Am I being petty now?

[redappleandaquamarinebow1987]

So recently I got blocked by a friend who said due to our differences she no longer wants to be my friend. I tried to message and say we don't need to politically agree to be friends etc but she had blocked me by that time. What we had disagreed about is a certain banning of private schools. I tried to rationally discuss why it would not work and how it would make the inequalities even bigger. I have no problem with people disagreeing but she kept flooding my phone with messages. I was on holiday at disney so really had better things to do then agrue over what I thought was a trivial subject at the moment. It was when she started with the personal attacks such as 'i guess we are so diffrent some times sacrafices have to be made for the benefit of the community' so I got a bit petty and said 'maybe people earning over 25k a year and are childless can pay a bit more tax to fund the improvement of the schools' I don't think that is the solution either but I wanted to see how she would react if she thought she would be having to make sacrifices. To give an accurate picture this friend goes on 5 forgein trips a year, eats out every night as a food shop is such boring grind, and goes on 5-10 fun weekend away to enjoy a niche subculture hobby. I don't begrudge her any of this she works bloody hard for it. Anyway this caused a response that people on 25k are barely getting by as it is. I then said 'sacrafices have to be made' which is the exact thing she said to me. Not my finest hour but was by that point just fed up of her personal attacks. All this led to me being blocked on every way of contact. Now I knew her well enough to know she had run right onto twitter to vent.

I was a bit down as I had been a good supportive friend until that point. If she ever needed to vent I was there for her to listen and be on her side. If she was sick I would check up on her, message to ask how she was doing, during her year abroad if she was home sick or lonely I would send treats her way to cheer her up a bit and just tried to be there for her. I did talk to fiancé about the situation and concluded if she should calm down and want to be friends again I would be happy though I am not sure the strain and awkwardness this has caused will ever fully go away.

3 weeks ago I made a new twitter dedicated to books and reading etc. I have really been getting into booktube and wanted to be part of it to engage with other people that like to read. So I set up a twitter in time for victober and shared my victorian book list I was going to read that month etc.

Anyway with my new twitter I was now able to see my former friend's twitter so I thought I would have a peak at what she said about our argument etc. I have to say after reading it she has burned any bridges by posting what she said. It was completely slanderous. She literally called my view on banning private school extremist right wing (obivius lie), that I was flooding her phone (i send 1 message for ever 5 she send so that was another lie, that she was crying begging me to stop to agree to disagree etc( again another lie). The amount of patronising snide comments from her I had put up with that I read on twitter (hurtful as I was just trying to be a good friend and trying to give advice about her health and work etc and was told I don't understand how the office world works etc) I was already used to but this took things to a new level I feel and are down right slanderous. If she came to apologise now I would no longer be interested in any attempt to patch things up. Thing is making friends is hard for me. I am rather shy so was happy to find someone that shared some interests with me etc. Another issue is that it is a niche hobby so I do keep dreading I will see her at an event if I go to one etc. Am I beinf petty at all to say that the lies she said online is the final straw and there is no way back?

Then you should have blocked her too. You are angry only because she did it to you first. She doesn't want to be your friend anymore. It's her choice.

@TimetohittheroadJack

She earns 25k a year and can afford 5 holidays, plus 10 weekends away a year!

She eats out every night too!

@crashcourseinbrainsurgery I don't block people just because we had a political disagreement. I would just know in future to keep convos limited to cocktails, kingsella book, or the newest pokemon/style boutique/animal crossing or other cute nintendo game coming out. Fiancé's friends all voted differently to each other yet all get along and after the argument you move past it and talk about football or who pays for the next pint

@DowntownAbby yes a food shop is too much of a grind for her 😏

It’s a very strange argument to have. She has no kids and couldn’t afford private school even if she did. So why does she care if they are banned or not?

You were both being ridiculous but now you're stalking her on Twitter

This always makes me laugh. How is it stalking? The OPs ex friend put a comment up TO BE SEEN PUBLICLY.

Once you mention something like someone not having children, it's not political matter anymore, you brought it down to personal level. Can't you not see that?

@TimetohittheroadJack it seemed she had completely bought into corbyn vision and agrees with him on everything as if he is some kind new god etc. I did not mind and just ignored her tweets etc. She is allowed her opinion as much as I am allowed mine and as long there is no personal attacks etc I could not care less and would just talk about other stuff with her I stayed clear of the topic it's only when she texted me directly this argument happened etc.

@crashcourseinbrainsurgery she brought it to a personal level saying I should not have free choice of school I want to send my children to. She directed it at me. That it was my job to send them to the closest school and my job and my sacrifice to make it bettet for all children if I think it is failing etc that's when I said what I did

Fucking hell, I'd have dumped you as a friend as well as it's obvious you don't like her, resent her choices and her political views. Private schools increase inequality and some of those "failing" schools you mention may well have had their budgets slashed thanks to our dear Tory govt and their new funding formula. Many of those schools are in the more deprived areas and have more children in their catchment areas with SEN, problems at home etc. Thus widening inequalities even more.

@Leighhalfpennysthigh I don't resent her's provided she does not resent mine either. I fully accept people can have their own opinions

If what you've written here is anything to go by, no you don't and by making the argument about her lack of children you are making it a personal attack - as you have done throughout this thread. I would like to hear her side of the story as I think it is probably different to yours.

And by the way I'm childless too. Doesn't mean I don't know what's going on with schools or that I don't have an opinion on education.

This always makes me laugh. How is it stalking? The OPs ex friend put a comment up TO BE SEEN PUBLICLY

Because the OP was blocked, and then set up a new account to go and snoop on her ex friends twitter? It’s a bit sad and weird

@Leighhalfpennysthigh so you don't find what she said to me before I made that comment a personal attack? if someone attacks me of course I fight back

@Derbee again I did not make it for that it's just to keep my irl friends and book friends separated. I am pretty sure come December none of my friends want to read about some bookie trials and being a squire doing 12 hour reading challenges and what my deamon to acompany on my trial is etc or that they will have much interest in what victorian book I read etc. It's a public profile all I need to do is log out and look up the account 😂

No I don't. As a society we need to make sacrifices. That's what she would have meant because that's what the Labour ethos is under Corbyn.

There's no need to badger me by the way, because I disagree with you. I'm just some random on MN and have nothing invested in this argument. I posted to say I disagree with you and why, as is the way I'm AIBU. You can either accept or not. But hell, if you were my friend I'd have dumped you too.

You still had a choice to argue back with your rational reasoning. You have used emotional subject to shut her up.

@redappleandaquamarinebow1987 you clearly think you’re in the right. So how about you block her too, and you both go about your lives without them other in it?

To answer your original question. You are not being petty to be annoyed at the situation. But you would be petty to do anything about it now. Just move on

@crashcourseinbrainsurgery I do admit I was wrong there. It was provoked but I was wrong to react the way I did.

Judging by your responses to us randoms on here, I would hazard a guess that what you saw in her Twitter feed while you were snooping (why ffs?) was probably a more accurate record of the argument than we're getting on here.

You are forced to send the child to the nearest school failing or not, you don't get to select a school based on an ethos you agree with etc.

What, like most people have to? Perhaps if there were no private schools that the government can send their children to, they'll put more effort into improving the education system.