I (21M) have quite a few friends I have made recently in the last 2 years of college through some other friends and mutual friends and we all have gotten pretty tight. This group in particular which is 2 couples (4 people) live closer to me in our city than they do to our other friends and lately they have been coming over a lot.
I keep having to constantly tell them to stop touching my antiques in my house as many of them are things my parents have won at auctions and many of them are straight up old expensive collectibles. This was a smaller problem when they came over less frequently and I didn’t pay attention as much but it’s happening a lot more now.
They randomly keep grabbing them from the walls and shelves and start talking about it. I kindly shrugged it off at first then got a bit vocal. But they kept doing it to the point where I straight up set a boundary that I don’t like it. They got offended by this and said that I’m being rude.
Huh?
NTA. I have no clue what is wrong with these people that they feel the need to pick things up to talk about them. Feels like very childish behavior.
It’s one thing to ask you about an item and/or if they can pick it up to have a closer look. That would be normal to do. Instead they seem to have no respect or regard for your space/home.
at a house party i once asked the homeowner if i could sit in one of their chairs because the house was full of antiques and i’d only ever seen that style of chair in a museum before. you’d better believe i was looking but not touching everything in that house.
Since, “I don’t like it when you touch my antiques, please stop” doesn’t work, have you tried,
“You’re holding an irreplaceable item that costs [value amount]. I hope you can afford to pay if you break it lol”?
NTA but I hope your property is insured. And perhaps either stop having people over so much, or put your treasures in a room they have no access to.
Paying for it might not be enough.
If it’s an antique it might be difficult to find.
Hence OP should stress the word “irreplaceable”.
With their attitude, if they broke one, they’d never pay, and they’d blame OP for having them on display where they could touch them.
The only people who will be pissed at you for putting down boundaries are the ones who were taking advantage of you not having any.
These people don’t care about you or your items in your house and they made that clear to you by being mad that you put down a boundary.
They are wrong. You are NTA. Keep your boundaries and ditch the rude friends. They don’t need to come over all the time.
I don’t think these are great friends – their behaviour when you asked them to stop is a bit of a red flag. You’ve clearly got different values to them and this doesn’t feel like a friendship that would last years.
Why is it always your house they come to? If you want to hang out, go to theirs (& then rummage through their drawers/closet etc to see how they like it. Explain you feel offended if they complain)
Or just stop inviting them round.
NTA
NTA
But honestly, how many times are you going to let them do it before you stop inviting them over?
NTA
Even better, YWNBTA if you just stopped inviting them to your house.
NTA – your house, your items, your boundaries. Enough said.
NTA. But these people aren’t your friends. Stop inviting them over.
Stop inviting them over. Problem solved.
NTA who does that? We teach our kids not to touch things when we visit other peoples homes. Why would a fully grown adult have to pick something up or remove it from a wall to inquire about it?
Childish behavior.