Hi, I’m new here and this has been weighing on my brain. I [25F] and my best friend [25F] met my senior year of college. Since college, we have stayed in touch, often traveling once a month to hangout and spend the weekend together. We live 3 hours apart.
She just recently got a boyfriend that I had never met or talked to. Their talking to exclusive phase was about 3 weeks.
I am a season ticket holder for our Alma mater and I thought it would be fun for her to bring him and we spend a day or two exploring our college town. We scheduled a date for them to come down. I typically ask people who come with me to games for $100/ticket. This is what I paid for each ticket, and if I resale them on an app I can usually get $300-$400/ticket. I had expressed this when we had talked in person but I didn’t have it in writing.
I also booked us an AirBnb for the night we would be down there. I live about an hour away, we all wanted to drink, and I wasn’t comfortable having her boyfriend I hadn’t met staying the night at my house. I had sent her the AirBnb previous and she had agreed for us to book it.
I texted her the week before and told her that my mom and I would be going down for brunch before the game, heading to the stadium at 11, and the game started at 12. She texted that she would try to make it by 12 but wasn’t sure. I told her she might want to come down a little earlier but up to her.
She also texted me to say that her boyfriend had just been fired from his semi-truck driving job for texting and driving multiple times, but he was going to work with an employment lawyer to put together a wrongful termination suit. I had texted her back and said if money was going to be an issue we could cancel and come up with something more economical for us all to do together. She insisted it wouldn’t be a problem.
We share locations so the day of, I was watching to make sure her drive was safe and see about what time she would get there so we could meet her. She left her house at 9:30 and had a 3 hour drive ahead of her to get to the stadium parking. 30 minutes in there was an accident ahead of her that redirected them an additional hour out of the way. They got to the parking at about 1:30 and walked into the stadium at 2:00. At that point, over half the game was over.
We hugged, said hi, and I told her I was about to head to get a drink. She said “oh can you get me one too?”. I felt like my temper was about to explode but I held my tongue, went and bought our drinks and came back.
The remainder of the game, my mom and I were jumping, cheering, clapping with the crowd, while they sat and looked bored. I tried to write it off as maybe something happened in the car or they just weren’t having fun but I all around just felt like they hadn’t wanted to be there at all.
After the game we went out for dinner. I had suggested the new burger place that was fun and had decent prices. Her boyfriend insisted we go the pricey Italian place.
We sat down for dinner and he proceeded to order an appetizer, a $30 glass of wine, and the $45 fish. The waiter had told us they could not split the bill at the table but my mom and I paid cash for our portions (including tax, 20% tip, and some extra) and left the rest of the bill for them. The boyfriend seemed shocked when we did this and made a comment about how he “didn’t realize we would be doing this Godfather style”. Note: I’ve never seen the Godfather and still don’t understand the reference.
For the remainder of the night, he proceeded to make backhanded comments about our sports team, our college town, the drinks at the places we went to, etc. I would respectfully challenge him as he usually had no idea what he was talking about and was being rude in my opinion. I later spoke to my mom to get her opinion of his actions and she agreed that he was being rude, but she got the sense that he’s not used to anyone, especially a woman, challenging him on his comments.
Overall, there was still fun had that night and we stayed out pretty late. The next morning the vibe was a little off again but I thought everyone was just hungover and tired. We left the AirBnb in our pairs. My mom and I were talking on the way home and realized my friend had never sent me any money for their part of the weekend.
I waited until the next day and thanked her for a good weekend and asked her if she could send me money for their part of the tickets and hotel. She said she hadn’t realized I wanted them to pay for the tickets since “they already had been paid for”. I told her sorry for that confusion but that I couldn’t afford to pay for all four people’s tickets. She said okay but she was going to have to split up her payment to me since she wasn’t expecting the “extra” $200. I told her that was fine. She sent me the first half and said she needed to get paid before she could send me the other half.
The next weekend, I was on my phone and saw her location was at the most expensive hotel in our state. I was floored by this but didn’t say anything. I periodically would check in because now my interest was piqued. I noticed she was also spending the day at a NASCAR track during one of their annual championships races. At this point I was l livid that she had enough money set aside for another lavish weekend but not enough to pay me back.
Two weeks later, she sent me the other half of the money. I thanked her for sending it and haven’t heard from her since. I don’t feel inclined to reach out to her and my feelings are hurt so deep from her overall treatment and disrespect of my mother and I. I have no interest in having friends that I have to teach them how to be respectful of my time, money, and their overall behavior. Would I be the a**hole if I ghost my best friend and decide to let this friendship go?