TW for heavier themes like attempted sexual assault and alleged domestic violence.

TLDR: my friend has a crush on an alleged abuser. I'm against this and tried to tell her to stay away. Am I the asshole?

This is gonna be a long one, because I don't know how to summarize it any further.

I, F18, have been friends with this girl, F18, for close to two years now. We're not the closest of friends, but we see each other nearly everyday in school and spend time together regularly.

A guy my friend is clearly interested in, M19, attends the same school as us. They're of the same nationality and share a first language that I don't, so they've got some things in common. She also finds him attractive, while I do not— this however is not why I portray my dislike towards him.

Through a person my friend knows, she found out that allegedly, M19 has been physically abusive towards an ex-girlfriend of his. She, however, does not know I have experienced trauma related to these kinds of things. Now, the rumors haven't been confirmed or denied by him or the ex-girlfriend, but I am of the belief that you should always at least somewhat trust accusations like this (or at least be wary of them!)

A man tried to forcefully sexually assault me at a house party almost three years ago. I was also in a relationship with an ex-boyfriend who cheated on me at least three times and was extremely emotionally abusive. I thought I had processed these experiences to the best of my abilities, but recent events have honestly brought them back to light like fresh wounds.

Ever since my friend continued to talk about M19 in a suggestive manner even after hearing about the allegation, I was sort of icked out by it. She tries to play it off as a joke, and I don't know if I'm just struggling to read her tone, but I am kind of offended by all of it.

It seemed to me like I was overreacting and projecting my own trauma onto the situation at first, but now I'm honestly growing frustrated. Of course, she doesn't know about my trauma as those experiences are something I've only told very few people, so she can't possibly know that.

We attended a big party for students of our school recently. M19 was there. My friend is much more extroverted than me, so I honestly just followed her and the couple of friends we were there with around and talked to whoever we were by. As time went on, we were suddenly around M19 and his friend he had come to the party with. I kept my distance from the start and immediately felt uncomfortable around him. I tried to express this to my friend, but she brushed me off.

As the night progressed, we played a game (a mix of spin the bottle and truth or dare) with around ten people, M19 and my friend included. My friend ended up asking M19 as a truth what the worst thing he's ever done was. He answered with having cheated on his ex-girlfriend, and again, I felt very grossed out (not literally, but just uneasy).

Since I don't really like to socialize by myself in big groups, I stuck by my friend, who stuck by M19. He did have his hand on her, but not inappropriately (but it still made me keep an extra eye on the two of them, probably a trauma response or something). I once again asked my friend if we could go somewhere else, since I was uncomfortable with how close an alleged abuser was to her. This time, he told me "I'll fight him if he tries something with me". To be honest, I could have screamed, but she doesn't know that I know what it feels like to first have that mindset and then realize that it doesn't work like that in an actually dangerous situation, and I felt like it would've come across as guilt tripping if I had told her in that moment. She also kept asking me "but what if he's changed?" and I grew more and more frustrated.

One last thing nearly ticked me off and I had to take a deep breath to ground myself, and it was her saying "he hasn't done anything to me". This actually almost flipped a switch in me, because it's exactly the mentality that enables the cycle of abuse to continue. (But I do think it's noteworthy that him being an abuser isn't confirmed. I think I'm just biased because of my experiences.)

I honestly don't know if my response (which I haven't voiced directly to her, so it's eating me up) is validated, or am I just dealing with unprocessed trauma and projecting it onto others?

As disgusting as it feels for me to ask this, is this simply just something she has to find out for herself even if it might potentially hurt her? Am I the asshole for trying to stop it from happening?