AITA for refusing to give my friend another chance
My friend and I have known each other for years ever since I moved to my current neighborhood along with her sister, but a bit over a year ago, I decided to no longer associate with her and got a bit of flack
I'll be calling my friend Lauren and her sister Wendy for anonymity
Tensions have always been high between Lauren and I, almost every play date we had as children having at least one fight. She often would target me pettily, doing things like gatekeeping me from games or not letting me play with certain toys at her house
To give you an idea of what she was like, there was this one time we were playing with another friend by her play structure. It had a slide, climbing wall, some swings and monkey bars. Our other friend and I were swinging and Lauren wanted to climb the monkey bars which were right above the swings and would lead to us getting kicked in the face. The two of us outvoted her and we kept swinging while she sulked. Eventually, Wendy got hurt and we went to check on her and Lauren took the opportunity to sit on both swings at once and sit on then and refused to get up until we let her use the monkey bars
As time passed, I didn't feel like I was really friends with Lauren. I felt like she just wanted to come to my house for my stuff, I had a Switch and an XBox and a pool during the summer and every time she and Wendy were there, Lauren would just ask about using this stuff, in April and May she would constantly ask "[name], when are you putting up your pool?" And the year we got rid of the pool, she hardly visited I also often felt caught in the middle of arguments between her and Wendy, Lauren often arguing over things as petty as being the second player in whatever video game we played. Sometimes hitting her
By the time Lauren joined me in high school, (I'm three years older than her) she started hanging with the wrong crowd and getting in trouble often. We were also very distant at this point
This came to a head at my birthday party and a bunch of my friends and I were playing a MarioKart tournament together and Lauren was arguing with Wendy about player number, Wendy held firm and took the position. Lauren blew up on her and called her the gay slur
At that point, I couldn't take her anymore ended up staying upstairs for the rest of the stay (it was a sleepover party) with Wendy.
I still haven't talked to Lauren since then, and pretty much all but cut her off. But recently some people have been encouraging to let her back in, and when I say "no" they call me a bad friend
So, AITH?
Posted Jun 23, 2025, 4:29 AM UTC · locked