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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/IndependenceReal4001 on 2023-08-29 21:20:53.
So just for context I’m in my mid-thirties. High school was 20 years ago.
In school, I’ve always been the quiet, nerdy loner. I wasn’t really bullied. I was just… ignored ? I never had a friend to call mine for all of my elementary school and most of my high school. I never seemed to fit with my peers so I mostly just did my own thing.
Then at 15yo, I was “adopted” by a group of equally misfit kids, and for the first time in my life I had “friends”. We were five kids always together. One of them even became my best friend.
Except. They were shitty friends. I was always the butt of the jokes. They made fun of me for everything, under the pretense of “It’s just jokes” but I couldn’t say anything about them because they’d get offended.
I was always the last one invited to things. The one who had to walk behind the group on sidewalks. Even my best friend was only my best friend when it was just the two of us. In a group setting, I could have vanished and nobody would have noticed. When I got my car, they’d yell shotgun for the perk of NOT having to sit in front. When I asked for gas money they stopped inviting me to things and took the bus. We never, ever did something or went somewhere I wanted. My ideas were always lame and/or stupid.
After high school the guy I was dating really opened my eyes about how shitty my friends had been. They doubled down on the “teasing” when I got my boyfriend because I was the first one to lose my virginity and the first one to have a serious relationship and it was not supposed to happen. See. I was supposed to die a virgin because nobody would ever want me.
Then I had a huge fallout with my “best friend”. He stole from me to buy drugs and used me as a drug mule without my knowledge. That was the last straw, and I cut ties. They never tried reaching out to me.
Last week I got a a text from one of them. My “best friend” is terminally ill. And wanted me to come so we’d “all be together one last time”. And that they all had “forgiven” me years ago, they miss me and wanted to reminisce about the “good old days”.
I told them that as far as I’m concerned, they’re all been dead to me for years now. That there were no “good old days”. They’ve been blowing up my phone since then. I blocked them all.
Since then every single person I may have know from high school who I still happen to know have reached out to tell me I’m a fucking asshole for still being “upset” at my best friend and that the guy is dying, I should give him closure.