About seven or eight years ago, I (27/f) reconnected with an old high school friend (Ryan 28/m) and we became fairly close/good friends. He and his wife (Elise 28/f) had their first kid when they were around 22 or 23, so they lost a lot of contact with their other friends since the lifestyles no longer matched. This lead to the three of us becoming extremely close because, while still childless, I'm not much of a party girl. It was easy for us to get together in a kid-friendly environment but still be able to have a few drinks and hang out.
Ryan and I often do things alone, like going to sporting events or just out for random activities that Elise isn't interested in. The same goes for Elise and I, although I'd argue that her and I spend WAY more time together without Ryan. Her and I are definitely much closer.
In early November, my boyfriend broke up with me. I don't want to go into detail but I was absolutely devastated and became somewhat of a hermit. Because I was so down after the breakup, Elise surprised me with three tickets to a local band that I love (she claims it was a late birthday gift but I know it was a "hey, stop being sad!" gift, lol.) and the show was taking place mid-December.
Elise's sister had to move out of her apartment and her moving day just happened to fall on the same day as the show so Elise had to bail on us. She insisted that Ryan and I still go and there was no reason the three of us should also miss the show for this, so we went. We had a great time! Nothing out of the ordinary occurred and we were both home around midnight.
The holidays came and went, now we're on lockdown.
About a week ago, I got a text from Elise with a photo of a crowd with awful lighting - like a concert. She said, "Can you explain this picture?"
After staring at the photo for a couple of minutes, I realized it was from the show that Ryan and I went to, and then realized than Ryan and I were in this photo. We were near the back of the crowd where there was some seating (but we were standing) and in the photo, Ryan's arm is around my shoulder and he's looking at me. My head is slightly turned away from his and you can see that my hand is up near my face.
Now, I'm sorta going to jump ahead here. While we are all affectionate people, Ryan and I hug, we lean on each other, same with Elise and some other friends. In this specific photo, Ryan was comforting me. The band was playing a sad love song and I'm still getting over my breakup with a couple of drinks in my system. To *me\*, it's very clear that he isn't touching me in an intimate way, but I suppose I only feel that way because I know the context of the photo.
I responded, "Oh, that's the (band) show! Where did you get that lol?"
Elise didn't respond for about an hour before sending me this:
"I'm going to say this as nicely as possible. I don't know what you and Ryan did together but I expect answers. How long has this been going on? Forever? How long have you two been fucking?
You know I'm not stupid and I will figure this out one way or another I expect way more than this from my friend. MY GOOD FRIEND. I am humiliated, disrespected, embarrassed, disgusted and angry. I want answers."
At first, I wanted to call Ryan and ask if I was being pranked. However... I felt like calling him after getting that text from her, before responding to her, would make us seem suspicious. This behavior is EXTREMELY out of character for Elise too, so I'm not sure what all she saw/was told/what was taken out of context, etc.
So I sat on it for about a bit, examined the photo a million times, wrote up a few draft texts and eventually decided to facetime her. I'd prefer an in-person conversation for this, but that's obviously not an option right now. She rejected the facetime. I tried a regular call, rejected as well.
"Elise, that photo is of Ryan comforting me at the (band) show in December. They played (song name) and I was still upset over (ex boyfriend) and I started crying. That is all that photo is, and that is all that happened. I'm not sure where you found this, but I'm extremely sorry it made you feel that way. I would never do anything to violate your trust, and I would never want to do anything to jeopardize our friendship. Please call me so we can talk."
As of right now, no response from Elise yet. I have tried calling Elise every day, but as for right now, I'm not sure there is much I can do until she decides she is ready to talk to me/us.
Ryan and I have been texting and we think we may have figured out where the photo came from. We know some events/venues will do their own photography and post them to event pages, etc, but this was clearly taken on phone by someone who was sitting somewhere behind us. As for Ryan, he's been sleeping on the couch and Elise has been giving him the silent treatment, so he doesn't know any more than I do. He was confronted with the photo before me, and I guess he said he "didn't know" or "didn't remember" that happening, which may have made her more upset since I can see how that could come off as him brushing it under the rug or trying to blow past it by saying he just "didn't remember"
This is where it gets weird, and I suppose we may be reaching here but we have legitimately exhausted all options (that we can think of). While we were at the show, we ran into someone we both knew from high school. I didn't really know her aside from having a few classes with her over the course of four years, but I guess her and Ryan were friends. Ryan thinks she used to have a crush on him (they went to a dance together in 9th grade) but it was never confirmed and they were just friends.
When we saw her at the show, we spent a few minutes talking while we ordered some drinks. We all caught up a little bit and she asked if we were together, to which Ryan casually responded, "No, my wife is at home tonight." and that was pretty much the end of that.
Like I said, we may be reaching here, but we think GG (nickname for the sake of the post) may have done some internet stalking and either A) thinks we're sleeping together behind Elise's back or B) just wanted to start some drama/is jealous, found Elise on Facebook and sent this to her. Why GG would wait this long to send it is another question. Again, we may be reaching. But this is the only thing we could come up with without word from Elise.
I searched photos from the event, tagged photos on instagram and facebook, etc. I can't find any photo that Ryan and I are in and I definitely did not find the photo Elise sent anywhere, which must mean that someone sent it to her.
TL;DR: Went to a concert with a good friend, someone got a photo of my friend comforting me during the show and sent it to his wife with no context several months later, wife is upset and thinks he is cheating with me.
Submitted May 02, 2020 at 07:46PM by throwaway_concert https://ift.tt/2YtoTda
No comments:
Post a Comment