A bridesmaid has been praised online for abandoning the bride alone at the bridal salon for making fun of her behind her back.
In a recent Reddit post shared to the popular “Am I The A**hole?” subreddit, a woman explained that one of college roommates, named Shelly, is getting married. Their other college roommate, Gaby, is her maid of honor, while she was also asked to be a bridesmaid.
According to the Reddit poster, Shelly was going to go look at wedding dresses one day when Gaby was called into work at the last minute.
And so she went along with the bride alone. As she was trying on dresses, Shelly instructed her to use her phone to take photos to send to her mother and to Gaby, the post read.
“I was getting the camera ready when a text from Gaby came through. I didn’t mean to click on it and was instantly going to click back out when I saw one of my Instagram pictures in their private chat from earlier that morning. Both were making fun of me for the face I was making and my outfit choice. It didn’t appear to be very good nature,” the Reddit poster explained.
She decided to take this further and search her name to see if there were other occasions when the pair of them were talking about her.
She quickly learned that this wasn’t the only time the bride and maid-of-honor had made fun of her, the post read.
“I found multiple pictures that I, my boyfriend or my mom have posted of myself, absolutely ripping them to shreds,” she wrote. “Ranging from selfies to posed shots to even a few baby pictures. They’d also make fun of me in general in terms of the way I talked, wore my hair and the way I ate. This went back as far as I could tell, at least a year.”
The bridesmaid detailed how much seeing the messages had hurt her as someone who was bullied as a child, and how she had never talked negatively about either of her friends in the same manner.
After seeing the messages she decided she could no longer “fake being happy” for Shelly and decided to leave the salon without telling her. “Shelly texted me by the time I made it home asking where I went. I said I was going home and we could talk later. When she did call a few hours later, she was understandably confused and hurt that I left. I told her what I found, explaining that I only looked further because of the initial text I accidentally saw,” the post continued.
This led to an argument with Shelly thinking her privacy was violated and that there was no reason for her to leave without warning, the post read.
“Shelly told me the texts were ‘all in good fun’ and clearly she loves me because I’m going to be her bridesmaid. She added that I’m only hurt because I chose to read all those texts. Later on, Gaby called to tell me that I invaded Shelly’s privacy and hurt her by walking out,” the post concluded.
Redditers were quick to give their opinions on the situation, with many defending her decision to walk out and encouraging the bridesmaid to go further by dropping out of the wedding entirely.
“If I was in your place, I think I’d drop out of being in the wedding. It’s one thing to jokingly make fun of someone one time but seems like they have done this to you a bunch of times,” one comment began.
“And it doesn’t seem like it was light-hearted. If I was you I wouldn’t feel bad about looking through those messages at all, she handed her phone to you and feels like fate took the opportunity to expose them to you for who they are.”
Another commenter agreed, writing: “Neither of these girls are your friend. They are deceitful mean girls who didn’t even have the decency to apologize after you found out that they were being mean to you and secretly ganging up on you. They are bullies and you are doing a disservice to yourself to continue relationships with either of them.
“Take out your phone, block their numbers, and take the time to find real friends who love and respect you. You don’t need them and they certainly don’t value you So don’t give them a single second more of your energy. Love yourself and respect yourself enough to know that you deserve better.”