I have a feeling this will be quite a long post, so apologies for that. Using a throwaway so people in the story hopefully don’t find this and keeping personal information as private as I can just for safety.

So, this whole situation has went on since November 2023, which is when my friend, who I’ll call Ella, started dating her boyfriend, who I’ll call John. At first, everything seemed ok and I was happy for her. We were in our second last year of secondary school at this point and now have just finished it days ago (yay!) I had helped her grasp her feelings for him and encouraged her to ask him out as I really did think he was nice or at least ok at the time and she seemed to really like him. I wasn’t super involved in their relationship until maybe halfway through 2024 as she started to tell me more things about it and about him as a person. I also got to know him a little better as we all sat together at lunch.

The first time I was a little worried was when I asked her where she had bought something. She told me John had bought it for her when she was mad at him. Obviously, this is nothing on its own, but I’d say this was the start of her telling me more things and I took note of it because I guess I just found it a little odd how hesitant she seemed to tell me that, as we told each other everything (or so I thought.) From that point, more things became clear to me. This wasn’t a one off thing. She often got mad at him over things (although honestly I couldn’t tell you what half of them were) and he would buy things to appease her which she quickly accepted and allowed him to continue acting as he had before. It also became clear that he was a pretty awful person. He was racist. There’s no other way to put it. Both Ella and me are white but my other friend, who I’ll call Cal, is half Asian. There was also another girl in our “lunch group” who is also Asian who I’ll call Haley. She was part of his group before we all kinda combined. I called this out when I could but honestly no one seemed to care and it was just seen as normal which really got on my nerves. John’s the type of teenage boy who draws swastikas and makes racist “jokes” if you know the type. It felt like I was living in a “boys will be boys” group when I had always been a feminist and so had Ella claimed to be. We had talked about how that kind of rhetoric was wrong. We were even both in our schools feminism group. I felt like a hypocrite for even being around him.

So by November 2024, I already strongly disliked John’s behaviour and I guess instead of bringing it up in a more serious way, this manifested in me just making fun of him as much as possible lol. Before that, I had still made fun of him but more light-heartedly. Now it was the same kinda thing but I did it more and more just to piss him off. This definitely wasn’t the best course of action, but I wasn’t sure what to do as no one was listening when I was trying to call out his behaviour as he did it, and as it snowballed, the more daunting confronting him or Ella about it felt. The only person I could speak to about it was Cal who also didn’t like him. It was the easiest option to still be a hinderance to his life without actively getting involved, especially since I wasn’t even friends with him I just sort of knew him because of Ella. One day, we were all playing a game together (myself, Ella, John, Cal, Haley and one or two others.) I noticed in the chat John had typed “I hate n*****” but swapped the h and n. To me, thats basically the same thing as just literally typing it. It means the same thing doesn’t it? Then, he changed his in-game name to ‘NN*Lova’. I didn’t say anything, just rolling my eyes and leaving the game a few minutes later. Cal took a screenshot of this though. This was just regular at this point for him but basically the only time he did it in a way we could record. Most of the other times he was just showing other people racist things from his own phone or saying it out loud rather than online.

Around the same time, we found out John had cheated on Ella, meeting up with and kissing another girl I’ll call Emma. Me and Cal advised her to break up with him l. He continued to try to make it seem not as bad saying she kissed him and he didn’t want to do it even though he had already lied about who he was meeting and was clearly attempting to just keep lying.

Another friend of mine who I’ll call Bea also overheard him in one of his classes talk about how he was playing Ella and still talking to and seeing other girls even though they had already been dating for a year at this point. It seemed very much intentional, at least in my eyes. Ella was insistent, believing that Emma, the girl he had kissed, had actually forced him to kiss her and he had no intention of doing it. I was obviously more than a little skeptical of him. I wanted to protect Ella but she saw this as me trying to break them up and honestly? That was what I wanted to do. I hated seeing John treat her this way and I was sick of being around him in general.

In January of this year, they broke up. They broke up shortly after one time at lunch when I was making fun of him and saying he was secretly dating a male teacher. His retort was calling me a fat whale. For context I’m a size 16 UK. The thing thats so interesting about this? So is Ella. She also told me months before how John had made her feel less insecure about her body. One of his old friends had called her fat at one point as well which he acted so disgusted by and stopped talking to him (although I saw them talking various times after that and there was no confrontation or anything.)

Honestly I wasn’t that hurt by the comment but its still very clearly shitty and I was more so shocked by this clear confession of who he was. Me and Ella walked to our next class and I told her it was no wonder he was friends with that other guy who had called her fat. She was basically ignoring me and texting him angrily about it but he tried to claim he was actually talking about another person and it had gotten lost in translation. I didn’t believe this at all but Ella immediately took this at face value and chose to believe him over me. I just ignored it.

Later on, another girl who was also in this group who I’ll call Kira messages me and asks if i’m okay because I seemed upset. She was there after I left and confirmed he HAD meant to say my name. I called Ella and told her, to which she cried about how he always lied to her and she texted him as I sat on the phone to her comforting her.

They decided to “give it one last go” (she said it was his last chance several times before this too. It never was.) However, she couldn’t get the fact he lied off her mind and they met up later that week and broke up. When I spoke to her I mentioned how she had acted so against all these things like people being fatphobic, racist etc but she accepted it when he did it. She listened but didn’t really fully answer. Another girl I’ll call Lisa also revealed to me that when she was alone with Ella and John he had been transphobic and Ella directly told Lisa not to mention this to me or Cal. She knew exactly what he was like and chose to hide these things knowing exactly how hypocritical she was being essentially.

Another boy who was also involved apologised to me as they had come up with the oh so hilarious joke together. I never once got an apology from John. Ella claimed it was because he thought I needed space and said she told the other guy not to apologise, to which I was like, “why? at least he actually apologised to me and took accountability.” She didn’t really have a response to that.

Now, it’s taken a while but heres where I may have been an asshole. Our school prom is coming up in June. Before they broke up she was going with John and me and Cal were going together as friends. Cal recently started dating someone I’ll just call R. They hadn’t decided to go to prom together yet at this point as they had started dating about a week before this. Ella kept insisting Cal MUST go to prom with R because they’re dating. I said “why can’t people just go as friends though??” because I hate how people always value romance about friendship but she kept saying it and got it in her own head that they were going together when the plan hadn’t changed for us at all and to me she just was now joining us. Early in March after school one day she sends me a big long text saying John had asked her to go to prom as friends. It felt very pitying as she only told me this and half of it was about how her and Cal wouldn’t make me feel left out and I would have plenty of people to talk to (listing people who had been in John’s friend group who yes I got along with but i’m really not super close to.)

I was pissed. I texted Cal and my other friend I’ll call Lexi, making a group chat because I wanted to send voice notes and just ranted about it. I called Ella stupid for thinking he only wanted to go as friends and I said I didn’t even want to go with her anyways and I wanted to go with Lexi originally (Lexi goes to another school but we can’t invite people outside of school.) I talked about how she always preferred to spend time with him than me even if she promised to spend it with me. It was a very charged rant built up from all of my anger at Ella for valuing John above all her other friendships and treating him differently than us. I understand a relationship is different than a friendship but it was like her moral compass was completely non-existent when it came to him. I also half accused her of lying and said it was almost like they never broke up at all and were still dating either emotionally or actually. They were still very close after the break up.

All of this was done on instagram. What I hadn’t realised was that Ella had been logged into Cal’s account on her phone. Cal had done it to post something like a month before as they ran out of data. I don’t know why they didn’t just do a hotspot or something but either way it was unrelated to this just to clarify that. Cal had asked Ella about 2 weeks in to “log out when she gets the chance.” However, she never did, despite mentioning to me how she was finding it annoying getting all of Cal’s notifications, to which I told her just to log out then. I forgot what she said to that though. She also admitted to looking at Cal’s messages with R and looking up both of our names in their chats to see what Cal had said about us. I regret not telling Cal this but I did think it was odd. I’m very nosy myself but I think if i had access to someone else’s account I would just log out if it was bothering me, especially when Cal mentioned it to her.

She looked at the messages and sent a text from her usual account saying she could see them. I texted her to apologise and she replied still mad at me and basically no matter what I said she just gave me attitude and told me her relationship was none of my business. Cal logged her out of their account as they were clearly uncomfortable with the fact she was still there and messaged her the next day also apologising for agreeing with what i said in the gc but questioning her, as she said the reason she wanted to go with John was the fact she would be in a duo. However, she would’ve been in a duo with me anyway, so this makes zero sense. Cal kept asking but she just got mad at them and they decided to give up on figuring her out as she wasn’t listening to either of us.

A few days later she blocked Cal but not me (probably as we still needed to maintain contact as we were doing a long-term group project together.) On Monday when in school I was still mad and told Lisa, Haley and another girl about all of this. I don’t know exactly how, but she found out about me saying Cal was gonna go and tell a girl at our school who is known for being quite gossipy about it. Cal didn’t do this and it was an empty threat. I knew at this point that she herself had already told people about it. By at least later on Monday she had told our entire old lunch group as well another person also known for their gossip. Their entire group blocked me on the Wednesday night and at lunch on Thursday Ella and another girl i’ll call May came up to me to confront me for saying I was gonna tell this girl. Very hypocritical since they JUST proved how many people they had told the night before. I didn’t really care about those people anyway as I wasn’t close to them, but it was still obviously hurtful. They never even spoke to me to get why I said what I said. Haley was part of this group. She still speak to Lisa and Cal but not me. She told Lisa they pressured her into unfollowing me. Again, I don’t really care why, but it might be relevant. I thought Haley was the one who told them what i’d said but it could’ve just been someone overhearing. I’m avoiding her regardless as shes chosen them over me, and thats her life I guess.

Other people have told me Ella’s side of the story is basically that I won’t let her have any other friends but me, which I feel is obviously not the case, as she has plenty of friends shes turned against me who I never took issue with her talking to obviously. I spoke to them myself!!! The only person I took issue with was John, because his behaviour was beyond inexcusable at that point. Shes saying I have attachment issues but she was the one going through Cal’s messages lmao.

Let me know if there any questions, but anyways: Am I The Asshole for hating my best friends boyfriend to the point we are no longer friends?