Being young in modern society has never more complicated.

Social media, inflation, and social politics create a confounding and difficult roadwork for many, and not just the young.

Then you add a baby into the mix.

And a tale as old as human speech itself begins to weave its poisonous web. We know it by one word:

Gossip.

This story takes place in the middle of a storm of gossip.

AITA for agreeing that my (former) friend most likely baby trapped another friend for money?

So my friendship group is currently in shambles over this situation so I’m looking for some outside opinions.

The two main people are my (24F) friends Alex (25M) and Lia (24F). They hooked up and now Lia is pregnant but Alex isn’t happy about it.

OP sets the stage, and the elephant in the room: a baby on the way.

What makes things incredibly tough seems to be the youth of the to-be-parents.

One is ready, one is not.

Alex and Lia have always been weirdly close but they’ve never crossed the friendship line and clearly for good reason because the whole thing has been messy as hell since Lia told him she was pregnant. He asked her to get rid of it and she said no, so he asked her not to tell his family about the baby yet but she went ahead and told them.

The majority of our friendship group thinks she baby trapped him for money since her family don’t have much and Alex’s are more than comfortable. I originally was defending her but then while she was ranting to me about what a jack*** Alex is, she said the only thing Alex would be good for was money and that her baby wouldn’t need him as a father.

She explains how she views the father of her child. And it’s pretty cold.

So OP opens up her concerns to another friend.

She kept talking about Alex, money and him being an ATM for a good 30 minutes.

The conversation left a bad taste in my mouth so I was discussing it with Charlotte, my best friend and Alex’s ex, and we both agreed that it seems like Lia only cares about the money and I said I was starting to agree with the friends who think she baby trapped him for money.

Word got its way around, as it usually does.

And OP seems to have been castigated by her friends.

Unfortunately, Charlotte mentioned it to a few other friends who told others and it’s gotten back to Lia. She hasn’t said a single thing to me and the only reason I know she now hates me is because Alex, of all people, confronted me about it and she blocked me.

He told me to leave Lia alone and tried to guilt me because she’s pregnant and needs her friends right now but he’s the one causing her the most stress.

Then her friend Alex has since circled the wagons with Lia, and it seems to have put OP in a bad spot.

He said if I (or anyone else) said anything else about her we’d have to deal with him so most people are now denying ever saying she baby trapped him so I feel like I’m being thrown under the bus here.

Charlotte said he’s only playing hero because his family are all on his case now because Lia keeps running to them so he has no choice but to act like he cares.

Let’s see what folks had to say about this gossip story.

Almost everyone thew either an ESH or YTA label on this one, a rarity!

One commenter suggested to back off the mouth-running.

Another Redditor is in a seemingly-similar situation to Lia.

The gossip boomerang can really hurt.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.