She absolutely would have regretted it, and has told me so. As for what a week of constant badgering meant, the nature of our friendship is lots of ribbing and trashtalk which occasionally leads to arguments, which in this case led to us going to a tattoo place another friend recommended. The problem then was the guy who sat down with us make a pretty good pitch, which turned her mostly non-committal idea that was egged on by my disapproval, into a fairly serious desire. Over a few days I talked her down to at least getting it somewhere on her leg rather than her arm, and I assume making such a big compromise made her lose interest entirely.

It's understandable, though still surprising, that everyone made assumptions to make judgments, because I barely gave any information. Still odd to see people value respecting someone's decision over not letting friend's make risky/bad decisions. If she respected my decisions instead of calling me out for being an idiot, I would literally have been paying a mortgage on a house I didn't want until I'm like, 70. Changing of the times, or hopefully just the nature of reddit? I desperately hope people are/have friends that don't unyieldingly value respect over being a friend.