For background information, I (16F) have been friends with this girl (16F) for about a year and we are all in a group consisting of 9 people. Additionally, it is very well known that my friend hates cheese and we all joke around about it constantly while the friend usually joins in. So for April Fools day, my friends and I printed multiple images of animated cheese and an image of a mouse with her face in the middle. At school, we secretly put the images inside of her locker and thought it would be a funny prank which would make her laugh. However, when she opened the locker, she got super mad, closed it, and walked away without saying anything. She later told a friend involved in the prank that the act ruined her day. We were all super confused but apologized nonetheless. To this day, (this happened last year) if the prank ever gets brought up she gets very mad and shuts down. The issue is that she never told us why she got mad in the first place. So AITA?
Edit: I’m seeing some people asking for more information, so here are the answers to that. We all apologized a bunch afterwards and we only brought it up again when we were talking about things that had happened in the past school year, and things that we still felt sorry for. One of our friends who was closer to her did ask what had happened and what we did that made her upset so we would understand what happened and so it wouldn’t happen again, but she never explained and just said it ruined her day. We stopped bringing it up after that since we thought that was what she preferred, and so she wouldn’t get upset again. We also joke and tease each other about similar things all the time, and whenever someone says something that makes them uncomfortable, we always stop talking about it and respect what they’re saying. We had brought up the fact that this would be a fun April Fools prank a few times in the past as well, and she always laughed and never said anything that indicated to us that she was uncomfortable otherwise.
NAH is my take. Seems like you wanted to tease her a little bit with a harmless prank and never intended to hurt her. It seems like the action triggered something within her that may connect to other pain in her life. I don’t think anyone is at fault for their emotions here.
Stop teasing her about not liking cheese, she reached her breaking point on that tease
Yes after a certain point any teasing gets old after a while and then it feels like bullying.
And teasing, even when innocent, about food can cause problems down the line…
>So for April Fools day
And your posting this NOW in January? Smells fishy.
YTA. Pranks inherently make you an asshole. I get that it’s a spectrum, but they always involve screwing with someone, and therefore some amount of maliciousness.
YTA. not for putting the pictures up in the first place although that seems silly, but your friend was clearly upset by it did a bare minimum of apologizing (which I’m guessing did not feel sincere to her) and then you apparently keep bringing it up even though it continues to upset her.
We all have been in a situation where we’ve upset someone without meaning to, or had a joke go poorly. When that happens, the other person does not owe you an explanation as to why, because you’re not some judge who gets to decide if it’s a good enough explanation. You just apologize, make it right, and don’t do it repeatedly.
INFO: Did you and your friends apologize for the prank? Have you asked her why it upset her- specifically in a way that suggests you want to understand her better and ***not*** in a way that demands she justify it?
NAH for the initial prank. Pranks are only funny if the recipient also laughs, but on the surface that’s a pretty harmless attempt even if it didn’t pan out. But possibly YTA if you didn’t ever apologize or make an effort to learn, and possibly YTA for however you have brought up this prank you know upset her, though you didn’t tell us the context for that.
I think if it were me I’d laugh at a locker of cheese, but would probably get upset at the mouse with my face. It’d make me wonder if it was less friendly prank and more like bullying.
If the subject of the prank is not laughing, it ain’t funny, and she’s not obligated to tell you why. YTA.
YTA
You and your friends bully her and make fun of her in regards to this because YOU think its funny. She smiles and probably shifts uncomfortably but keeps the peace while you all gang up on her and then for April Fools you take it a step further and pull a prank on her that belittles this let’s be honest insignificant thing that bothers her pushing her finally to the edge enough to be mad. You know the incident is a sore spot, you all seem to move on from it and then a year later bring up a incident where you know she is upset and are asking if you are the AH for what happened and continuing to bring it up?
Yes, you are the AH. People don’t like being belittled or teased stop doing it. Don’t bring up the incident again and don’t prank someone because you think its funny to watch someone squirm.
YTA. Pranks make you an asshole. Continued teasing makes you more of an asshole. It doesn’t matter why she was upset. Never bring it up again
YTA give it a rest, things stop being funny the moment someone gets mad. i hate people who pick and pick at someone just because they believe the other person shouldn’t be upset about something
NAH, after the edit. She has every right to be upset, but if you all truly didn’t know that this was going to be something that makes her upset, I think you can chalk it up as being a mistake that you shouldn’t repeat. Probably stop bringing it up if it makes her upset, but (solely off the info given in the post!) if you didn’t know and apologized, I don’t think there is much else you can do.