Friends stage an 'intervention' for man's 'toxic traits.' He walks. AITA? UPDATED
A good friend is someone who overlooks your fence and admires the flowers in your garden.
One man was severely taken aback when he was ambushed with an 'intervention' by his friends at a local Starbucks. It wasn't for anything dangerous, it was about how he interacted with them. He took a long time to think about this and provided an update with how that experience changed his perception of himself and the people around him.
'AITA for leaving a Starbucks midway through an intervention about me?'
So I’m 21M and I’ve been kicked out of my friend group.
To give some context, I’ve been in this friend group since high school around 2018-2019 and have been friends with two of them since freshman year.
Throughout the years I’ve been with them, they’ve noticed a lot of little toxic traits I’ve had, and didn’t really tell me a lot of them. So around the end of March, beginning of April they started avoiding me and just telling me that they’re too busy to hang out.
For two weeks things were dead silent with me and them. I actually thought they were just too busy to hang out, but they were actually planning to talk to me about my problems with an intervention.
After the two weeks, they shoot me a text saying to meet at this Starbucks with the specific address of it and at 4. So I asked if we weren’t friends, cause they were avoiding me and they only replied with, “we need to talk.” So I did, and all of them were sitting at a table in the middle of the Starbucks waiting for me.
Once I sat down they started to list out the problems they’ve had with me, like not being open enough with my feelings, having double standards with touching things, or zoning out when I’m not in the conversations and not to join them.
I’m not going to lie, I did feel uncomfortable talking about issues about me in public. I didn’t realize these problems but after them saying it, I really feel like a jerk once seeing it. Now here’s where I feel like I would be the a**hole in the situation and further.
Midway through them talking, I just straight up left because I felt hurt and didn’t want to continue that conversation. Right now I’m slowly trying to fix the issues one at a time so new people I meet won’t deal with it.
Another two weeks go by, and I felt terrible about how I was to them in general.
One friend knew the group and my situation, that friend told me that the friend group is still willing to be friends. After feeling bad about myself, I tried to text one of the friends to setup a talk. I asked if it was fine to meet up and talk at his or my place. He replied by saying he would rather talk at Starbucks or coffee place, and I tried to compromise with a park not too far from our places.
He didn’t like the compromise, saying that he didn’t feel safe or comfortable to talk to me unless it’s somewhere he likes and that wasn’t for negotiation. For me I told him I didn’t feel comfortable to talk in a public space like a coffee shop, and I wouldn’t like to be in the same situation as before. Then it got a little emotional for me that I won’t go into or repeat.
I did still want to be friends with one other person in the group. So I tried to message them and he responded basically saying that, “If you want to apologize, you have to say sorry to everyone in the group. You ended our friendship the moment you left the Starbucks.” So far that’s where my story with my ex-friends is at.
Am I the a**hole for being the start and end of my situation?
Edit 1: When I said touching stuff, meant in more of grabbing a book off the shelf, borrowing a hammer, and etc without permission.
Edit 2: One of the bigger reasons why I posted here was because I don’t understand why I’m “unsafe” to them. I’ve never physically harmed them, yelled at them angrily, nor attack them with personal insults.
Here were the top comments after the intial update:
I have never in my life heard of a friend intervention where a group sits another friend down to just.. point out a bunch of flaws? I'm lost. Is this a thing? NTA cos what the heck.
Are you the toxic a-hole friend in the group, or are you just ADHD/autistic/neurodivergent? Because the things that you listed they said to you read more as typical neurodivergent behaviors.
Going with NTA, because even if you are actually a toxic jerk, group “interventions” in a public place (especially after weeks of their blatantly toxic communication, or lack thereof) are just poorly disguised bullying sessions.
These people are bullying you.
That wasn't an intervention. That was a case of; 'So, we've been talking about you and the things we don't like about you, and feel the need, as a group, to tell you each and every single one, in a public setting hoping it would keep you calm' Interventions include a consult AT MINIMUM with a professional who deals in these things
11 days later, the OP returned with an update:
'AITA for leaving a Starbucks midway through an intervention about me? UPDATE'
So it's been about a week or so now since my post, and wanted to give some updates and good news. Before that, I wanted to say thanks to all the comments from before. I’ve felt like sh*t for the whole month of April and it helped that there were people telling me I’m not sh*t. I’ve listened to a lot of the comments, and most of them just say cut them off and move on, so I am.
First thing is that, I've sent a link of my post to the 'friend group,' to give them my perspective of things. I've understood that I've unintentionally made them feel uncomfortable during times. I don't know if I understand their whole perspective but thanks to that I know myself a bit more in social situations. They’ve probably moved on from me but I just wanted to say some sort of goodbye.
Now I've blocked them so I can move on and find others that will like me for me. Along with that, I know that I’m gonna have some trust issues and overthinking things in the long run.
Secondly, I've taken some tests, like the RAADS test and scored a 149 so I probably have some neurodiversity. I've went ahead and scheduled a ADHD assessment and will be taking it in the next coming week.
With this comes the good news for me, I've been hanging out with an online friend who I've known for a long while and actually lives like 15 mins away from me. (Lets call him Bob and if ur reading this, thanks man) I told Bob my situation with the friend group and he has helped me emotionally with it without me feeling like sh*t about the situation.
During this time, I've made him uncomfortable once by accident with me blurting my mouth. He did let me know how he felt so I apologized, told him it won't happen again, and I'm working on these things.
I also got him some Anime Expo badge and a concert ticket to join me. The AX badge and concert ticket was originally gonna be for the 'friend,' who said that he was unsafe with me. I was gonna surprise him with it as an early birthday present before what went down. I know it's a bit soon to give away the stuff but idk if I can find anyone soon.
Anyway, I'm grateful for the advice you all gave to me. I do understand that there are some things that need to be fixed, some of the things said during the 'intervention,' just need to be ignored, and somethings that I need to move on from.
I'm mainly thankful that you guys help me understand myself a little more like my neurodiversity. Also sorry that this is a long post, I do just like to talk a lot. But yeah, if anyone has extra questions, I’ll try to answer them as best as I can. I hope everyone has a great day and good friendships that never end.
'Mini Update: May 15, 2023 '(3 days from update)
Little Extra Update: After seeing my post, two of the friends messaged me where I forgot to block. The first one, we talked about how we felt about the situation, decided just to move on peacefully and maybe see each other down the line.
I really appreciate that we could come to somewhat of an understanding. The second guy called me a coward for posting about my situation, said that all he wanted was an apology but I couldn't do that, and said to 'square up' next time I have a problem. And they say I'm the unsafe one, but either way he was obviously blocked. Thanks for reading!
Here were the top comments after the final update from the OP:
Wish you all the best. Normal people would have spoken to you about any issues they had well before staging some weird intervention. Enjoy your Expo and hope Bob does too. You've a wide world out there to find friends who 'get you'. Expo sounds like a great place to find some :)
Initially, I read all that and had no idea what the problem was.
Upon reflection, I get that OP might be autistic, or adhd, or whatever type of neurodivergent, but like…. What was the problem? That he was so socially awkward that they felt the need to have a public intervention about it? That’s the kind of thing I’d do if I was so scared of a person that I feared physical or mental abuse if we weren’t in public. Was OP being violent or something? All he keeps saying is “uncomfortable.”
I think it's best for everyone to just move on, find new friends and start a fresh chapter.
I went back and read the original post before reading this one and went 'Boy, I hope this person has gotten evaluated for ADHD,' so it's good to see, upon reading this post, that you are, in fact, getting an ADHD assessment, because a lot of what you mentioned in that original post reminded me of the annoying things I do as a person with ADHD.
It makes me really sad that those other people (I refuse to call them friends because that's not how friends act IMHO) chose to hold in their annoyances, talk about you beind your back and drop them on you all at once rather than having non confrontational conversations in the moment. They sound kinda immature and overly sure of themselves. Best wishes moving forward 🙂