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Part of growing up is realising that things aren’t always exactly as you’d like them. Sometimes you don’t get the job you want, the person you thought you were in love with breaks up with you – or you find out that your crush is unrequited. Sometimes your birthday is a flop, you don’t like the gifts you receive, and your birthday party is nowhere near as fun as you expected. Maybe your grades aren’t as high as you’d like, maybe you get rejected from your first choice college. It’s all horrible at the time, but it’s a good learning experience that helps you learn to deal with disappointment and betrayal, and regulate your emotions as you mature into adulthood.

However, this is clearly something that the person in this story hasn’t grasped yet. Because, in all friendships – or rather, all relationships – we disappoint one another sometimes. Maybe we don’t have the energy or the capacity to meet up when planned, or perhaps work or family commitments get in the way. Perhaps we can’t follow through on an agreement, or simply forget to pick up something on the way round to visit. Or maybe, like in this story, we decide we want to move out of a shared home earlier than planned. But friends allow friends to make a mistake or let them down every once in a while, right? We accept it with grace and move on… right?

Try telling that to this person.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA for acting up after my roommate told me she plans to move out earlier than intended

I am going into my final year of university, and I live in a four bedroom apartment with three friends.

One of them is working in another city this summer and subletted his room to one of my closest friends. She moved in on May 1.

Everything had been going really well until last week, when my new roommate announced that she decided to move out two months early (July 1).

I was angry because she had made a commitment to stay for four months. She didn’t give a good reason, just that she wanted to settle in somewhere before the start of the new semester.

Read on to find out how this person reacted.

I already know this part is messed up, but I was really upset.

I found out she posted an ad online looking for a subletter so I created a fake email account pretending to be someone else and told her I was interested in the place. We arranged a visit for later in the week.

My friend is an aspiring musician and I told her, using the fake email, that I had seen her play and she was really good.

My friend replied that she was flattered and I pretended to get really offended: “You’re flattered, lol? …okay. Weird choice of words haha but w/e. I feel like I should be clear – I am in a relationship now and not looking for anybody else.”

Yikes. Let’s see how else they messed with their friend.

There was some other stuff too, and ultimately I told her I was cancelling the appointment.

I had made the fake person seem really cool to get my friend excited. At first, she was so happy and telling me about the cool potential roommate I could have.

She was really disappointed and confused by the cancellation. She even asked me to my face if it was me and I said it wasn’t.

I know it was wrong to lead her on, but it was a low harm prank that came out because she broke the agreement to stay for the whole summer.

AITA?

Like… what? This is such weird behaviour.

It’s not unreasonable for this friend to want to get settled somewhere that will be their permanent resident for the next year of her life, and if that meant breaking the agreement? Well that’s what you get for subletting.

Honestly, this friend’s choice to then catfish and humiliate her is so weird and unnecessary.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person thought this was seriously weird behaviour.

While others thought that the roommate behaved in a really juvenile way.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a homeowner who doesn’t care whether or not their neighbors hate their yard flamingos, because they aren’t subject to the HOA.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought that the friend had done everything right.

Seriously, the way this alleged ‘friend’ acted when their pal wanted to move out was beyond immature. They didn’t make any attempt to even try to understand her reasons – completely legitimate reasons – and instead decided to get revenge. The truth is, they were clearly bitter and taking it personally that the friend didn’t want to live with them for longer, even though she explained it in a way that made it clear that it was not personal at all. Unless there are other reasons that the vengeful roommate isn’t sharing that might make them think that their friend had other motives for moving out, then they have to take her at her word.

But honestly, I thought Nev and Max taught us all in the early noughties that catfishing is never okay. It’s a disgusting breach of trust as well as a horrible misuse of the internet. Like, what did they expect? They hurt her feelings by getting her excited, flattering her, and then pulling away – it’s disgusting and really messes with a person’s head. Someone who would do something like that? They’re no friend at all, and she’s right to get out as soon as possible.