This happened all the way back in 2020 and I cant stop thinking that I might be in the wrong.
For context I (F) was 10 at the time and my friend who I will call Holly (F) was 11. We were best friends since the age of five. And we were great expect we would always fight over little things, like the story I will get into.
So, we are sitting in English class reading this book and writing down our thoughts on the piece.
I have Hay fever and it was the middle of spring. My main symptom of Hay fever is itchy eyes, they burn so bad and if i don’t itch them it feels like my eyes are on fire.
Holly is sitting across from me when I feel the burning, so I naturally go to scratch my eye, nothing big I’m not hitting the guy next to me trying to stop the itch, just normal rubbing my finger back and forth across my eye. While I’m in the middle of scratching Holly looks up at me and she says "Stop itching your eye, its distracting me". I apologies and tell her that I will try to stop, but it hurts so bad. It gets to the point were I can’t see what I am reading from the amount that my eye was watering.
This is where I might be the AH. I knew it would upset her to keep itching my eye, but I couldn’t help it. As soon as I put my hand towards my eye she says " I told you to stop. Your distracting everybody arounds us, cant you see how annoying you are? Why do you only ever think about yourself? The whole table was silent, and they were all looking at me. I was so embarrassed I just said I was sorry and finished reading.
After class I went up to her to apologies again, she told me I was "an awful friend" and that "she would need time to get over this". She only started talking to me again four days later and then acted like everything was normal.
So I just want to know peoples thoughts because I truly don’t know if I was completely out of line for this or if it was just another silly fight between us.
NTA but this is silly
NTA. You were 10 years old, dealing with a medical condition, that caused real physical discomfort. Scratching your eye is an instinctive response, not a “selfish” or “trying to be a distraction” thing. Frankly, Holly should have apologized for calling you awful and embarrassing you over something you can’t control.
They were also in class, in person, during covid lockdown.
Why do people use the verb itching for scratching an itch? Is that a definition of itching?
it’s not, but you understand what they mean right?
Maybe it’s a regional variation?
NTA – i don’t want to diminish your feelings at all because everything is huge when you’re 10-15 years old, but you have to let this go. she started talking to you again 4 days later and this was five YEARS ago. you seem like a very empathetic person but maybe to a fault, because you should not still be this worried about this situation. please allow yourself to let it go, everyone has moments they will think about and cringe forever, but they don’t make you an asshole x
Who had in person class in the spring of 2020? What 10 year old says “you only ever think of yourself?. This whole thing is weird.
It’s gotta be fake.
In the spring of 2020 everyone was in lockdown, so this didn’t happen.
I get it’s hard for you to let go of these little moments in the past, I still think back to moments 19+ years ago. You have to remind yourself that those people moved on from then long ago. Holding onto these feelings and beating yourself up over them doesn’t change what happened. You’re a human having a human experience. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were sick. Itching your eye isn’t even anything worth considering distracting. Your friend was just a 10yr old having 10yr old emotions that don’t often make sense because you guys were still learning how to manage and process them.
I call BS. There were no in-person classes for school children starting in spring of 2020, and *if* there were and you showed any signs of being sick, you were not allowed at school.