Moral dilemma. What would you do?

Several years ago my good Samaritan daughter found a girl crying in the gutter in London, she was very drunk and had been abandoned by her friends, she gave the girl her coat and brought her home. We sobered her up, got her cleaned up, she got a few hours sleep in the spare bed and then daughter took her to the station, making sure she was on the right train to get home. She still collects waifs and strays but has her own place!!

Meh. These are grown women. All three probably should have jumped off at the same stop so A could be sick, and the birthday girl probably should have got off with E at the next stop, although I can’t see what good it would do either of them getting off. Did E hope to get the tube back a stop and find A there? I’d say that the chances of that happening were low. A would have either waited for the next train or went outside the station and got home another way eg taxi. So E was probably wasting her time. No doubt birthday girl was just sick of their carry on, tired and wanted to get home, don’t really blame her.

Ah… the classic ‘hover over the new post section and be first to be a dick and try and derail the thread’ reply. Good Lord… stop it! It’s so old!

Wow, who needs enemies when you have friends like 'birthday girl' 🙄 Definitely should have stuck together. Friend E sounded extremely vulnerable in that moment and I'd hate to think what could have happened.

Depends on the back story... maybe this is the millionth time that A has acted in this way, and she is at her limit. Maybe she told them to stop drinking, maybe she told them she would be getting this train home regardless.

Or maybe she is just a stuck-up bitch. Anyway, they are clearly all adults capable of making adult decisions and dealing with the consequences.

Anyone who has a loud phone conversation on a train is fair game for the rest of the carriage. The caller’s basically shouting at them, so if people listen, comment & discuss it with their friends or on internet forums, that’s the caller’s own fault.

I think I would have got off with friend A so that we could get the train back to the station friend E got off at and look for her. But if we couldn’t find her at the station and she wasn’t answering her phone, I would probably have headed to the St Pancras hoping to meet up there. I don’t know that searching te streets for someone who could easily have got back on the tube is a sensible thing to do. Especially if it might leave you stranded in London. There is only so much you can do if one of your friends splits off like that.

And if this wasn’t completely and utterly out of character for E, I would never go out with her again.

I would never leave the friend so would definitely get off at the same stop - I would then think carefully about future outings though.
Right now these are the kinds of scenarios I am talking to my older teen son about. He knows to never leave someone behind if they are incapacitated.
Bet people would judge more if it were a man leaving a woman - but it is the same thing essentially.
Spiking is getting endemic in some areas too.
The friend who left the other two could not possibly believe they would be able to catch her up at the main station. She sounds like she was enjoying loudly sharing the drama and didn’t want to look bad but couldn’t actually really care less about the safety of her friends.

Having worked in a tube station for many, many years (LU staff) I have dealt with countless lone, drunk females. I’ve also worked in pubs too. 99% of the drunk lone women were absolute arseholes! I could totally see why they’d been ditched by their ‘mates’ I used to think omg how could her friends leave her. One of them tried to rob me while I was taking her to the toilet - another one spat at me - and all because I tried to help! So many other stories I could start a thread!
Men were like it too, of course, and also gross in other ways - pervy, trying to get you to kiss them, and then when you refuse they start throwing abuse.

Moral of the story - don’t work for LU 😂

This sounds fairly judgmental to me:
Birthday girl felt no guilt at all about leaving her friends and repeatedly said “they needed to man up” “handle their drink better”. I do agree to a point as these women were easily late 30s/early 40s and I get how frustrating it is as a grown adult to babysit drunk adults. But I’m not sure I would have abandoned both friends.

I don't drink at all (I also don't really go out much, but moving on), so it is/was always on me to make sure everyone was okay.

And I did/do, however annoying/tiring/infuriating it is, because you don't leave a woman - especially a so-drunk-she-could-barely-stay-awake woman - on her own.

And then you don't go out with those people again, because it causes too many headaches having to be the responsible one every time so that others can do what they like, knowing you'll make sure they're okay.

So in this scenario, I'd have got off the tube when sick-friend got off and dragged non-sick-friend with me, then we'd have got the next train together to St. Pancras (or wherever). They'd have got a bollocking for being so monumentally stupid, but I wouldn't have left them alone.

It is a moral dilemma though - the dilemma of when does/should self-interest take over the interest of the group (which is essentially what birthday girl was saying when she left the drunk friends).

It depends on past behaviour. A one off / rare occurance and I'd help no question. However, I previously worked with 3 women (early 40s) who would get wasted at every single social event (frequent - nigh on weekly). Both lived miles away from the office and had long train journeys back. They'd get so wasted they were incoherent/could barely stand (on one occasion one fell asleep with her face in her plate of food) - no one else we were with was in that state. Having regularly helped get them home (they lived nowhere near me) I reached the point where I said fuck it they're on their own. They knew what they were doing and banked on idiots like me to put themselves out.

Trying to find E would only make matters worse. Either you all get out with her to be sick (in fairness they might not have had the time to react to this) or you go to your planned destination and send messages/try to get in contact. You cannot and will not find her if you're all going up and down the tube system separately in various states of drunkenness

I agree with this. Trying to find E in a crowded tube station in London when she could be literally anywhere and probably jumped on the next train back anyway is pointless. Especially when both of the other two had been drinking as well. It would be like trying to find a needle in haystack.

What happens when she's not there? you go to every tube station in London?

It's likely she jumped off so quickly they didnt have a chance to react. The only thing you can do in that scenario is try to contact her and/or contact her next of kin to make them aware. But roaming around London in a drunk state looking for one person in huge crowds of people is going to get you nowhere

So in this scenario it sounds like maybe friend E jumped off the train quite quickly if friend A didn't get off with her and got off at the next stop. It seems to me that the birthday girl might have a hard time finding either of them - she doesn't know if, for example friend E got on the next train or A went back a stop - which could mean they miss each other. If I were the birthday girl I think I might wait for them both for a bit when I got off at the destination, try and ring them both. But not sure what she could realistically do otherwise to find 2 drunk people who got off the train at random stops without agreeing where to meet.

Trying to find E would only make matters worse. Either you all get out with her to be sick (in fairness they might not have had the time to react to this) or you go to your planned destination and send messages/try to get in contact. You cannot and will not find her if you're all going up and down the tube system separately in various states of drunkenness.

If E got out at the station she wanted to be sick at, you won't find her. The likelihood is she got back on the next tube, fell asleep and could have ended up anywhere from St Pancras to Cockfosters. The tube at 8pm is not the worst place to do that, to be honest; it's a common occurrence and it's not too late.

I’d never get into a state where friends were in dager of being thrown out of a venue because I was falling asleep. I also would drink so much that I had to leave my friend group to be sick.

I would have got off at the same stop as Friend E in the first place. Hopefully lso with Friend A. But maybe Friend E has form for this and they are fed up. Long term, I would not socialise with either of them again as it would be stressful and embarrassing and not an enjoyable evening at all.

It's not a moral dilemma.

There's nothing moral or otherwise about adults getting so pissed they seemingly can't function and would rely on other adults that are friends with them to protect them.

It might be a friendship dilemma but it's not a moral one.

Jesus Christ, what do you reasonably expect OP to do ffs... lop her own ears off so she can't overhear any conversation at all EVER or wear ear-defenders on the tube and constantly get funny looks?

Regardless of any back story, you don’t abandon your friends. You asked for opinions, you’re getting opinions. All hypothetical. Anyone having a go at you OP should just scroll on by.

As one of them was so drunk during the show, had I been the one having the birthday I would’ve gone home after the show and not gone on to a bar. It was only going to get messy and the two who enjoyed that kind of mess could’ve looked after each other

I would never leave a friend who is off her head drunk alone. I didn't do it when I was a teenager / through my 20s when it was totally socially acceptable to gert shitfaced, and I wouldn't do it now in my 40s, albeit the chances are slim as none of my friends or I ever drink much anymore.

In this situation I would have jumped off the train at the first opportunity and gone back to find her. I also wouldn't be leaving London until I had succeeded, even if I had to call on Underground staff, police, etc.

I might also be rethinking the friendship if this was typical behaviour, but that could be thought over once the pain the ass friend was home safe in her own bed.