Immoral actions that I did in school made everyone avoid me
17F
I was never fond of friendships during middle school, mainly because of covid I usually isolate myself from everyone, not really having the needed interactions my 12-14-year-old self needed up until around 8th grade, where I sort of found a group to belong, but high school rolled around, and I transferred to another school away from everyone, mainly for CTE (Career and Technical Education).
I wanted to have a clean start in 9th grade, so I mainly focused on improving my grades and hopefully finding another group to belong to.
For the most part, I was able to achieve my goal of significantly improving my grades from middle school, but I just couldn't find a friend group, let alone a friend who matches my interests.
Until I met her (16F now), Kylie (filler name), during Algebra 1. I forgot how exactly we met, but I knew that we clicked. We bonded over fairly niche interests and would oftentimes message each other outside of school. Although I never really had a hangout with her outside of school (other than that one field trip to an amusement park)
Kylie then introduced me to her friends (which was more of her talking to them in front of me), and for the most part, I got along with some of them just fine during 9th grade.
Until I decided during the summer of 9th grade to randomly sign into my school’s Clever portal using my student ID, and then tried Kylie’s using the same generic password. And that was when I realized that this password was easily accessible. I was just scrolling around the apps, from IXL to Navience, until I realized that when I went to settings, I could see both the GPA and HOME ADDRESS of the student. My main regret from this situation was that instead of reporting this issue to the administration, I wanted to find everyone else’s IDs. So I told Kylie about it, and she thought that was funny and wanted to see if it was actually true, so she gave me her Best friend’s ID. And from there, I spent hours inputting random IDs that were in the range of theirs (Kylie and her best friend’s) (31----) because I had nothing else to do during the summer.
I never told anyone about it until January 2025 (10th), and I never really realized how bad it was.
They all (the friend group I was now in) told me it was a crazy thing I did, but they were still curious about stats like who has the lowest and highest GPA. Even some people asked me where some of my peers lived. (We all didn’t realize how highly illegal it was)
Another regrettable thing I did was to be a show-off about academics and usually downplay everyone else’s achievements.
For example, I usually score high on tests, but I often end up saying stuff like, “I got a 100!!” very enthusiastically, hoping for some validation. I also end up getting really jealous when someone does manage to score higher, but I attempted to be cool about it. Another example would be when I often shout out Kylie's grades to her face, since she gave me access to her login for the grading platform we use. Although I don't really remember why, I think it was because I used it to compare my grades and realize the large margin, and then tell her about it while being really insensitive.
But it indeed does become tiring and annoying when a person consistently does this. But no one said anything until later.
At this point, I do try to change a bit; I try to be less intrusive and prideful, although I remain jealous of others' grades.
Even recently, in 11th grade, I scored low on a mock math exam. When I compared my result with someone from my friend group, I was shocked to see that she had scored higher than I did. In my frustration, I ended up blaming my teacher for my low score, along with other problems, without realizing the difficulty of the course, which implied that the girl wasn't smart or capable of performing better than I.
In a way, I was still violating privacy. There was a time when I had to borrow a laptop from a person named Charlie (17f) for my classwork because I had left mine at home. Out of curiosity, I accessed her autofilled school grading platform account to check her grades without her knowledge. I know that was wrong. I also considered saving the account credentials for Kylie's account, but I wanted to be more discreet about it this time.
I eventually told her, and she told me to sign out of it, so I did and apologized.
The avoidance began recently, around earlier this year. I noticed that Kylie was maintaining her distance from me. I tried to reach out, but she didn't respond. So I went into her school account (i know) and went through her messages to find what happened instead of directly asking her. Apparently, it was because I accidentally hit her with my bag a little too hard (we were playfighting), so I went ahead and apologized, saying that I would not do it again.
But, still, over time, our conversations became shorter, and I noticed that she was starting to hang out with others more often, more than her now best friend (an incident happened with her previous one), which was me. So out of spite, I still stayed quiet, hoping it would resolve eventually. After, I essentially talked to her using the school messaging app and hoped to reconcile.
Even though we did, nothing about our current situation changed. I tried to be upfront about it, but to no avail. So again, out of spite, I isolated myself from the group. I stopped talking to everyone, watching them have fun while I sat by myself with my headphones on so I wouldn't hear them.
I eventually confided in Charlie, hoping to find some resolve, until I had a conversation with her and Kylie.
What happened today (5-08-26) made me realize that I was completely at fault.
The conversation was kind of an intervention, where I firstly discussed my side of the story, where I felt like I was being ignored, no matter how much I spoke up.
Then Charlie and Kylie both discussed their perspective, where they said they tried to include me multiple times in the group's conversation, but it became increasingly difficult. One of them made the remark that no matter how many times they try to include me, it was ultimately my discretion to keep it going. They also mentioned how I would often intrude on others' privacy, whether through the grading platform or the IDs with the addresses and GPAs. This, as a result, caused the people in the group to start avoiding me, since they expressed that they felt uncomfortable that I had such sensitive information at their disposal. (They finally realized how wrong it was)
Kylie mentioned that she told her mom about this, how this has been a thing since 9th grade and got scolded because she didn't call it out, and now it has spiraled out of control.
Charlie didn't tell her parents, but if she told her dad, she believed she would be the one scolded, despite my problematic behavior and her dad reporting me to law enforcement.
I felt like a burden at this point.
What finally hit the nail on the coffin was them finishing their conversation, telling me that I can't be friends with them after this, and then going to the bathroom together. They came back, but only to get their stuff and move somewhere else for the rest of the final period of class.
I lost everyone because of what I did recently and in the past, and I don't even know where to begin.
I can't confide in anyone else (not even my parents), so I come here.
I'm seeking advice on how to apologize sincerely and become a better person. I truly regret my actions, but I feel hopeless.