[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Quantum Boy

Interpersonal relationships are not a court of law and I find the jist of that in the article extremely concerning. I'll include an exhaustive list below of the evidence required to step away from a personal relationship of any kind with any person:

#1 You no longer want to be around them.

There you go. That's the full evidence list.


Now like I said, I'm not without sympathy for him, it's a shame that he lacked the coping mechanisms to deal with this event in his life, but he wasn't being arrested, he wasn't even being reported, he wasn't going to prison - he just behaved in a way that his friends didn't like, and they didn't want to be around him any more. That is a completely normal part of life. What in the living hell is this idea that friendship groups need to continue to be inclusive of someone unless there's some sort of "strong case" to end that friendship?

More concerningly still, I think the article suggests (at best) the idea that the girl involved should have kept her discomfort at whatever went down between them to herself, in order to protect the other person involved... or at worst, it leans heavily into the "two sides to every story", "she wanted attention", "she was lying" implications because there "wasn't enough evidence".

Again to reiterate; sure, there was no evidence of a crime being committed and that was never even a suggestion. This isn't a legal issue. She simply was uncomfortable with his behaviour, told people about it, they didn't like it either, he found himself in a bad social situation because of that (again, normal, everyday stuff) and unfortunately he was, for whatever reason, not emotionally stable enough to be able to handle that. ONLY that last part is relevant here. No one "owes" anyone their friendship.

They chucked a friendship away based off of an allegation.

Of course they have the right to do that, but people (myself included) also have the right to judge them negatively for it.

I wouldn't want friends like that, and I doubt that anyone else would either.