I have a bitter grudge against many people...
I AM a 20-year-old student with a bitter grudge against certain people in my life.
You see, I met a girl, A, at my university course and we became good friends. We have similar interests and with a few others, we formed a tight bond.
Everything was fine at first. Then A started focusing more on one of my male peers, B, who happens to be my ex-boyfriend. B and I have put our past behind us and he’s currently in a long-distance relationship with another one of my good friends. I am cool with their relationship.
What I am not comfortable with is his relationship with A. They both go through many ups and downs, and this has deeply affected our group. At first, A strongly denied having any feelings for B, but one day, she told C (another girlfriend in our group) and me how she felt about him. We said we understood her feelings but advised her to carefully think about what she was going to do about it because B is strictly unavailable.
But, no. She goes and does weird things to attract B’s attention. Whenever she is ill (which is a lot of the time), she would always ask B to go to the clinic with her. Or, she would take part in sports and only invite B to join her. Or she would have meals only with him.
When B does not entertain her, she starts throwing a tantrum, making herself ill, and she will not sleep for more than a week. She complains to C and me but we are sick of it and have told her off. However, she has ignored our advice. We even had our seniors from the university’s institute of religion stepping in to advise her and B with a heartto-heart talk.
Apparently, B is uncertain of how he really feels about her so now A thinks there is hope. Which, let me tell you, is all nonsense to me.
Our entire group of friends has drifted apart, and the whole batch of coursemates has labelled her a “woman of loose morals” (Ed: We have reworded the letter for our audience) and B as a cheater. They are still close to one another, they sit next to each other during lectures, participate in activities together, and eat together all the time.
I am sick of juniors and seniors coming up to me and asking me if they are dating. I am considering telling my good friend, B’s long-distance girlfriend, about what is going on. I want her to be truly happy, even though it’s with my ex, but if he’s not cherishing her, I want them to break up.
Please advise me on what to do. I do not want to come off as a psycho ex-girlfriend who wants to break up her ex’s relationship. I am unsure if my good friend knows about my past with B so I do not want to let her in on that.
Your friend has a crush on a man, and when he doesn’t react the way she likes, she throws tantrums. Also, she overshared with you. It’s not a happy way to live, and I can see why you might be worried.
It was perfectly sensible to tell her that getting involved with people who already are in a relationship inevitably ends in heartbreak, and you would have been fine if you’d told her that you’d reached the end of your patience with her tantrums.
When our friends run into trouble or are troubled, it’s only natural to try and help. Also, setting personal boundaries is perfectly sensible.
However, you had no right to gossip about this very private matter and to draft in officious older students to lecture her was plainly and simply bullying. As for calling her and your ex foul names, that is also disgraceful behaviour.
I am not surprised your former friends will have nothing to do with you. You deliberately created a public storm of censure and gossip and directed it at them.
My suggestion is that you do your schoolwork, stop gossiping and focus on your personal development.
I urge you to take part in an anti-bullying workshop. If there is none at your school, go to the counsellor and work on learning emotional awareness, to be less judgmental and to stop using intimidation, isolation and emotional abuse in order to try and control others.
You are also very young, and hopefully you are sensible enough to take a long look at yourself and realise you have picked up some very toxic habits.
Get a grip on it now, and look to make positive change, or you are going to run into a lot of unhappiness when you are older.