Hi I just downloaded Reddit and Ima be straight forward with y’all I’m 15 and so are my friends and pretty much all of us are AFAB and I feel a little bad but I’m going to be using assigned pronouns at birth here so it’s hopefully less confusing and decodes the teenage trans/gay panic a little. And fair warning that this post will likely be very long, disorganised and pretty much just an info dump then asking for advice. tl:dr at the end but it isn’t very good sorry.

Also, tw, possible grooming sorta or really the concept that it might happen/anxiety about it

At this point it really shouldn’t matter, but it does because the friend I’m talking about moved halfway across the country, but I still think making this post could give me a little peace if I could hear the internet’s opinions. When this all started we were 14 and the guy that I think is grooming her is 18. From what I’ve heard, this guy has a history of manipulating people and a tendency to get younger teenage girls to grow an unhealthy dependency on him. Example A who we’ll call A is the friend I’m worried about and example B is an ex friend who we’ll call B who we kind of stopped talking to because of how this person was influencing them. Long story short, B broke up with another of my friends over text saying that she destroyed their mental health and essentially accusing them of being a bad person. Anyway, B said that they were dating this 18yr old (though I think he may of been 17 at this time) which we’ll call C. This would seem an obvious sign, but combined with circumstances B is also a major pathological liar so we’re skeptical whether they’re telling the truth (I know I said I’d use assigned pronouns at birth but I have a tendency to forget gendered pronouns exist idk why). A started talking to C about maybe 6 months ago while the fight with B was still happening which at the time I was fine with and also played a hand of getting them in contact with each other because at the time I didn’t see anything wrong. Since then, A has been texting C non-stop, talking about having a crush on him that borders on obsession, has a tendency to assume he’s mad at her and at some point he even asked if she had a crush on him. One time we were in the library at school and when I looked at her laptop she had sent something to him that looked like some kind of really tight fit dress? I don’t know, I barely got a look at it before she slammed her laptop shut and told me off for looking at her messages. A tight fit dress seems like nothing, but A has major body image issues (as do most teens unfortunately) and barely sends us a picture of her in an outfit she feels really good in. I have one photo in my camera roll where she looks like an absolute goddess but she still says she hates it. I understand this feeling cus I’ve felt like this before, but I find it odd how stand-offish she was about me seeing the message she sent and I’m terrified that there might be something romantic going on between them that is more than just her crush. Recently in a group chat she and C started berating someone (we’ll call D. Sorry if it’s getting confusing) because he shared a meme that was something about suffering being essential for happiness? Which while I can see that being dismissive of mental health in certain cases, this one really wasn’t it and was actually how this person views the world to help keep them going and make them feel better about… we’ll… life. C especially was being extremely aggressive when people were trying to deescalate the fight. The problem isn’t whether C is a bad person, because I know he is. And I know it hardly means anything but when I met him in person for a dnd campaign I felt so uncomfortable around him in particular. The problem is more how I’ve approached this with my friend. She knows I don’t like him and what I think of him and because of that she’ll leave out details that I have to ask others for to get. For example I wasn’t in the groupchat where the fight happened and had to ask for screenshots from another friend and when she was telling me about it, the only mention of C was when D’s partner called out C for being a bad person and A said it like it was out of the blue and unwarranted which after reading through the screenshots it is almost certainly warranted because he said himself that he was a bad person in the classic manipulative fashion to guilt trip people. But no matter how much I try to help her, she just won’t listen. I want to send her a message, essentially saying that I’m done trying now that she’s so far away and won’t listen then cut contact, but she’s very… I know how patronising it sounds, but talking to her is walking on eggshells because her mental health is just that bad. I should mention she takes any chance she gets to make a sui*ide joke that really takes a toll on me and I’ve I tried to tell her that if she’s not going to let us help her, could she at least calm down with the jokes? She’s an incredibly kind person and would never try to hurt a fly but in the process of not hurting that fly it feels like she’s stepped on a lot of others on the ground just for that one fly right in front of her flying around. And if you think my friend is in the wrong here, please don’t say anything hurtful or offensive about her. It’s not that I don’t like her anymore, it’s just that I can’t handle this much longer (I’m the therapy friend) so I just want advice, not an ego boost. If you can’t tell already I have major anxiety issues and a touch of the Audhd (autism and adhd). Having said that: would I be the asshole for telling my friend exactly how I feel then cutting contact?

TL;DR: Friend is getting manipulated and won’t listen to me and is hurting hers and my own mental health in the process. Should I tell her how I feel and cut contact?

A, if you find this somehow and know it’s about you, I’m really, really sorry. I don’t know what to do anymore.