Woman Considers Kicking Live-in Best Friend Out After She Makes Hurtful Comment

A Reddit user is looking for advice after an innocuous comment led to tensions with her best friend, making her reconsider their current living arrangement.

“She’s been staying at my house with my family for the past month—this isn’t the first time she’s stayed long-term,” the poster began. “We treat her like family, and I’ve always said I view my close friends as chosen family.”

The conflict came when the Redditor and her friend went on a trip to Miami. The poster borrowed her friend’s sneakers instead of packing her own, and though she’d intended to wear them on the trip home, the friend wanted to wear the sneakers instead.

“Which is totally fine, duh, they’re hers,” they explain. “She offered me another pair, but I didn’t want to wear those. I noticed another pair outside her suitcase and asked if I could wear them. She danced around the question, beat around the bush, I then said ‘you don’t want me to wear these right?’ She said no. I responded, ‘Just say that then.’ ”

Though the poster admits her tone was “frustrated” and “irritated,” she notes that she did not yell or raise her voice.

“Later, we talked about it and she told me my comment felt like ‘fighting words.’ Literal physical fighting,” she writes. “I explained I wasn’t trying to be hostile—I was tired and frustrated, and I apologized. It wasn’t that deep TO ME.”

“Then she said something that really hurt me: ‘I talk to my sisters like that, but we’re just friends, not family, so that’s not acceptable between us.’ That stung,” she continues. “She’s been sleeping in my bed, helping cook for my family, sharing life with us for weeks.”

The Reddit user felt betrayed by the comment, noting that she sees the friend “as family, even if we’re not blood,” to which the friend tried to backtrack, saying, “Don’t get it twisted, you are family—but friends shouldn’t talk like that.”

“Still, the damage was done. I feel like I crossed a line once, but she dismissed the whole foundation of our bond,” the poster writes.

When the Reddit user asked the friend to take some accountability for her own attitude, she then tried to change the topic instead of working things out.

“Then, mid-convo, she goes, ‘Me and [our other friend] are going to North Carolina this weekend if you want to come—it’s an open invitation I guess.’ The way she said it felt weird. After everything, that ‘I guess’ rubbed me the wrong way,” the poster writes.

The Redditor clarified that “she’s not a bad friend,” but noted that the situation “really hurt.”

“I opened my home and heart, and after one miscommunication, I’m being told we’re ‘not family’? I’m considering not letting her stay with me again, just to protect my peace,” she writes.