I lived in a college house with 3 of my life long best friends. We moved in fall 2022, and moved out summer of 2024. The end of our lease for the 2024 year was the end of July, well, life got in the way. My mom had a bad stroke in early June 2024, so I immediately found someone online to sublease my room. I moved back home to take care of my mom thankfully because my family was close. My friend (or at least thought was my friend) completely debunked my family situation and used it as a business opportunity. He decided he wanted to move out too since I was moving out so he found someone online to takeover his lease as well. Well, his guy said he needed to move in as soon as possible because he was in a terrible situation. So, he tells the guy he can move into my room if he pays him (my friend) the rent. He profited off my expense at a time where I was at an all time low, and paid two months of rent upfront (which was a lot for a college student) just so I could get out of my lease and move home to take care of my mom. He told me to my face he did it, bragging about it in a sense, which really set me off. I confronted him saying that was completely wrong and he has no respect for me given what me and my family were going through. His response, “it’s not like he’s living there for free”. I said you’re right, because you just made money at my expense. His response, “it’s not my problem you moved out early to take care of your mom”. Those words alone still boil me to death to this day. But, I ended up dropping everything and letting it go to preserve our friendship. My parents weren’t happy, I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t want to lose a long time friendship. Fast forward a year later (this summer 2025) I bring it up to my friend group to get their opinion. I kept everything internal for a long time, but this time I didn’t let up. I told my friends everything, and they couldn’t believe it. So, they completely went after him in our group chat. He was out of the country at the time, so he felt completely defenseless. He called me saying I should’ve never blind-sided him and ruin his integrity in front of our entire friend group and sabotage him when he had no say. Well, my response was “Why didn’t you respect me enough to apologize for what you did one a year ago at the time of the event”? He sort of just avoided the question and balled his eyes out over the phone and said he never wants anything to do with me ever again, and we haven’t spoken since. Personally, I don’t think he ever had individual respect for me, but broke when other people got involved. I say this because he paid me instantly, then called me to say I’m the problem. I’m just curious to hear others’s opinions on this situation.
That guy sucked. Talking to your friends about what happened isn’t a bad thing. NTA
NTA I imagine you were too stressed at the time to deal with it and your friend took advantage of that. People who don’t want to look bad shouldn’t do things that make them look bad when people find out about it. He’s upset because he thought he got away with it.