So I (18f) and my friend “Liz” (18f) are currently in the school choir. Our first year choir director a retired during Covid and a new, younger, music teacher started. When the choir started back up, she (Lilian) was the new director.
A lot of people don’t like Lilian. I think she’s fine, she’s not the best music teacher I’ve ever had but she’s good enough at her job, and as a choir director, she doesn’t keep as much attention and respect from students that the old teacher did but we do alright. We won the choir concert our school enters every year under her directorship two years ago and did decently well in it last year.
All this to say, Liz was complaining to our friends the other day about the choir. Direct quotes include “the choir is so shit” “it’s gotten so much worse” “we actually sound so bad, I’m embarassed”
She’s been consistently complaining about how much she dislikes Lilian and thinks the choir has gone so downhill since she took over and that the other singers aren’t great for literally a year at this point and I just snapped this time.
I turned to her and said “if you think the choirs so bad, literally just leave it. We won (competition) by a mile the other year.” I’m just so sick and tired of her saying the choir is shit, while I, her friend, and some lf our other friends are in this choir. She might not be insulting me personally but who wants to hear that about a choir they love and participate in?
She got snappy back at me and said “I can’t leave now bc Lilian’s roped me into the solo group”, as our song atm and has a part that a group of six of us are performing. I said to her “you’ve been in the choir for two years and complained the whole time” and she got up and left.
Today Lilian told me there was an extra practice for the solo group and I went to find Liz to tell her. She just shoved straight past me and said “yeah, I KNOW” and hasn’t talked to me the rest of the day.
Our friends are kinda staying out of it bc only a couple of them are actually in the choir or have Lilian as a teacher, so I’m not sure what everyone thinks of what I said.
I know I wasn’t the nicest about it, but if she hates the choir so much then I think she should just leave and stop making it everyone else’s problem, bc the rest of us do actually enjoy choir and I hate hearing her say we’re bad, and we’re shit and all the rest of it.
AITA here?
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So I (18f) and my friend “Liz” (18f) are currently in the school choir. Our first year choir director a retired during Covid and a new, younger, music teacher started. When the choir started back up, she (Lilian) was the new director.
A lot of people don’t like Lilian. I think she’s fine, she’s not the best music teacher I’ve ever had but she’s good enough at her job, and as a choir director, she doesn’t keep as much attention and respect from students that the old teacher did but we do alright. We won the choir concert our school enters every year under her directorship two years ago and did decently well in it last year.
All this to say, Liz was complaining to our friends the other day about the choir. Direct quotes include “the choir is so shit” “it’s gotten so much worse” “we actually sound so bad, I’m embarassed”
She’s been consistently complaining about how much she dislikes Lilian and thinks the choir has gone so downhill since she took over and that the other singers aren’t great for literally a year at this point and I just snapped this time.
I turned to her and said “if you think the choirs so bad, literally just leave it. We won (competition) by a mile the other year.” I’m just so sick and tired of her saying the choir is shit, while I, her friend, and some lf our other friends are in this choir. She might not be insulting me personally but who wants to hear that about a choir they love and participate in?
She got snappy back at me and said “I can’t leave now bc Lilian’s roped me into the solo group”, as our song atm and has a part that a group of six of us are performing. I said to her “you’ve been in the choir for two years and complained the whole time” and she got up and left.
Today Lilian told me there was an extra practice for the solo group and I went to find Liz to tell her. She just shoved straight past me and said “yeah, I KNOW” and hasn’t talked to me the rest of the day.
Our friends are kinda staying out of it bc only a couple of them are actually in the choir or have Lilian as a teacher, so I’m not sure what everyone thinks of what I said.
I know I wasn’t the nicest about it, but if she hates the choir so much then I think she should just leave and stop making it everyone else’s problem, bc the rest of us do actually enjoy choir and I hate hearing her say we’re bad, and we’re shit and all the rest of it.
AITA here?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be the AH bc I told our friend to just quit the choir after hearing her complain about it. I wasn’t particularly nice in how I said it.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA, I get where your coming from.
People complain about their problems, their friends listen. If you don’t want to listen then don’t be her friend. YTA
YTA. I think your point is valid but your delivery sucked and hurt her. I’ll retract that if you apologize. Use I statements like “I worded that badly and am sorry. I enjoy choir and don’t like hearing so many bad things about it.”
In your initial comment you could have said “If I felt so many negatives about an activity I would leave,” but you didn’t, so don’t include that in your apology, because the goal now is to repair the relationship.
NTA. Literally an example of the old saying “if you don’t like it, leave”. Negative Nancies are exhausting to be around when all they do is whinge whine mope blah blah blah
You could go either way.
People love to complain and want their friends to listen and sympathize. So here, you are the Ahole cuz you told her what you thought.
People love to complain and want their friends to listen and sympathize. Now, in this scenario, you are not the Ahole because you got tired of the same complaint about the same thing from the same person…blah blah blah!
Sounds like your friend just needs attention however she can get it.
NTA: I can’t stand people with this negative personality. These type of friends aren’t worth your time. Sounds like you will be graduating, finish the year out with minimal drama and enjoy the end of year festivities. Then find friends that find joy in life and uplift those around them, not those that need to complain about everything around them. Because I guarantee this isn’t the only thing they complain about all the time.
NTA. People have a right to vent to their friends up to a point, but even a saint would get sick of someone shitting on something they love for 2 years. If the choir makes her so unhappy, you gave her good advice.
NTA. She thinks it’s fine to complain about something you’re a part of nonstop, but you’re apparently the bad guy if you complain about her attitude. You did the right thing to point out her whining is both hurtful and annoying.
NTA. Your friend sounds exhausting. No one is forcing her to participate, and there are much better ways to get attention than by shitting on something your friends love and are passionate about. She’s voluntarily dragging everyone down and someone was going to get sick of it eventually.
NTA. You should be able to be honest with your friends. She should be able to vent and feel heard but you should be able to enjoy a hobby without your friend constantly saying how much it sucks.
You’re not the asshole because she is willingly subjecting herself to an extracurricular that she doesn’t enjoy and is ruining for those who do enjoy it.
If this were regarding something that she couldn’t opt out of, you’d be the asshole but a very mild one. But it isn’t.
Venting about an optional hobby and venting about a bad home situation or something similar is not the same thing.
Feeling upset about how your hobby is going and indulging the negativity by expressing it to a friend once and a while to explain your frustration is fine but if she’s never saying anything positive at all, ever, she’s ruining it for other people and that isn’t okay.
If she doesn’t like your delivery you could apologize for coming off harsh but double down on how much of a drag it is to have something you’re working hard at be pulled through the mud all the time. Ask if there are things within y’all’s control that could make the experience better for her. If there’s nothing and she still doesn’t quit, ask if she could at least tone down the negativity when you’re around.
I had a friend in school who was really negative, and i got defensive over another friend calling him out for it behind his back, but she was right. He impacted me in negative ways that I couldn’t see or understand at the time because I was too young. I knew he was depressed and I was trying to be a good friend but it took more out of me to do this on the level that I was and looking back it makes me really sad that I didn’t have the tools to handle the situation better.
People will be negative. There is something to be said for learning how to live your life without being so affected by others, but that’s a difficult skill for most folks. It’s worth working at it, though, because this situation will present itself again and again in many different ways.
It doesn’t sound like either of you are really trying to be an asshole. If this is your real friend, y’all will work it out. She probably feels like she’s been the one accused of being an asshole, even though that’s not what you said or meant.