This is both a ‘do I let this person go’ and a ‘who is unreasonable’. My friends all say that i am NBU but I wanted a less biased view on things and that’s fallen on the MN jury. This is going to be long. Sorry!
I’ve been part of an online community for years and years (9/10 now) since I was roughly eleven. Within this community I quickly made friends, some of which I kept in contact with to this day. One of these friends I’m going to call SF (Shady Friend)
Shady Friend and I have been friends ever since I joined the community and, at eleven, I developed somewhat of a crush on this person. Yes, silly I know, but I was eleven and knew no better. Shady Friend told me that they lived nearby and there were always murmurings about meeting up, but nothing ever came of it. I asked SF out of curiosity what their name was, what they looked like - stuff that sort of developed over time especially since they asked me the same - but they would always avoid the questions in some way or outright be frosty/cold with me. Something which always confused me was that SF would mention that they were e.g. playing MarioKart or using their DS but if I said ‘oh, we could play together!’ there was always a convenient excuse for it, ‘Oh I dropped it, it’s broken’ (only to then upload a photo from the DS) or, ‘Oh, I can’t FaceTime you, I can’t show you a selfie, my camera is broken’ (only to then blatantly use and upload something from their camera.)
However. There was NEVER anything sexual in our conversations and even as we (I) moved to adulthood there’s never anything sexual - not once have I felt they are or were trying to groom or take advantage of me.
A few years later we had an argument about something unrelated and SF moved away, then we lost contact.
Which leads us to now. As the years have gone by me and SF have regained contact; most recently last year. Last year it came out that SF was lying to me about their age and where they lived - it transpires that they have lived in the USA for their entire life - not close to me at all - and are much older than they initially made out. This information spooked me and I demanded to know how old they actually were - moreso because he was talking to me as a child and had asked me the same. Again SF avoided the question and was being very evasive about their age. SF promised me they would tell me ‘all I needed to know’ then bailed and twisted it onto me - ‘you’re being unreasonable and stalkerish asking me for this information and I don’t want to share it with you’ and... that was that.
I blocked SF and left it at that as I thought it would be best if I let our friendship fizzle. The problem is, the blocking system on this forum is awful, so they were still able to view all of my forum activity and created two or three further accounts to contact me with asking what they had done wrong and why had I blocked them, had I told about our arguments as she had also blocked them? etc etc etc. It was relentless and eventually I unblocked Shady (pointless reporting them for harassment or the like as the reports system is also shit, reports never get through and are never looked at
...and... since then we have been in some sort of limbo, talking very minimally but with SF making it very clear that I was wrong. Still I know nothing about them - and cannot really believe what they tell me regardless - and we rarely talk as it is. They don’t allow me to tag them in any posts online (SF doesn’t want anybody else to see their profile - how they manage that on a public forum I don’t know)
Sorry for the essay! But the background is needed. My question is, is it unreasonable of me to have asked SF these things? Should I apologise to Shady for my own behaviour toward him these last few years? If the MN jury says I should, I most likely will as I know you aren’t going to praise me in the way that a friend would iyswim? I am fully happy to accept I had some form of responsibility in this mess and fully ready to apologise. Thank you for reading this essay 😅