Shutterstock

I don’t say this very often, but this story is just….weird.

And it just goes to show you that some people you might think are your friends really aren’t worth investing time in…

Or in this case, money.

A young woman talked about why she’s pretty peeved at her friends after they expected her to help pay on a trip she couldn’t go no.

Yeah…weird.

Let’s take a look!

AITA for cutting off my entire friend group after they tried to get me to pay for their holiday?

“I (20F) and nine other friends had planned on going on holiday together, and we booked an Airbnb, each of us paying an equal part and sending it to my close friend (22M), who was in charge of arranging the holiday.

I’m not a citizen of the country I live in, and I had some problems with my immigration status right before our holiday which interfered with my ability to leave the country.

I made my friend aware of this and apologized but assured him that I would still pay for the stuff we had already booked. I also said I knew some of our friends couldn’t come on the holiday since they couldn’t afford it so they were welcome to come to my place and they didn’t have to pay me back.

They’d just pay for a name change on my plane ticket.

A few days later, he messaged me to say the Airbnb that we had booked had cancelled on us and our money was being refunded.

This seems like a natural response…

I asked him if it would be alright if he could send me my chunk of the money back and the group could rebook another Airbnb that would accommodate a smaller group; He said yes.

He texted me again a while later, saying there were only expensive Airbnbs left and they needed my chunk of the money to help everyone afford the more expensive place.

Huh?

“Sorry we need the money so I can’t give it back”.

He also said that I had bailed on everyone and left everyone in a tight spot so I was expected to do this and I was “already okay with my money burning so me paying would be the lesser evil compared to making everyone else pay even more.”

I was very confused with the very sudden switch in tone. I told him me bailing wasn’t a problem for anyone until he decided it was. That what he was trying to do felt opportunistic because he wouldn’t have asked me to resend him my money to pay for them, had the money been refunded to my account and not his.

I told him I was in fact okay with my money burning in the context of someone else going in my place (I’ve been on the receiving end of not having to pay someone back for a holiday before and I would like to return the favor when I can) and just keeping my promise with the stuff we had already booked previously.

This was very strange…

But he had taken the offer I had made in a very specific context and manipulated that to serve his own whims, and I said this disturbed me and I was mostly looking for an apology.

I later looked up housing around the area for myself and found many options that fit all of our criteria. They were perfectly capable of booking a more reasonable place they could afford.

I felt that he was trying to construct a narrative around scarcity to make me feel bad and use me to help the group afford a more luxurious place. The Airbnb he was now trying to get was way over our initial budget.

I said I wasn’t the reason for them being out of a house. That was the Airbnb’s fault and they were making it mine. I felt disrespected because he never even asked me if I could help them pay, as a favor to a friend or just a genuine ask for help because, of course I would’ve.

But he resorted to treating me like a kid he was lecturing. I said the money wasn’t the problem but the entitlement was.

These people are crazy!

People in our group said I was being super unreasonable and that I was making everyone pay a larger chunk for the holiday house and the only decent thing would be to give them my refund for the inconvenience I caused (by bailing).

22M later called me on the phone and it ended up devolving into what essentially felt like a humiliation ritual.

He had apparently invited people over, prior to calling me. And the entire time, as I was talking about how I felt wronged, some “friends” in the background were giggling, making weird comments and doing little reactions after my every sentence.

I’d say “I feel taken advantage of” and they’d laugh audibly in the background and go “I can’t believe she actually said that”, “The audacity!”, “WE shouldn’t have to PAY for HER absence”.

Which really put me on edge and I ended up telling everyone involved to get their act together and to stop acting like children and hung up in their face.

Honestly, the phone call came as a shock because I’ve been friends with them for 6+ years and I hadn’t realized they were capable of what essentially felt like straight up bullying.

He later texted me and said he found some other option and offered to pay me back to make amends but I told him I was done and to keep the money and blocked him.

AITA?”

Let’s see what readers had to say about this.

This person shared their thoughts.

Another Reddit user weighed in.

This individual said she’s NTA.

Another reader agreed.

And this person shared their thoughts.

It sounds like she might be in the market for some new friends!

And you can’t really blame her for feeling that way…

These folks are something else…

This entire situation spun out of control in a hurry.