My best friend pranked my friend

[Chloé]

So I told three people that I am aromantic, my two bestest friends and my friend, who has a crush on me. 

The dude who has a crush on me was very rude and said lovey-dovey things to me through text, and I told him to stop, and he didn't. So, I told my best friend and she was really pissed. She really understood me. It was my little sister's b-day party recently, and my best friend was invited (her little sis was my little sis' friend) and she suggested that she could prank him. At first I was like "uhh no that wouldn't be nice" but then I remembered that he was so rude and oblivious to what I was telling him so I ended up saying "HELL YEA HE WAS THE ONE WHO WAS RUDE TO ME FIRST LET'S SEE HOW THAT FEELS >:D". So basically she used her phone and sent him really creepy messages and at the end when he was about to block her she said "could you just fuck off my friend sorry for the rude language". Then he thought it was me and texted me that he would appreciate if I could "fuck off" too. 

 

Then I told him a half truth -that my best friend was the one that pranked him without my permission, that she looked through my messages and looked at an old screenshot to get his number (she was fine with it)- and he said that I broke the friendship and that I was going to have to live with that. Now he thinks I'm a bitch and I'm REALLY scared that he'll tell everyone in my class that I have a heartless soul or something when it really was his own fault that this happened. I don't wanna make the half truth a full truth either, unless I have too.

 

HOW DO I DEAL WITH THIS SITUATION/PERSON THAT COULD DO ANYTHING SINCE HE IS GREATLY AFFECTED BY HORMONES???

[Apathetic Echidna]

So he was a friend, but pushy? 

It has been awhile since high school for me but I was targeted by a pushy person who tried becoming a friend. Every time he would come up to me after my annoyance point was reached (which I assume for you was before the party sometime) I retaliated by calling out his behaviour publicly, he was no longer Dave*, he was Dave: of no personal boundaries, or Dave: the respectless. If I got called out about it I told them he had harassed me for months, I would not apologise and this is the only reaction he will get from me if interaction between us is continued. 

My experience might not help as I think our personalities are quite different (last time a guy called me a bitch I implied he was into beastiality). In your case, he didn't respect you, he was forcing his attention on you after you told him to stop, I would call that harassment, you still called him a friend in your opening comment.....was he really a friend? he obviously annoyed you enough that you retaliated which hurt him now he is trying to hurt you out of pain and probably confusion. There is obviously something wrong with his learning so far to not understand he had been sabotaging your friendly feelings towards him for a while. 

 

as for advice, I guess you should have owned up to being part of giving him a taste of his own medicine. Support your friend, insist that she was right in doing the messages. He needs to understand what he was doing before was wrong, especially after you told him to stop. You will probably have to cut all contact with him for a while at least and there will probably be rumours, there always seems to be. The best way I deal with them is to ignore them, don't defend, blame, deny or threaten, rather change topic to something general like 'Harassment is never alright' or 'are you still talking about that?' 

 

But for the love of everything good, don't do what I did! I used hypotheticals like 'If I am a bitch he is just the next date-rapist in the making', people will only hear 'I am a bitch' and the rape comment will get you in trouble. If statements are never good or helpful. 

 

*not real name

 

Also, for you

 

 

 

 

[NullVector]

I hope this reply won't sound mean or judgemental, that's not my intention here...

 

I think that encouraging your best friend to actively provoke / take revenge on this person on your behalf was a mistake and won't have helped your situation. Probably you let your emotions get the better of you in the heat of the moment (and your initial instinct about it being wrong was the wiser part of you speaking). But hey, people make mistakes. I know I do! The main thing, I think, is not to never make any mistakes, but to take responsibility for the mistakes we do make.

 

So, probably this is pretty good advice for you now: 

On 05/09/2017 at 3:51 AM, Apathetic Echidna said:

don't defend, blame, deny or threaten, rather change topic to something general like 'Harassment is never alright' or 'are you still talking about that?'

 

And if they reply: "Well, you and your best friend still shouldn't have done that!". Well, perhaps you can agree with that and say to them that, yes, you would like to handle it differently next time something similar happens? And then just leave it there.

 

Also: in case things do become difficult for you for a while after this, just remember that high school does not last forever!

[Dodecahedron314]

To be perfectly honest here, I'm inclined to side with you--this person doesn't sound like much of a friend at all if he's going to completely disrespect your boundaries like that, and if he can't own up to the fact that he was the one in the wrong, it might be time to rethink having him in your life because it's clear that he hasn't learned from his mistakes, and if he does have a crush on you he might try this sort of thing again. This might just be a bridge that you have to burn, so to speak. And if he tells everyone about it--what of it? You already appear to have a pretty stable friend group, aside from the highly questionable person who started all this, and sometimes it's worth compromising your social status in order to not have to deal with things like this. And it being high school, it's entirely probable that even if he does go shouting it from the rooftops, maybe it'll be the gossip of the week for a while, but then people will forget about it and move on to whatever the next piece of fresh meat is. (However, I also have zero tolerance for people who cause BS in my life, and I'm just going off of how I would react to this situation, so I certainly acknowledge that you might be more comfortable going about it differently. This is just my $0.02.)

[Chloé]

4 hours ago, Dodecahedron314 said:

To be perfectly honest here, I'm inclined to side with you--this person doesn't sound like much of a friend at all if he's going to completely disrespect your boundaries like that, and if he can't own up to the fact that he was the one in the wrong, it might be time to rethink having him in your life because it's clear that he hasn't learned from his mistakes, and if he does have a crush on you he might try this sort of thing again. This might just be a bridge that you have to burn, so to speak. And if he tells everyone about it--what of it? You already appear to have a pretty stable friend group, aside from the highly questionable person

 

I decided to follow everyone's advice -and by the way,  it's very much appreciated-  but especially  yours; though I did follow my own advice as well. 

 

His response made it clear that I had to stop talking to him, so that's what I did. I sent him a text novel on how he screwed up and how I would appreciate if he could stop blaming me for everything, and that I see him as not trustable, a jerk, and a nice person if you happen to be a dude. Except that I'm NOT a dude, since I was born in the body of a female. 

 

And he responded with "your a hypocrite and even tho my friends tell me stuff like 'oh look jack is chillin with ur girl' i know the truth and u are heartless. And i admit that i made one mistake (he made a more than one. Maybe ten to twenty), but thats human. And ur going to tell me that i am the one at fault and that i made wrong decisions, then fine u hypocrite. And never f***ing talk to me again"

 

So I replied with "k that works for me. I really don't care wjat you think so bye"

 

I hope I never get paired up with him on a group project or something as he is 100% of a jerk to me.

Thank you for all of this wonderful advice! I love this site and the people in it!! ?

[NullVector]

You sound a bit more relaxed about the whole thing now @Chloé. I hope it works out okay . Sorry if I was a bit harsh on you before - it's not easy being your age (I wouldn't wanna do it again!)

 

On 09/09/2017 at 5:38 PM, Dodecahedron314 said:

and sometimes it's worth compromising your social status in order to not have to deal with things like this.

 

Hahaha. So, my approach throughout high school was to basically never have any 'social status' in the first place! I observed the amount of hassle and stress other people went through to maintain theirs and, well, I just couldn't be bothered . Social status = poisoned chalice! I kind of came to the same conclusion as the computer at the end of the Wargames movie ("A strange game. The only winning move is not to play". Wait, what, did I just compare high school to global thermonuclear war )

 

Yeah, my approach was pretty idiosyncratic and extreme, I wouldn't necessairily recommend it 

 

[Chloé]

On 09/09/2017 at 7:31 PM, NullVector said:

 

Yeah, my approach was pretty idiosyncratic and extreme, I wouldn't necessairily recommend it 

 

Well I actually agree with everything you say. It's just that being harsh would shatter his huge ego even more. I'm that person that believes in third chances... so I tend to not being able to say no to a lot of things and I also tend to be too nice to people when they don't necessarily deserve it. But I'm me so even though I do agree with everything you've said, I can't bring myself to be that harsh to anyone yet. But if he does continue, I will be harsh even though I reaaaally don't think that's how I wanna deal with my problems.

 

But yeah, I'm a bit more relaxed since I let aaaaallllll of my feelings out on this site. Thanks for listening to me, by the way.

On 04/09/2017 at 10:51 PM, Apathetic Echidna said:

 

Also, for you

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I LOVE LILO AND STITCH AND THANK YOU I REALLY APPRECIATE THE HUG (and the fact that you acknowledged my favorite movie) <3

[NullVector]

16 hours ago, Chloé said:

so even though I do agree with everything you've said, I can't bring myself to be that harsh to anyone yet.

 

I'm a bit confused now. Where did I suggest you should be harsh to anyone? 

[Untamed Heart]

He sounds so bitter and in denial to me, maybe it's partly because he couldn't get his own way as well as the prank though.

[Chloé]

1 hour ago, NullVector said:

 

I'm a bit confused now. Where did I suggest you should be harsh to anyone? 

Ahh I'm sorry my friend told me to be harsh and I confused the replies here and the conversation he and I had . Sorry!!

[Apathetic Echidna]

Glad things are better for you now! 

I had to give the Lilo and Stitch pic as I thought that even if my advice was fully unhelpful you would still get something from my post! and yes I did read your profile to make it the best I could!