This happened this past Friday when I (31F) was FaceTiming my friend “Alex” (28F) while we were cooking dinner. For some context: I love Alex, like if I needed to hide a body she is 100% the person I would call. She’s also just a really bad cook, the main reason being she’s terrified of fire/hot oil because of an accidental burn she got as a kid. But she said she’s tired of living off takeout so I said why don’t we FaceTime while cooking the same meal so it’s less scary (we don’t live in the same city).
Friday comes, I don’t remember what we’re talking about but the camera’s angled so I could see she was standing in front of the stove when the contents of one of the pans caught on fire. Alex freaks out, looks around and doesn’t seem to know what to do, so I stop what I’m doing and tell her to put a lid on the pan. She’s still freaking out, saying she’s gonna grab water, I tell her DO NOT get water, just cover the pan. She starts crying, she doesn’t seem to be listening and I’m getting worried, but I’m trying to calm her down and telling her to find a lid or something to smother the fire when she gets the idea to \*pick up the pan that’s actively on fire\* and at that point yes I did raise my voice and I told her something to the effect of “Alex shut up, put that shit down, and just cover the fucking pan.”
Eventually Alex uses another pan to cover the fire and turns everything off. I’m talking to her and I’m relieved she’s ok, she’s still crying (understandably) and after a minute she gets this look on her face and asks why I yelled at her. I tell her I’m sorry but that in the heat of the moment it was necessary since I couldn’t do anything from behind the screen and she wasn’t listening/putting out the fire so in the heat of the moment I yelled. We go back and forth a little, in the end she calls me a shit friend and hangs up. I’m a little taken aback but I’m thinking maybe we can talk when we’ve both calmed down a little.
When I don’t hear from her the next morning I text her saying I’m sorry how our last conversation ended and asking if she’s ok. She replies back with a voice note saying she’s angry at me for yelling and, in her words, making an already terrifying situation worse. She brings up how I know she’s scared of kitchen fires and feels that I used that against her (I’m not sure what she means by that?), she feels hurt, and that she needs space. I’m confused, I send her a voice message back saying I’m sorry for scaring her, but also again that in the moment she was making very dangerous decisions (trying to add water to a kitchen fire, waving around a blazing pan) and that I was scared for her. It’s now Sunday night/early Monday and she hasn’t responded.
I feel bad for yelling, but I also don’t think what I did was really that out of line or that it merits this reaction. I don’t think I need to apologize again, but maybe I’m really wrong and I just can’t see it? Is there something I need to do to make up for this? TIA.
NTA. Yelling was 100% appropriate, and she’s upset because she doesn’t understand how close she was to full on immolating herself… or she does and she’s taking her embarrassment and shame out on you.
They literally teach middle schoolers not to throw water into flaming oil.
NTA.
Alex would not survive anything irl.
NTA. You needed to take control of the situation. She wasn’t listening to you when you were telling her the correct way to handle the situation. Thank goodness you were there to help. I had a friend who pretty much destroyed their kitchen trying to take a burning pan outside.
NTA. I think she thinks you were upset because she wasn’t listening. She doesn’t understand that you probably saved her life, house, and neighborhood.
But, I also think you can’t tell her that directly, which makes it harder with her reaction afterwards.
You did the right thing. Hopefully she can be okay with you needing to get her attention enough to guide her through the right steps after she gets some space from the moment. Regardless, good job!
NTA
Your reaction was appropriate. You had to shout to get her attention as she wasn’t thinking straight (which is completely understandable on her part).
Your friend is probably feeling embarrassed, stupid, scared and other negative emotions and is trying to push her failure on to someone else. Give her time to get herself back in check. There is no need to apologise again.
You already apologized thats enough space is fine but youre not a bad friend here
NTA. You took control of the situation the only way you could virtually. And it worked, didn’t it? You wouldn’t gently tell a toddler not to run into traffic; you would take swift action to save them, and then talk about it afterwards. You told her what to do and then apologized for yelling. Nothing more to do.
Side note for the future, if she was scared there would be a fire, it would have been good to go over general safety tips beforehand. But then she probably would have thought you were lecturing her.
Maybe she needs to learn to cook things that don’t involve hot oil…like broiling, boiling, or baking. Sandwiches, soup. NTA. Had she put water on an oil fire, there would have been VERY bad consequences.
This girl needs supervised cooking classes. NTA
NTA, she’s just feeling stupid and anger is the defense mechanism.
The yelling is what you do to get through when the calm voice is resulting in 0 action, esp in a stressful situation
NTA. She could have been in serious trouble if she had been by herself. Tsk. People.
NTA, you told her the proper way to solve her emergency.
There. Was. A. FIRE. NTA!!! Some situations demand yelling, and that was one of them.
NTA
Seems to me you did what you had to do. Calmly instructing her wasn’t working so you had to shock her into following directions. The only way to do so remotely is with a change to your voice. Whether that’s yelling, implementing a ‘voice of command’ style tone, or whatever, that’s all you’re left with it.
Also, it worked.