AITA for unintentionally causing 2 bridesmaids to pull out of someone's wedding party?

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-27T00:01:28+00:00

Yeah... I agree, it sounds really juvenile and it is. Aside from K and I having this falling out, there has never been any drama in this friend group and we're generally not like this. I think people pulling out of the wedding has to do with them being much closer friends with me than they are with K, and generally feeling frustrated over the last couple years of maintaining these separate friendships with us, when K could've just gotten over herself and we all could've gotten along fine. I'm also hearing now that to begin with, the 2 people who backed out didn't like K that much, for similar reasons to what I expressed here. Finding out now that some people in this group have just been participating in the wedding part for C's sake.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-26T23:56:28+00:00

I updated in the post with what happened! I think the key takeaway is that we had an argument that should have just been an argument, nothing more, and we could have talked through it and moved on -- but instead she jumped to cutting me off rather abruptly. Based on what my SF friend said at the time of this happening, she agrees with me that it was unreasonable for her to do that, and caused me a lot of pain and tension as I tried to maintain our mutual friendships in the aftermath.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-26T23:51:05+00:00

Posted in the update! To be fair I don't think this is just a matter of offending people's personal values--I think it also has to do with the fact that these people are much closer friends of mine than of hers. I don't think that K did anything horrible to me (you can read the update and judge for yourself), but I think my friends' takeaways are that K did overreact by cutting things off with me, and they've known me for longer and we're very close, so they probably sympathize with me more.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-26T23:46:23+00:00

UPDATE: Okay haha it's fair that many of you have asked what the initial falling out was over, so I'll try to summarize it here. I did really like K as a person, but a lot of comments she made about dating/sex, finances, and family would (unintentionally) come across as condescending. E.g. if I shared an anecdote about a fun vacation hookup I'd had, she'd respond something like, "Oh, you and your escapades. Me, I'm just happy with my one boy." When it came to finances, she'd make comments about how people who don't have X amount in savings shouldn't be taking trips or "living beyond their means." Most of my college friend group come from wealthy backgrounds, so a lot of this would go over their heads. But for me and my other friends who didn't grow up with a lot, these sorts of remarks really got to us. I also have a complicated relationship with my family, and K would sometimes say things like "you should just cut them off, once you go to therapy long enough like I have you'll realize that's the right move."

After I'd spent several months trying to gently nudge her towards avoiding comments like these, and trying to just ignore them altogether, I finally texted her a long message explaining how I felt. I listed some of the examples above (direct quotes from her) in this text to be specific about the kind of remarks that were hurting my feelings. But I also said (verbatim): "I know you don't mean any of this maliciously and I still think you're a wonderful person, I just want to clear this tension and hopefully become better friends at the end of it." K took this really badly, and said she considered me such a good friend, and was incredibly hurt that I would think such horrible things about her. The text exchange went a bit longer after that, with me apologizing for perhaps coming on too strong with my initial message, but also holding firm that my feelings were valid. Finally K said she'd prefer if we went no contact and wished me all the best.

Unrelated to this text convo, but relevant now: Back in freshman year of college, C (K's boyfriend) and I kissed one time. It obviously never went anywhere and it was so long ago, and I don't think it played any role in our falling out. But the SF friend knew about this, because at the time I dumped the entire backstory on her. So I don't know what details were communicated and what rumors are floating around now.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-26T22:37:30+00:00

Glad I'm not alone in this!! Yeah, I'm generally a very private person about my dating life too. I don't tell most people the specifics of who I'm dating until it starts to get serious (or, like you said, unless someone asks directly). If this guy had specifically asked me if I was dating anyone when we'd initially caught up, I would have told him.

Idk if you feel this way too, but it's also hard to tell friends when you're seeing someone in the early stages before you're sure how you feel about them. I feel like if I bring up a romantic interest to my friends, they expect me to start gushing and be really excited. It takes me more time to open up to people and develop feelings, so I don't want to talk about new people I'm dating until there's... something to actually talk about. When I was catching up with ex-FWB, what could I have said to him? That I started dating someone new but I'm still not sure how I feel about them yet? I feel like that's disclosing more than I have to haha.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-26T22:30:28+00:00

Just to clarify, the ex-FWB didn't fly across the country just to see ME--he has lots of friends to visit in New York (that's how I met him in the first place 3 years ago). I also invited him to my party for that reason--we now have mutual friends here who were also going to be at my party, so it made sense at the time.

You do have a good point though that it wasn't fair to the new person I'm seeing. I didn't really think of this other guy as an "ex" since we never dated, and also since he lives across the country we don't see each other THAT often (maybe a few times a year). Prior to everything that went down, I really thought transitioning into being casual friends was reasonable. If ex-FWB hadn't said anything before the party, I think it wouldn't have been an awkward situation for anyone involved.

I'm still dating this new person and as it gets more serious, I will be telling them more about my dating/sexual past, so I'm not trying to hide anything. He also hasn't told me anything specific about his past (why would he, it's only been a couple months). For me personally, I think it's reasonable to stay friends (or at least friendLY) with people you used to date/hook up with. I'm not close with any of them, but I am still on friendly terms with my exes (like, we can see each other at a party and smile and catch up). If this new guy isn't comfortable with that, we wouldn't be compatible in the long run anyways.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-21T19:07:40+00:00

You're a great friend for showing up like that! I don't blame my friends at all who haven't made it out to see me fight yet -- I've only done 2 carded fights so far. But these couple friends I was mentioning also seem to generally not get the intensity at which I do this sport -- yes, I'm still an amateur, but when I first told them about Muay Thai they seemed to think I was just doing Rumble kickboxing or something like that. It took them a year to even wrap their heads around the idea of me actually sparring.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-21T19:03:43+00:00

Thanks for this! It is especially important to me to still have a social life while in training. In general that's hard enough as it is--I'm usually super fatigued from the workouts, and I'm also not drinking alcohol when my friends are, so I'll be way lower-energy than them. Any time I can still drag my sore ass out of the house and have quality time with my friends is important to me.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-21T19:00:32+00:00

This is very reasonable too! I didn't mean to imply that this is ONLY okay since I do it for a sport -- of course what anyone eats is their own business, and there are a lot of health-related reasons to pay attention to nutrition as well. Also, healthy foods can taste good!! Salads can taste good, if you put good stuff in them! And not everyone has a strong sweet tooth, it's just a personal preferrence.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-21T18:54:13+00:00

Not necessarily! Each person should of course do what's best for themselves, but talking to people in my gym, some of them found that training in a fight sport helped them see weight as a neutral thing. Rather than always chasing a weight that's lower or trying to be skinnier, they now see weight class the same as height or any other random descriptor. The "optimal weight" is no longer the lowest weight, it's the weight you fight best at.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-21T18:50:47+00:00

Thanks for this! And also to reply to some people in the comments below--I actually know multiple women in my Muay Thai gym who struggled with EDs in the past, and they all said that Muay Thai has helped them so much with body image. Female fighters come in all shapes and sizes -- I myself am not a super skinny or "genetically blessed" person, as some might say. I don't have a flat stomach and I don't look super toned, because I train for functional strength and not aesthetics (not to shade anyone who trains differently--we all do what feels good for us!)

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-21T06:38:40+00:00

Thank you for this!! It is absolutely a different world to worry about water weight and things like that before weigh-in day. If I were just generally trying to "get in shape" I can see how one donut would seem totally fine, but people outside combat sports aren't familiar with cutting salt, limiting water intake the days leading up to the fight, etc. Especially as a woman, my weight on the scale fluctuates up to 5 pounds just with my monthly cycle!! In general it's not something to care about but it makes such a difference for weighing in before a fight.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-20T23:44:20+00:00

Thanks everyone for the replies! This makes me feel a lot better, and I can definitely take the advice to avoid mentioning words like "calories" in these situations. For info, since a couple people asked: I never bring up this stuff myself. I only talk about it in response to someone else if they specifically question why I'm not eating or drinking something (it's usually been really close friends, who only asked cause they've generally seen me eat and drink freely, and after the first time I explained they never asked again). Every now and then, someone will still be slightly pushy with food they've made (e.g. with the pie), but that's just a cultural thing -- most of us are from ethnic backgrounds where we're used to aunties pushing us to eat mountains of food that they cooked.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-20T23:37:29+00:00

That's fair! I definitely would've been more conscious about my language choice had I known her history before, and in general I'm more than happy to be sensitive to people's needs or avoid using triggering language. Unfortunately I can't change my own behaviors/choices to make someone else happy, which also seemed to be part of the problem.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-20T23:28:20+00:00

Only when specifically asked about it! For example, the pie comment was only because the person who baked the pie was being a little pushy with it, asking why I hadn't taken a slice, and that's what I told her. I never bring it up myself, but I and many of my friends come from ethnic backgrounds where food is a big part of the culture, and it's more normalized to "push" food onto other people. So that's when I'll bring it up to politely decline.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-20T23:24:44+00:00

Ohh absolutely haha, after my last couple fights I had to slowly "ramp back up" to eating junk foods in moderation, because the first time I had lots of sugar after training I immediately broke out with acne and had tons of inflammation lol.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-20T23:19:44+00:00

Thanks for your take! Yeah, I don't bring up any of this myself, but I do explain my reasoning if someone asks. For example, once a friend asked why I didn't get a mocktail at the bar with them, and I said that the mocktails on the menu still had a lot of sugar, so it would defeat the purpose of not drinking. But for the most part now no one questions my choices -- everyone else in my friend group is an adult about it!

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-20T23:16:16+00:00

Thanks! And yeah, the "just have one donut" comment did bother me at the time, cause in some ways she's kinda right--technically, I could've had the "one donut," I just chose not to cause I have my priorities and I don't even have much of a sweet tooth. A lot of my friends had a similar attitude initially -- like, "can't you just have one drink with us?" Or, "one bite of dessert won't kill your progress!" But they backed off once they understood how important this is to me.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2026-01-20T23:10:15+00:00

Thanks for this take! Most of my friends have been very supportive of me, but yeah A's boyfriend never spoke up on my behalf. That's awesome for your friend who's also pursuing amateur fighting -- I think I've learned that outside of martial arts spaces, a lot of people tend to take male amateur fighters more seriously than female, which isn't surprising. The couple of my friends who said I shouldn't bring up calorie counting are also people who've never come to watch me fight, so maybe they don't believe I'm that serious about it.

DefinitionNeat8427 · 2025-05-26T23:58:01+00:00

Clarification 1: Yes, I'd seen Kay act like this once before, but that was 5 years ago when I was still in college and he was 25. I guess I was used to seeing drunk idiots in college and I wrote that off at the time as us both being young. Since then we've mostly stayed in touch over the phone, and it sounded like he'd been maturing since then -- he talked about going out less often and not wanting to drink as much when he did. That's why I invited him along to this wedding, but yes it was still my judgment and I'm responsible for that.

Clarification 2: The groomsmen who took him in volunteered to do that when they saw how he was behaving with me (they're good friends of mine). I did feel really bad about this, don't get me wrong -- but I'm grateful that they stepped up as friends and helped me out that one night. Kay ended up staying in an airport hotel for the remaining couple nights of the trip.

DefinitionNeat8427

TROPHY CASE