Getting to know a person takes time, which is probably why there are so many cautious people out there wanting to date and live together a while before tying the knot.

This woman figures she dodged a bullet after a weekend away with a man she had been dating – and had really begun to like – for a handful of weeks.

I (26F at the time) had just started dating Thomas (28M) and things seemed promising: very sweet man, educated and quite smart, good looks.

After 7 weeks of dating, he invited me and 2 of his childhood friends (let’s call them Alex and Bart) for a long 29th birthday celebration weekend at his fathers’ country house in a small French town.

His father was going to be around as well and I was very excited to meet everyone.

She went out of town with him to his father’s house, where some of his friends were also there to help celebrate his birthday. The weekend started out well, but when they all started drinking and reminiscing about their youth, things took a turn.

Day 1 (Friday) is fun. I am happy to get along well with Thomas’ father, a smart and caring man.

Day 2 (Saturday) : after a very nice day, we enjoy a party in the garden with the neighbors (including some friends of Thomas). After a few hours and lots of drinks, a group of people gather around a small campfire and start sharing childhood memories. This is where things go wrong.

They started laughing about how they mercilessly bullied a young man for months, a series of acts that ended with the boy having to transfer schools.

It ended when they convinced him his online girlfriend (which was really them) wanted to meet and then stood him up.

At first of course, innocent and dumb stories as you would expect ; but then, Thomas and his friends started sharing REALLY sick stuff.

In particular, they told a story about how, when they were 14 or 15 years old, they found very amusing to bully for almost six months “Arthur”, a boy of their school who was very isolated and shy. Making jokes, calling names, you name it.

As if this was not enough, they created a fake girl profile on msn messenger (a computer platform to exchange live messages that we used in years 2000s) and spent f**king months (!) exchanging messages with him under the false girl identity, flirting and developing a false relationship with the poor boy.

Some people were in the confidence at school and it became a big and cruel joke behind Arthur’s back. They used pictures of Bart’s real cousin and the boy truly thought he had some kind of online girlfriend to whom he even sent confessions and love messages.

At some point they got bored and scheduled a false rendez-vous IRL asking the boy to take a bus for 2 or 3 hours, wearing a tshirt Elmer the Elephant (based on a private joke). Obviously there was no one waiting for him and they did not know how long he waited over there, by himself.

If Arthurd had not alreay understood what was going on, he found out the next day at school after Thomas and Bart told the story to everyone and even shared the love messages that Arthur had been writing.

The poor boy stopped coming to class and apparently changed school and it is easy to imagine that this must have been extremely traumatizing to him.

OP was appalled and could tell her boyfriend’s father was, too.

Do you think that Thomas, Alex and BArt had any bit of shame about it? NOT A BIT of remorse, in particular on Thomas and BArt side. They kept making jokes about it and even seemed to regret that they were “not good enough at being evil” to convince the boy to send nudes or s*xy pics. I don’t even want to imagine what would have happened if he had done so.

To say that I felt uncomfortable would be a gross understatement. I was absolutely horrified and started to despise Thomas more than anything. I was not the only one shocked: Thomas’ father, who heard the end of the story, had the most disappointed look in the eyes. His stupid son was so drunk that he did not even notice it. I escaped the party immediately after that and got back to the house.

I could not sleep at all this night and I kept thinking about the evening and how Thomas was still finding this funny. I heard him coming to bed around 4am but I pretended I was asleep.

The next day she got up early and left, then sent him messages convincing him to meet her, then eventually ditching him and telling him maybe he could understand how that boy felt now.

Day 3 (Sunday) was the actual birthday, and the initial plan was that I would take Thomas on a 1-1 fancy surprise date for lunch nearby and then we would meet the group for a late afternoon party. But instead, I woke up very early on Sunday morning, took all my stuff in silence and went alone to the train station where I took a direct train heading back to Paris.

I decided to send a text to Thomas wishing him happy birthday and telling him to meet me at a certain location 1 hour from the house for a surprise and that I needed to go a little bit in advance to make sure that everything would be perfect. I had picked the location randomly, using google maps, to gain time.

Thomas read the text around 10am, when he woke up. He responded with excitement that he would follow religiously the instructions. When he arrived there at 12:30, I told him to wait further as there was little delay on something. Then I asked him to meet me at a restaurant which was 30min drive from the initial location.

When he arrived at 13:15, I texted him that I was on my way, would arrive in 20min and that he will understand when he sees me why I made him wait ; I also asked him to order some food and the most expensive bottle on the menu.

Around 13:30 he started calling me several times and sent a lot of worried texts, and after 45 minutes I responded (in French) “So, how does it feel to have people play with your feelings?”.

Then I stopped responding.

Most people were calling her names and thinking she was awful, but OP doesn’t feel badly.

I let him call and text the entire afternoon, but never responded. At some point an unknown number called me, it was his friend Alex asking what was going on and that Thomas birthday was completely ruined because of what I did. I just responded : “this is an extremely small payback for what you did to Arthur. Tell Thomas to stop calling me.” and hung up. I blocked them.

I still felt bad the entire evening as I had started to grow attached to Thomas back then.

The following days, a common friend called me to say that my reaction was completely absurd and unfair, that it was not my role to punish someone for actions they did as a teenager, that they were adult ways of saying things and that I had been completely crazy.

Only a few people supported what I did, everyone else seemed to think that I was a bitch.

Thomas tried to fix things and win me back for a few months afterwards. I never responded to any of his messages.

I don’t regret it. I simply hope that Arthur, who should be 35 or 36 years old now, is well.

What about Reddit? Where do they fall?

The top comment rightfully notes that it’s not the childhood behavior, but the fact that he still doesn’t feel badly about it that’s the issue.

This person agrees that no emotional growth is a major red flag.

And this commenter also agreed that he deserved a taste of his own medicine.

Sadly, this person is probably right about just desserts not always applying to everyone.

They say their lives aren’t that great, though.

I want to high-five OP here.

Good for her for absolutely knowing she could never feel for this guy again.