whole thing, saying I was dumb for adding them both to the chat and overall questioning my intelligence. I didn’t respond—I just left her on read because it wasn’t worth my energy. Meanwhile, Darren was texting me the same stuff, and every time I responded, he would tell Belinda what I said, fueling the fire. I won’t lie—I did tell Darren that this was his girlfriend’s fault, which was probably the dumbest thing I could’ve done.

Eventually, Darren sent me screenshots of their private group chat, where the girls were supporting Belinda’s decision to kick Harper out. He tried to use this to prove that even my own girlfriend agreed with Belinda (which I already knew). At that point, I just stopped engaging.

Thirty minutes later, I apologized to one of our mutual friends and asked her to extend the apology to Belinda because I just wanted all of this to be over. Belinda was receptive but asked why I even put them in the same group chat in the first place. The conversation ended there.

Later that day, I hung out with Mary, and we talked about the situation. She told me I put her in a tough spot by making her choose between me and her friends, and I promised I wouldn’t do that again. She also said she felt like I defend Harper too much. Eventually, it came out that all her friends think I’m a hypocrite because I’m allowing Harper to come to the function, even though everyone in our group chat dislikes her (even though the group actually voted for her to come). They think I have no spine, that I can’t form my own opinions, and that I just go with the flow—which really hurt, especially because these are Mary’s friends.

I still don’t like Harper at all, but the way Belinda and her friends acted was the kind of thing that can push people to kill themselves, and I can’t stand for that. But now, I’m questioning whether I did the right thing or if I’m just the villain in everyone’s story except my own. and i don’t even want to go to the function anymore

I Originally thought i was in the right but know that everyone is turning it on me im starting to doubt myself. I really should have known better and not have made the group chat

I feel like we should all just be friends for the rest of senior year and put all this drama aside

Aita or am i just portraying myself as the victim