Welcome to Tough Love. We鈥檙e answering your questions about dating, breakups, and everything in between. Our advice giver is Blair Braverman, dogsled racer and author of . Have a question of your own? Write to us at聽toughlove@outsideinc.com.
My friend since elementary school is shopping for a trip, so I went with her to visit a store to help her find supplies. While we were there, she was looking at tents, and I looked around more generally. At one point she came over to me, and showed me a tent that was packed in a bag. She said 鈥淭his is the green two-person tent, right?鈥� It seemed like she was confused about the label. I wasn鈥檛 paying much attention, but it was green and it seemed like the right size so I said yes.聽
She bought the tent and we got in her car. As soon as we started driving she started laughing. It took me a few minutes to realize that she had switched the price stickers on two tents in order to get a more expensive tent for a cheaper price.聽
I laughed at first, even though I felt uncomfortable. But the more time that passed, the more I became uneasy. I asked her outright if she switched the tags, and she said 鈥測es,鈥� proudly. She said that we did it together, because she had asked me if the tag looked right and I had told her that yes, it was right. But at the time she asked, I didn鈥檛 know what she was doing, and I would not have said yes if I knew. She told me that I definitely knew, and accused me of changing the story. She also bragged later to another friend about the 鈥渄eal鈥� that we got together. She has enough money so I don鈥檛 think it was about whether she could afford it. I feel terrible now even though I didn鈥檛 mean to do anything wrong.
You didn鈥檛 do anything wrong. You joined a friend on an errand, and you tried to be helpful. Your friend didn鈥檛 come up and ask you, 鈥淗ey, do you think these tent descriptions seem similar enough that I could switch the price tags on them?鈥� She asked if a green two-person tent looked like a green two-person tent. Of course you said yes! What else could you have said鈥斺€淪top, don鈥檛 steal that tent鈥�? Of course not. Because聽you didn鈥檛 know.
Your obliviousness wasn鈥檛 an accident; it was by design. Your friend knew you weren鈥檛 paying close attention; she knew that by asking about the tent in a certain way, she鈥檇 get you to say yes; and she knew that once you said yes, she could pretend you were complicit. The whole thing was intentionally manipulative from start to finish. The word 鈥済aslighting鈥� gets thrown around a lot, but at its core, it means lying in such a way as to make a person doubt their experience of reality. In other words, exactly what your friend did when she informed you that you did, in fact, know what was going on鈥攄espite the fact that you didn’t. And then she had the nerve to accuse you of changing the story! That鈥檚 a wildly surreal response. Of course you feel terrible. Not only were you tricked into participating in something that goes against your values (not to mention the law), but you were used and gaslit by someone you trusted.
I often try to approach situations with the most generous possible read first, but in this case, I really can鈥檛 find one. Even if your friend somehow thought that you wanted to participate in switching the tags, she wouldn鈥檛 have contradicted you in the car, and she certainly wouldn鈥檛 have bragged about the situation once she knew how you really felt. I suspect what’s actually going on is that she gets a thrill from manipulating people. She got a thrill from stealing from the store, obviously. But she also got a thrill, perhaps even a bigger one, from tricking you into participating. If she thinks it鈥檚 hilarious to trick you into something like this, what else might she do? What comes next? There鈥檚 no reason to think she鈥檇 stop here.
Separations are always tough, especially when you鈥檝e been friends for a long time. But this person isn鈥檛 an actual friend (she certainly isn鈥檛 behaving like one) and she鈥檚 not someone you should continue hanging out with. In fact, if there鈥檚 any upside to this situation, it鈥檚 that you can distance yourself now before she tries anything else. And in the future, know that anyone who makes you feel like this鈥攚hose actions give you this kind of terrible knot in your stomach鈥攊sn鈥檛 someone you should have anything to do with.