Am I [20M] being gaslighted by my friend [20F] after she lied to my face about people at a party during Covid?

I have a friend, 20[F], let's call her S. We are in third year of university, we lived with each-other for first and second year, but now live apart. I now live with the guy she is seeing, an old friend of mine I introduced her to. S has a past of severe emotional trauma (caused by the death of a parent) that I have tried my best to help her through. This has more than once resulted in making her food and giving her my bed when she's been at the point of passing out from severe drug abuse: i.e, stopping her from completely self destructing. I like to think I've been a good friend to her.

Last month was S' birthday. I live in the UK, in a region where covid lockdown restrictions meant at that time that it was illegal to attend the households of others. I had a feeling she was going to host an illegal covid party, so I told her that I would be very uncomfortable attending something like that, but during the month I would be fine with going for a meal or a walk instead for a small celebration. She said she understood, and that was fine.

Come the day of her birthday, she tells me that there is going to be a gathering at her place, but with only three households, including hers, meaning my household, hers, and one other. She said it was really important to her that I come and say hi, because it was her birthday and it would mean a lot. As uncomfortable as I felt with breaking lockdown rules, I said that I would come for a while and try to socially distance because I still felt uneasy about it. That evening she checks again if I'm coming, and I confirm with her once again that there are only three households there. I turn up, to discover that there are *far* more than three households there. At least seven or eight, maybe more. I confront her about this, and she says that she made a mistake, she thought there were only going to be three, and it was wrong of me to accuse her of lying like that on her birthday.

I told her that I'd take her at her word that she made a mistake, but made her promise that nobody else was going to arrive, or else I would leave, because I was extremely uncomfortable there with that number of people. She did, and a few minutes later, a whole crowd of new people walked in. My housemate P (the guy she's seeing) told me that they were each from different houses, and also told me that behind my back she said that "(he) doesn't get to worry, he still has two parents." That really upset me, so I did an Irish goodbye, and left immediately.

When my housemate got back the next morning, he tells me that she is very angry with me for upsetting her on her birthday, and tells me that he thinks I should apologise to her for upsetting her. I tell him that I expect an apology from her, for tricking me into attending a large illegal house party. It sort of remained like that for about five days, at which point my housemate told me that he'd developed covid symptoms since the party but hadn't told me since he thought it was because he was smoking. He had also been told by S that there was someone covid positive at that party while he was there, a fact I had to learn through him. He was at work at the time, so I told him to go to hers' instead of coming back to the flat, because it was unfair on me to be in a house with someone with covid, who got it at a party which I left.

That left me in complete isolation for two weeks in my flat, which was not a good experience whatsoever. After those two weeks, my housemate comes back, and says that I should apologise to S for upsetting her. I tell him that I won't apologise, but I will try to start a dialogue with her to smooth things out. I send her a message saying we need to talk, and she airs me. I have a conversation with my housemate, and essentially tell him that I was uncomfortable with him going to that house and coming back to the flat while there were covid infections in the house (the infection spread pretty slowly through their house, so when he left one of her housemates had just tested positive). He agreed that that was fine.

The next night, P brings S back to my flat, after I specifically said that it was not cool to be going back and forth. They had both already had it, but I was unconvinced that there was no danger to me of even supposedly immune people going back and forth between my house and one with the virus. I at this point left for a friends' to sleep on his sofa, because I did not want to be in the same house as them. I tell P as much over message, and S takes his phone, and we have the first conversation we'd had in about three weeks. I essentially tell her that I wasn't comfortable with her being in my flat, especially since she had ignored my attempt to reconcile over message, and it was her party that landed us in this mess. I turn my phone off for a day to get my head together, and I wake up the next morning to several messages accusing me of being childish and causing drama when the problem was all in my head. At this point I message a few of my old housemates telling them what was going on, and they tell me that I should apologise to S, because I upset her and hurt her feelings.

I've found myself questioning recently whether I really was in the right, and feel pretty confused about the whole thing because so many of my friends seem to think I should apologise to S, including my current housemate and some of my old ones. I don't think I should because I haven't done anything wrong, but it's hard to trust yourself when so many people seem to think I'm the one that needs to apologise.

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tl;dr, friend tricks me into attending illegal house party and nearly got me covid, is trying to get me to apologise by framing me as the bad guy who upset her on her birthday. Am I being galighted, and what should I do?

Submitted November 22, 2020 at 05:37AM by DueCommunication3427 https://ift.tt/35UouE9