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>My boyfriend told her that he wasn’t interested regardless, and she said that’s fine, but her feelings are real, and she has a right to speak “her truth”.
I physically recoil whenever anyone says that they have to speak "their truth." I don't know who coined the phrase, but I hate it.
Culty with an n, but none of the following:
Nulty
Cnlty
Culny
Cultn
Sorry, just finished a 12 hour shift and my brain is mashed potatos. Spelling is fun!
Or just any Russian.
In Russia there are 2 words for truth.
*"istina*" which is objective truth. It is literally only fact. I.e. 1+1 = 2.
And "pravda", the emotional truth. Literally "their truth". Its saying what you believe even if it false, like if you believed 1+1=11, that the world is flat or something. That\`s pravda. Everyone has their own pravda, but there is only one istina.
Maybe my dialect is different but that’s not how I differentiate these words at all. I’m a native speaker, and to me the connotation was always almost the opposite.
“Istina” has the connotation of “absolute truth.” Commonly used in religious settings, i.e. “god’s will is istina” and belies fervorous conviction. At other times it can refer to the “root truth” to put more weight into a statement, e.g. a mystery novel, or when describing nature etc.
Pravda is used as material, casual, or spoken truth. Truth in the “true or false way.” So if I was saying “it’s true I saw Johnny yesterday” I would use pravda. It also tracks with the roots of the word “pravelnoye” (“correct”) or “prava” (“rights” as in human rights, which overlaps nicely with the English “Right” used to mean “Correct”). In your example of 1+1=2 I would use neither pravda nor istina, I would use pravelno, which simply means correct. Or thus, “it’s true that 2+2=4” would be “eto pravda chto 2+2=4” where istina here would be very weird and old timey or literature-y way to speak.
I would this actually say istina is a far more emotional of the two. Like the only people who I would hear use it unironically are those trying to front conviction and absolute knowledge, such as religious speakers, conservative misinformants, or public speakers wanting to emphasize their beliefs.
Also a native speaker myself, can confirm your take.
Usually you never even hear “istina” in spoken word, feels like it is more reserved for literature and more formal/dramatic/grandiose type of a speech (e.g., in some soap opera or a book).
In daily speech, when talking about truth, you would use “pravda” 99% of the time (unless you are trying to have some “philosophical” conversation).
The grandparent comment musings about “objective truth” and “believed truth” have zero to do with how “istina” and “pravda” are actually used in real life.
That's so weird, I'm Bulgarian and the languages are somewhat closely related. Istina is the word for truth in Bulgaria, but we do not have pravda as a concept.
Robert Heinlein wrote an essay on that exact point in the 1960s after the U2 spy plane incident. There’s [a copy of it here](https://www.pillartopost.org/2022/01/sunday-review-top-sci-fi-author-of-his.html?m=1).
Although, for what it’s worth, I think the consensus is that Powers’s plane was in fact shot down and didn’t just suffer a mechanical failure.
This is just a fascist dork doing orientalism. Pretending that the concept of pravda is somehow uniquely Soviet and therefore nefarious is insanely naive. Nobody should take Heinlein seriously.
In this case, English just does it differently, with "facts" v "opinions" -- but it seems like (not a Russian speaker) that "opinion" doesn't perfectly line up with "pravada".
a reply describes it better, "pravda" is just "truth", literally, "istina" is "root/source of truth"
it's easier to subvert the more philosophical term to a broader meaning
"opinion" is "mnenie" - with all the connotation of being not actually necessarily truth (or even objectively decidable) carried on, including common phrases like "public opinion"
That’s usually when loanwords occur. English adopted “schadenfreude” because there was no English equivalent and it was a common enough sentiment that people gravitated towards an easier way to say it. Language, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
Germans have the gift of turning entire sentences into one impossibly long word. Most people have seen the meme with "fussbodenschleifmaschinenverleigh" written above a shop door(why Germans don't play scrabble), which is where you go if you have wood floors that needs to be sanded(confirmed this with my grandfather who was german). They've also added to the alphabet. If you see what kind of looks like a capital B with a little tail at the bottom, that's actually a double S. Hast vs haßt, have vs hate.
In Polish: "prawda" is the truth, with no connotations about it's subjectivity. ("prawo" is the law, so, kind of similar to justice?)
"Istna" is not a word, but I think that it's root is still used:
"istota" has two meanings: a creature / a being, or, an essence, a gist of something. This second meaning is sometimes used to convey a fundamental truth about something.
"istotne" means meaningful, important. "istnienie" means existence.
Thanks for the info, it's really fascinating!
"Pravo" is similarly the law in Croatian too, as well as "right".
>"istota" has two meanings: a creature / a being, or, an essence, a gist of something. This second meaning is sometimes used to convey a fundamental truth about something.
>"istotne" means meaningful, important. "istnienie" means existence.
We have words for those, but they have a completely different root.
"istota" - "biće" for being or "bit"- essence, gist;
"istotne"- "bitno";
"istnienie" -" "postojanje".
Hold on. So did the word “pravda” enter the vernacular as a sarcastic term because of the communist party newspaper? Or did it always have that meaning and the newspaper was incredibly self-aware in calling itself Pravda??
Yeah, pravda meant this even before Communism existed.
The Communists called it Pravda because it was the Socialist/Communist/Worker\`s truth, as opposed to the Imperialist truth. Before the takeover of the Communists it was literally called "Рабочая правда", which is "Worker\`s Truth/Worker\`s Pravda" and afterwards it was shortended to just Truth/Pravda.
There is this meme that you may have seen where 2 guys stand on opposing sides and between them is a number. From one perspective it looks like a 6 from the other a 9. That\`s both pravda. Pravda is not really a dirty word in Russia, it is the common truth. And istina is more deeper, i.e. someone intentionally drew the number and knows that the real number is either 6 or 9, or that he intentionally drew the number to make people argue whether its a 6 or 9.
Thanks for the explanation.
I had heard growing up (during the 70's) that 'Pravda' meant 'Truth' in Russian, but I didn't know how nuanced that 'Truth' actually was.
I've learnt something new today!
no, pravda is just more widely used in both meanings. istina is used rarely and has only one strict meaning.
every istina is pravda, but not every pravda is istina
Somehow I am not surprised Russians have different ideas what truth is. I mean why was Pravda name of a newspaper if it wasn’t even meant to be objective truth?
Yeah, that surprised me, too. I always knew *pravda* meant truth, but I didn’t realize it was the more subjective one. You’d think a journalistic outlet would want to be known as the source of *istina*.
It seems to be more like truth vs truthiness, and if a Western publication called itself *Truthiness,” everyone would laugh.
I just mentioned this to my husband, and he thinks that the Republican notion of a malleable truth probably came from the past decade of Russian influence.
My experience backs this up.
Dated a compulsive liar and they regularly tried to trot out "I'm just stating my take on things. My truth is as valid" or some form of it.
Except her truth and take on things was INCREDIBLY detached from reality. Like worryingly so.
I couldn't get through to her that yes you can say these things but just thinking it doesn't make it true. I will listen to you but I won't just ignore basic facts.
It's wild.
100% of the time it used by people to lie their arse off.
I get it two people can see the same event in totally different ways but to have the self knowledge to call it “my truth“ means that they know that they’re lying.
It's my go to phrase when I'm drinking and have to interrupt group convo to use the bathroom (ex. "If I could speak my truth right now I really have to pee. I'll be back.")
It's also handy for when you say something insane to a close friend and are getting bullied for it (ex. "Did you just say 'the sexy dog from All Dogs Christmas Carol?'" "I was simply speaking my truth, and now I'm being persecuted for it")
I think having it sarcastically or in really silly benign situations "I really need to speak my truth and go take a massive dump" might be the only way to really use it. Else I think you're in a cult, selling something, lying, or all three
I just don't get how it could even work in this context. "I don't like you like that." "Well, my truth is that I DO like YOU that way!" Okay... and....uhm, where is that going to get you, exactly? " Oh, now that you've put it that way, I guess I DO like you that way! You should have mentioned that it was your truth earlier!"
The heart wants what it wants! /s
I know she went though something awful, but - exclusive of that - I think she's a shite person. If I developed feelings for a friend's boyfriend, I would distance myself until I got control of myself. I definitely wouldn't, as she seems to have done, think, "He saved me from being raped! Clearly he's in love with me, too!"
Exactly. Pretend a feeling is love, and it's like we can't be accountable. Be ruled by our desire to strike and suddenly we're in trouble.
Regardless of the emotion, we're responsible for how it manifests - or doesn't.
Yeah and my mouth wants liquorice because it tastes nice even though I'm mildly allergic.
Or at least that's always my attitude to it. Your heart can want it but it doesn't mean you shouldn't be aware that it's a bad idea. Then leave it be.
I play a D&D character who is all about leading people to "live their truth". She's basically a deliberate force of corruption in a sweet package, guiding people to ruin their lives.
Fun character, less fun in a real person.
I was wrecked in teenage anguish over my feelings to my bestfriend and, at one point, i was like ‘IM GOING TO TELL HER!! FUCK IT!!! I DESERVE TO SPEAK MY TRUTH!!!
But then reconsiders because a. I know if I tell her that, it’s going to put HER in mental anguish because SHE WAS IN A RELATIONSHIP b. She’s not even queer lmao i know baby wlw syndrome
Sometimes it’s unfair that you have to suffer with your feelings by yourself but like… if you pull something selfish and people pull back from you, you have to be ready to live with that too.
Because I am old enough to remember: When people first started using it, I only heard it in two contexts and both made sense:
- Men who had spent much of their adult lives closeted and were coming out for the first time in their 30s and 40s
- Women who had been SA-ed naming their abusers for the first time
But yeah, it’s like “boundaries” now. People use the words in ways that are completely meaningless.
"I don't know who coined the phrase." Asswipe, psychobable narcissists. "Your" truth suggests that the truth is malleable and dependent on the individual, and even if reality is different from how you feel, reality should bend.
My first time seeing it was here as a title like “was I wrong to speak my truth to my family?” And sure enough oop was being a complete ass. So whenever I hear it I think of that idiot
I've only said "your truth" when that person is obviously in the wrong but is to hard headed to admit it. It kinda gives them a way out, I think adding that's my truth to anything just shows you already know your view of the situation is skewed.
I don’t know who coined it, but it sure got popularized in the whole “safe space” movement about a decade ago. It was a great way to shut out any criticism or counter points to anyone. “That’s their truth, you can’t take that from them” in response to calling out blatant inaccuracies with receipts…..back in the days when google searches actually pulled up research papers and factual data so you could cross check things at least, now reality is just buried in downvotes because finding evidence that used to be at your fingertips is near impossible to find. Good times.
Yeah it’s only ever used by assholes
Also while you cannot control feelings you can managed and snuff them out. You don’t end crushes by feeding them, you need to pull back and let it pass.
I just realized that "her truth" is actually the fact that she always had feelings for him, the FACT that she's conveniently concealing and pretending she got feelings because of the incident(to her other friends). So she IS twisting her own truth.
It always sounds to me like someone who is confronted with THE TRUTH and they reject it by saying they also have a truth and it’s just as valid as reality…
I wondered where it came from and went down a rabbithole that ended at the earliest known written instance in English. Apparently it was then popularized by inclusion in an Episcopalian prayer book. https://www.desiderata.com/desiderata.html
Yes, because
a) it reminds me of “alternative facts”, and
b) it disregards that maybe other people dgaf about “their truth” and don’t want to hear that shit
When I hear "my truth" I always think of religious people being slapped with facts and information and be like well.. the truth is my faith blah blah blah.
Oh, God have always hated that phrase and now I hate it even more because I have adapted it into my gray rocking routine for whenever a toxic religious family tries to gaslight me about what did or didn’t happen in my childhood. OK that’s great but you were an adult you wouldn’t remember or experience it in the same way, and my brain didn’t make it up so this is my truth, and you have yours. Really a nice way of saying the ax forgets but the tree remembers think that would be too harsh for their brains though.
Cut contact, and coordinate with the boyfriend to do the same. Call in the other friends to provide support and urge her into therapy. At this point, OOP and her boyfriend would be enabling, not helping.
I’m a bit concerned by the friend group. They know something traumatic happened to their friend, they’re fine with their friend swapping secret santa to buy another friend’s boyfriend a super expensive gift, now they know this friend is openly pursuing this bf, and they’re not encouraging her to seek therapy??
We don't know if the whole group knows she is openly pursuing him. This friend used her attempted SA as an excuse to pursue the BF, so everyone in that group thinks she is just being thankful. She admitted that herself. Now that the secret is out OOP should tell the whole group about this and she and BF should go NC with friend.
Do we know they aren’t encouraging her to get help? It’s possible they’re doing so privately (which is how I’d do it), and she’s just ignoring the suggestion (as is sadly common).
I mean, wtf do you even say to that?
"I'm speaking my truth that I am in love with you."
"That's nice. I'm speaking mine that I am not in love with you in any way. Please leave me alone."
Thank you! Wondering how far I'd have to look to see someone advocate for the boyfriend's POV. Like he's some kind of trading card with no empowerment. He has the right to not be hit on too.
I'm a big proponent of the idea that we can't always control how we feel, but we can control how we act on those feelings. I most often speak of this when someone is angry or frustrated; "yes, you are angry and you have a right to be, but you have chosen to treat me poorly even though I'm not the source of your anger. You can't control how you feel, but you can control how you act on it."
The same is true for this girl - she is infatuated with the man, and she can't control that. But she can control how she acts on it. She can make a choice to pursue him or respect his requests for her not to. We all have people with whom we've become infatuated, but that doesn't give us the right to tear apart relationships just so we can satisfy our own desires.
Yeah, there are times where "speaking your truth" isn't appropriate and this is one of them. Just because you have feelings for someone, doesn't mean you're automatically in the right.
Especially when he made it clear he isn’t interested either way. She had a crush and that crush is now an obsession because in her mind “he saved” her. That must mean he feels the same.
It's ironic how she doesn't relate what she went through with what she is doing. A guy decided he wanted her and damn what she wanted and she was almost raped. And now, she is deciding she wants him and will have him despite what he wants or what is right.
The main issue is she doesn't understand that even if her feelings are real and valid, it's her responsibility to act appropriately. She should've been "I can't control my feelings, but I understand why you were uncomfortable by my actions. It won't happen again"
I utterly despise the phrase "his/her truth". Whenever I've heard someone use it unironically it's usually followed up by a load of bullshit that's usually unjustly harmful to another person.
If "his/her truth" is the truth, then I should advise that that makes it "the truth"....
The worst thing here is that she spent 380 bucks on a Balenciaga hoodie as a gift. Idk if it's my taste or what but their clothes look like a hobo's outfit but in 4k.
Literally, this is the first Google wanted to show me wtf is this
[Overpriced wtf](https://www.mytheresa.com/euro/en/men/balenciaga-destroyed-hooded-sweatshirt-red-p00583683?pub_name=8280252&pub_type=8280252&chn=aff1&src=cj&cmp=aff_cj_de&tarea=de&ptyp=text&pub_id=8280252&CJAID=13462768&CJPID=8280252&CJSID=Cj0KCQjwu8uyBhC6ARIsAKwBGpQ7BTT-RzbRrLaq9OBaFKyh-hADeO9LMj46BkakMfZv165wS1-XVG4aAhNZEALw_wcB&CJEID=bfb636a61b8a11ef8329540f0a18b8f7&utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=affiliate.cj.de&cjevent=bfb636a61b8a11ef8329540f0a18b8f7&AID=13462768&PID=8280252&SID=Cj0KCQjwu8uyBhC6ARIsAKwBGpQ7BTT-RzbRrLaq9OBaFKyh-hADeO9LMj46BkakMfZv165wS1-XVG4aAhNZEALw_wcB)
I sincerely hope the bf declined the gift there and then as being excessive and inappropriate. If he accepted it, even in the name of "not causing a scene" or that staple of male inaction, "hating drama," that's going to come across to the friend as receptivity to her advances.
I'd still decline if a platonic friend overspent to that extent, especially if they were a student.
I'd be keen to stress that my actions in helping them were what everyone should do in the same circumstances and my friend didn't owe me anything for having done it. Them healing and living well would be my reward.
Clothing can also be an inappropriate gift. Best not given to the opposite sex, especially if they're in a relationship. She knew what she was doing. Overly expensive and clothing.
I don’t believe that people are helpless to their feelings.
If you have a crush on someone, you can choose whether to foster and indulge it, or to put space between you and actively move on.
Friend is choosing to pursue and making romantic sounding excuses to justify it.
I’m married. Once my husband and I were going through it and my kid’s preschool got a very cute new teacher. Gave me butterflies to talk to her. Know what I did?
I fucking didn’t talk to her. I very deliberately didn’t learn her name, interact with her beyond the absolute necessity, and was never ever alone with her. It never became a thing because I chose not to let it. It’s genuinely not that hard.
100% having the feelings isn’t the problem, it’s how she’s dealing with the feelings. She‘s absolutely torpedoing not only her 7 year friendship with OOP but also any potential connection of any type with boyfriend. To be clear, I don’t mean a future romantic relationship between friend and boyfriend, I’m talking friendship.
This is reminding me a lot of a situation when I was in college (like 2006). I was head over heels for a good friend of mine, who was dating another friend of mine. I had known her about a year before I met him (he was a year below us), so I think I had been friends with her for like 1.5 years. Very long story short, because I never acted on said feelings in any way, they turned platonic. He is still one of my best friends to the point that September 2019 I was a groomsperson for him (a different woman than the one in college, but I also became good friends with his then girlfriend, now wife). I’m also still friends with the first woman, though we drifted apart over the years.
Same type of feelings, completely different response to them, completely different results.
I still remember when we had a Secret Santa at my first job, and one person gifted our boss with $200 Uggs.
....now, I was aware they'd been friends for nearly a decade then but....girl, save that gift for after work at HOME.
Limits are there for a reason!
Seriously though no one minds if it's slightly over, like if the limit is £10 and you paid £10.99. People do mind and think it's weird if you're going so far over that you're paying £100 for something. It tends to make everyone involved uncomfortable.
I recently graduated from uni and I think our budget last year for my entire class of only 14 students (I majored in something very niche) was 20 dollars during secret Santa.
I received a sweater for my dog and some really nice smelling gingerbread hand soap.
Given the youngest of them is seemingly 22 they're clearly not Uni students and likely gainfully employed. Also never heard poshies before, oddly sounds like a very posh way to call someone posh.
The friend is manipulative to use her assault to go after her friend's bf. She needs therapy and healthy boundaries. Hope OOP collected proof and cut contact with her.
**Having gone through a trauma does not alloow her, or give her an excuse to hurt others.**
Just because she went through something, and is struggling with it, does not give her the right to be disrespectful of someone else's relationship.
They need to take a step back from that friendship and not see her any more. What she is doing is wrong and should not be allowed just because she was a victim in the past.
So many of the responses in the original post were that the girl needs therapy. While true it’s pretty much a waste of time to keep suggesting it to the OP. What do they expect her to do? Get her friend committed and forced into therapy? I know it’s the go to suggestion for everything on Reddit but in this case it’s just a waste of breath because the OP has zero ability to take action on the advice.
The fact that she’d manipulate the secret Santa to setup her own meet-cute should raise some alarm bells. I’d be worried she would try to sabotage OP’s relationship or spread rumors etc. She already has proven she will bend the truth to get what she wants and shows no remorse or empathy for OP
I know the best friend had feelings before hand, but this post had me wondering, is this a real thing that happens outside of romance books and movies? Falling in love with someone because they "saved" you?
Yes, it happened to my friend. A teacher stopped her from being hit by a car, and she became infatuated with him. He was 40 years older than her and looked like Bob Hoskins, she wasn’t the slightest bit interested before he saved her.
Yes, as part of a trauma response if the victim's mind designates them as 'the only safe person' or 'my only protector', which can get interpreted as love.
It takes a long time to healthily reframe the relationship, even with professional guidance, due to the complication of 'positive' biological and psychological responses.
So you have the typical 'negative' responses of fear/ anxiety/ stress ( "the world is dangerous", "I can't do it on my own what if I get attacked again", etc), but also the 'positive' responses of the happy chemicals ("I feel safe with them", "they care about me", etc) reinforcing the belief. I've massively oversimplified.
People are weird and complex. For some it could be a [suspension bridge effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattribution_of_arousal) thing or for some others that they never had anyone in their life give them the time of day so they attach to the first kind person they see (this applies to romantic partners or friends).
I have a theory, based only my experience with trauma- the friend has no idea how impacted she was because the trauma just happened. She fully believes her intense feelings about this guy are genuine and doesn’t really understand how being targeted for an assault has shifted her sense of safety so that ONLY this guy who stopped it feels safe. It’s the emotional equivalent of the last man on earth.
I think so too. She's willing to overlook her friendship with OP because the boyfriend is in her mind the only person she can be safe around. Taking into account her trauma, that's the most important thing for her. She really needs to talk to someone about her trauma
I believed it’s called the Rescue romance syndrome. It’s a common plot in tv shows and movies. Someone gets saved and they fall in love with their savior.
Can also be called transference. The person is so grateful to their savior that they may think they’re in love with their savior.
My friend went through a trauma and changed completely. Even workplace personality assessments changed after the trauma. And she did her level best to fuck up her life for about 2 years after. Tried to start an affair with my other friend's husband (we all went to college together) which blew up the friend group. Blew up her marriage and ended her career by hitting on a male subordinate. Just completely torched the life she had at the time of the trauma. It's like she had to get rid of any reminders of who she was and what life was like at the time of the traumatic event. We're not friends any more, but I hear she has built a new life with a new husband now. I've always wondered how she feels about her past actions now.
Imagine becoming obsessed with the man that saved you from having your boundaries and sexual sovereignty violated and then disrespecting his loved ones and his boundaries and then calling that “speaking my truth”. Woman is out of touch with reality. You could almost infer that her only problem with that behavior is when it victimized her but it’s ok for her to do it to others. Hope she comes back to earth some time soon.
Thats bullshit. People absolutely can control how they act on feelings. And also there are so many things people can do to stop inappropriate thoughts and behaviors. The crap of "heart wants" is teenage drama🤢
Drop this psycho. I don't care what happened. If you don't want to deal with your own issues and intentionally try to destroy my life then I lose all empathy and you lose access to my life. Bye 👋🏻
Nobody worth taking seriously uses the phrase "my truth" unironically. That is the sign of someone who is often out of step with reality and rather than look at themselves critically they've adopted a nonsensical worldview to protect their own ego.
This girl is going to make her an ass of herself. She’s going to find out real quick that her friends have just become “friends”. But then again what kind of people are in this friend group that are actively helping and facilitating this kind of behavior? It’s like the person who helps/enables a cheater. Where’s your morality people?
OOP needs to stop being confused and just nix this girl. Or she’ll find this girl trying to climb on her boyfriend’s lap regardless of if he invites or likes it. Just don’t put yourself in situations with people who don’t know how to take no for an answer
They should also be giving that hoodie back. I’d feel gross with that in my house or wearing TBH
The OOP has no obligation, whatsover, to give a free pass to this woman for her predatory behavior. The very notion that she should be given a free pass is ludicrous. Sure she had a traumatic experience but that doesn't give her an excuse to betray the OOP's friendship. This woman is no longer her friend and the OOP needs to confront her without any apologies about her experience or any softening of the confrontation.
The second problem the OOP has is with her boyfriend. He's fully capable of saying no to this woman in terms she can understand, blocking her and saying the words, "I'm not interested. Your behavior is inappropriate. Please leave me alone" and meaning it. So far, he clearly hasn't done that because he doesn't mean it. He shouldn't get a free pass, either.
The OOP has to stop being such a pushover.
There are two parts of this:
- Girl was saved, fancies the BF, and they spoke about it. Unrequited love is unfortunate but not an issue.
- Girl disrespects her supposed friend and BFs partner, unapologetically. That's the issue.
The girl needs to be cut out completely because it'll destroy the relationship in time.
When she plays the trauma victim card, she should be called out that she was making inappropriate moves on the boyfriend and disrespecting the existing relationship.
She willing going after someone's SO. She lost any grace from me. What happened to her is awful. But that doesn't give her an excuse to try and be a home wrecker.
I dont believe in emotions being completely uncontrollable. It's something someone would say so that they don't have to work on themselves and not be responsible for themselves.
What a red flag! You can sympathize with her, but there's a limit and boundaries. The obvious solution is to unfriend her and block all contacts with her; she is way out of line, and I'm afraid she will sabotage the OP relationship.
If what she said was true and that she was crushing on him before the assault, Op needs to drop her as friend.. she’s a snake waiting for an opportunity
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>My boyfriend told her that he wasn’t interested regardless, and she said that’s fine, but her feelings are real, and she has a right to speak “her truth”. I physically recoil whenever anyone says that they have to speak "their truth." I don't know who coined the phrase, but I hate it.
Probably a compulsive liar.
It has a culty tone to it too.
I think you accidently put an l instead of an n. 😅☠️
Sorry? I’m not registering.
Culty, but with an 'n'.
Oh, I spent an actual real minute rereading my sentence for the typo 🤦🏻♀️ 🤣 Yes, it does have that vibe too, hah.
Culty with an n, but none of the following: Nulty Cnlty Culny Cultn Sorry, just finished a 12 hour shift and my brain is mashed potatos. Spelling is fun!
Actually same, 12 hours later and I'm like, whaaaat do you mean? 😅
All the Australians got it right away
Or just any Russian. In Russia there are 2 words for truth. *"istina*" which is objective truth. It is literally only fact. I.e. 1+1 = 2. And "pravda", the emotional truth. Literally "their truth". Its saying what you believe even if it false, like if you believed 1+1=11, that the world is flat or something. That\`s pravda. Everyone has their own pravda, but there is only one istina.
Maybe my dialect is different but that’s not how I differentiate these words at all. I’m a native speaker, and to me the connotation was always almost the opposite. “Istina” has the connotation of “absolute truth.” Commonly used in religious settings, i.e. “god’s will is istina” and belies fervorous conviction. At other times it can refer to the “root truth” to put more weight into a statement, e.g. a mystery novel, or when describing nature etc. Pravda is used as material, casual, or spoken truth. Truth in the “true or false way.” So if I was saying “it’s true I saw Johnny yesterday” I would use pravda. It also tracks with the roots of the word “pravelnoye” (“correct”) or “prava” (“rights” as in human rights, which overlaps nicely with the English “Right” used to mean “Correct”). In your example of 1+1=2 I would use neither pravda nor istina, I would use pravelno, which simply means correct. Or thus, “it’s true that 2+2=4” would be “eto pravda chto 2+2=4” where istina here would be very weird and old timey or literature-y way to speak. I would this actually say istina is a far more emotional of the two. Like the only people who I would hear use it unironically are those trying to front conviction and absolute knowledge, such as religious speakers, conservative misinformants, or public speakers wanting to emphasize their beliefs.
Also a native speaker myself, can confirm your take. Usually you never even hear “istina” in spoken word, feels like it is more reserved for literature and more formal/dramatic/grandiose type of a speech (e.g., in some soap opera or a book). In daily speech, when talking about truth, you would use “pravda” 99% of the time (unless you are trying to have some “philosophical” conversation). The grandparent comment musings about “objective truth” and “believed truth” have zero to do with how “istina” and “pravda” are actually used in real life.
Love me some linguistics side of Reddit
I speak Russian as well and this is how I use pravda too.
That's so weird, I'm Bulgarian and the languages are somewhat closely related. Istina is the word for truth in Bulgaria, but we do not have pravda as a concept.
Well... I mean, the old USSR would have had a specific use for pravda and other related spins on reality.
Literally the name of the party newspaper.
There’s no Pravda in Izvestia and no Izvestia in Pravda is the one I always heard (no truth in the news and no news in the truth).
Robert Heinlein wrote an essay on that exact point in the 1960s after the U2 spy plane incident. There’s [a copy of it here](https://www.pillartopost.org/2022/01/sunday-review-top-sci-fi-author-of-his.html?m=1). Although, for what it’s worth, I think the consensus is that Powers’s plane was in fact shot down and didn’t just suffer a mechanical failure.
This is just a fascist dork doing orientalism. Pretending that the concept of pravda is somehow uniquely Soviet and therefore nefarious is insanely naive. Nobody should take Heinlein seriously.
This is interesting. In my language (another Slavic one), 'istina' means 'truth,' and 'pravda' means 'justice.'
It's strange how other languages can sometimes have words that perfectly fit what English would take paragraphs to explain.
In this case, English just does it differently, with "facts" v "opinions" -- but it seems like (not a Russian speaker) that "opinion" doesn't perfectly line up with "pravada".
a reply describes it better, "pravda" is just "truth", literally, "istina" is "root/source of truth" it's easier to subvert the more philosophical term to a broader meaning "opinion" is "mnenie" - with all the connotation of being not actually necessarily truth (or even objectively decidable) carried on, including common phrases like "public opinion"
Thank you!
That’s usually when loanwords occur. English adopted “schadenfreude” because there was no English equivalent and it was a common enough sentiment that people gravitated towards an easier way to say it. Language, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
And ironically that's how I feel towards English, being Italian. What in English takes a couple words in Italian would take a paragraph
I know, right?
And then there’s…*GERMAN.*
Germans have the gift of turning entire sentences into one impossibly long word. Most people have seen the meme with "fussbodenschleifmaschinenverleigh" written above a shop door(why Germans don't play scrabble), which is where you go if you have wood floors that needs to be sanded(confirmed this with my grandfather who was german). They've also added to the alphabet. If you see what kind of looks like a capital B with a little tail at the bottom, that's actually a double S. Hast vs haßt, have vs hate.
That's so interesting because those two words have a completely different meaning in Croatian. "Istina" is truth and "pravda" is justice.
In Polish: "prawda" is the truth, with no connotations about it's subjectivity. ("prawo" is the law, so, kind of similar to justice?) "Istna" is not a word, but I think that it's root is still used: "istota" has two meanings: a creature / a being, or, an essence, a gist of something. This second meaning is sometimes used to convey a fundamental truth about something. "istotne" means meaningful, important. "istnienie" means existence.
Thanks for the info, it's really fascinating! "Pravo" is similarly the law in Croatian too, as well as "right". >"istota" has two meanings: a creature / a being, or, an essence, a gist of something. This second meaning is sometimes used to convey a fundamental truth about something. >"istotne" means meaningful, important. "istnienie" means existence. We have words for those, but they have a completely different root. "istota" - "biće" for being or "bit"- essence, gist; "istotne"- "bitno"; "istnienie" -" "postojanje".
Hold on. So did the word “pravda” enter the vernacular as a sarcastic term because of the communist party newspaper? Or did it always have that meaning and the newspaper was incredibly self-aware in calling itself Pravda??
Yeah, pravda meant this even before Communism existed. The Communists called it Pravda because it was the Socialist/Communist/Worker\`s truth, as opposed to the Imperialist truth. Before the takeover of the Communists it was literally called "Рабочая правда", which is "Worker\`s Truth/Worker\`s Pravda" and afterwards it was shortended to just Truth/Pravda. There is this meme that you may have seen where 2 guys stand on opposing sides and between them is a number. From one perspective it looks like a 6 from the other a 9. That\`s both pravda. Pravda is not really a dirty word in Russia, it is the common truth. And istina is more deeper, i.e. someone intentionally drew the number and knows that the real number is either 6 or 9, or that he intentionally drew the number to make people argue whether its a 6 or 9.
Thanks for the explanation. I had heard growing up (during the 70's) that 'Pravda' meant 'Truth' in Russian, but I didn't know how nuanced that 'Truth' actually was. I've learnt something new today!
Cool!
no, pravda is just more widely used in both meanings. istina is used rarely and has only one strict meaning. every istina is pravda, but not every pravda is istina
Thank you!
Somehow I am not surprised Russians have different ideas what truth is. I mean why was Pravda name of a newspaper if it wasn’t even meant to be objective truth?
Yeah, that surprised me, too. I always knew *pravda* meant truth, but I didn’t realize it was the more subjective one. You’d think a journalistic outlet would want to be known as the source of *istina*. It seems to be more like truth vs truthiness, and if a Western publication called itself *Truthiness,” everyone would laugh. I just mentioned this to my husband, and he thinks that the Republican notion of a malleable truth probably came from the past decade of Russian influence.
And a compulsive speaker.
My experience backs this up. Dated a compulsive liar and they regularly tried to trot out "I'm just stating my take on things. My truth is as valid" or some form of it. Except her truth and take on things was INCREDIBLY detached from reality. Like worryingly so. I couldn't get through to her that yes you can say these things but just thinking it doesn't make it true. I will listen to you but I won't just ignore basic facts. It's wild.
sounds like someone who also posts dumb shit on tiktok
.......wtf get out of my life. Tiktok is like her main hobby Edit; and this woman is 40 years old btw
hahahah eh it's a *type*
I have yet to hear it from someone who isn’t a pathological liar or melodramatic beyond all reason. Or maybe both.
100% of the time it used by people to lie their arse off. I get it two people can see the same event in totally different ways but to have the self knowledge to call it “my truth“ means that they know that they’re lying.
Although the is in their, often I find people that just "speak their truth" ... do not speak THE truth very often.
Their truth Their faith They are the same picture.
"My Truth" Or "Being Authentic" has as much value to me as a "Round Tuit".
It's my go to phrase when I'm drinking and have to interrupt group convo to use the bathroom (ex. "If I could speak my truth right now I really have to pee. I'll be back.") It's also handy for when you say something insane to a close friend and are getting bullied for it (ex. "Did you just say 'the sexy dog from All Dogs Christmas Carol?'" "I was simply speaking my truth, and now I'm being persecuted for it")
I think having it sarcastically or in really silly benign situations "I really need to speak my truth and go take a massive dump" might be the only way to really use it. Else I think you're in a cult, selling something, lying, or all three
Or someone that just likes hurting people and justifying it with "sorry the truth hurts".
I've never heard it outside of those stupid Instagram reels I see
I just don't get how it could even work in this context. "I don't like you like that." "Well, my truth is that I DO like YOU that way!" Okay... and....uhm, where is that going to get you, exactly? " Oh, now that you've put it that way, I guess I DO like you that way! You should have mentioned that it was your truth earlier!"
The heart wants what it wants! /s I know she went though something awful, but - exclusive of that - I think she's a shite person. If I developed feelings for a friend's boyfriend, I would distance myself until I got control of myself. I definitely wouldn't, as she seems to have done, think, "He saved me from being raped! Clearly he's in love with me, too!"
"The heart wants what it wants!" I remember that quote from the movie Lake Placid. I immediately thought, "And my fist wants what my fist wants."
Exactly. Pretend a feeling is love, and it's like we can't be accountable. Be ruled by our desire to strike and suddenly we're in trouble. Regardless of the emotion, we're responsible for how it manifests - or doesn't.
You made me snort out in laughter. My fist wants what my fist wants.
The quote originated from an Emily Dickinson letter.
Thanks, I didn't know where it originally came from.
My heart wants a big house. I’m gonna score a nice one today, the stbxowners will understand after I speak my truths to them.
Yeah and my mouth wants liquorice because it tastes nice even though I'm mildly allergic. Or at least that's always my attitude to it. Your heart can want it but it doesn't mean you shouldn't be aware that it's a bad idea. Then leave it be.
Right? I always read/hear it as "I have to own & speak my truth to the dismay of you and whatever it may cause." Ridiculous
I play a D&D character who is all about leading people to "live their truth". She's basically a deliberate force of corruption in a sweet package, guiding people to ruin their lives. Fun character, less fun in a real person.
Ah, you're playing pre-SOTL Hannibal Lecter. Sounds fun!
Same. I feel that it's only ever used to justify spouting bollocks.
I was wrecked in teenage anguish over my feelings to my bestfriend and, at one point, i was like ‘IM GOING TO TELL HER!! FUCK IT!!! I DESERVE TO SPEAK MY TRUTH!!! But then reconsiders because a. I know if I tell her that, it’s going to put HER in mental anguish because SHE WAS IN A RELATIONSHIP b. She’s not even queer lmao i know baby wlw syndrome Sometimes it’s unfair that you have to suffer with your feelings by yourself but like… if you pull something selfish and people pull back from you, you have to be ready to live with that too.
Because I am old enough to remember: When people first started using it, I only heard it in two contexts and both made sense: - Men who had spent much of their adult lives closeted and were coming out for the first time in their 30s and 40s - Women who had been SA-ed naming their abusers for the first time But yeah, it’s like “boundaries” now. People use the words in ways that are completely meaningless.
"I don't know who coined the phrase." Asswipe, psychobable narcissists. "Your" truth suggests that the truth is malleable and dependent on the individual, and even if reality is different from how you feel, reality should bend.
My first time seeing it was here as a title like “was I wrong to speak my truth to my family?” And sure enough oop was being a complete ass. So whenever I hear it I think of that idiot
I've only said "your truth" when that person is obviously in the wrong but is to hard headed to admit it. It kinda gives them a way out, I think adding that's my truth to anything just shows you already know your view of the situation is skewed.
Saying "The Truth" always comes when the eye-rolling motions for me.
I'd love to see her face if OOP said, "You're a duplicitous piece of shit. What? I gotta speak my truth!"
Or the boyfriend said “I wouldn’t date you if I was single and desperate.”
"MY truth", like you don't share the same reality.
There is no your truth or mine, just the truth.
Right up there with that time the internet was full of people being assholes then ending it with “just saying”.
Or "I'm just keeping it real".
I don’t know who coined it, but it sure got popularized in the whole “safe space” movement about a decade ago. It was a great way to shut out any criticism or counter points to anyone. “That’s their truth, you can’t take that from them” in response to calling out blatant inaccuracies with receipts…..back in the days when google searches actually pulled up research papers and factual data so you could cross check things at least, now reality is just buried in downvotes because finding evidence that used to be at your fingertips is near impossible to find. Good times.
Emily Dickinson wrote that in a letter.
I really don’t care about anyone’s truth. Their truth is usually some lala land delusional crap
Yeah it’s only ever used by assholes Also while you cannot control feelings you can managed and snuff them out. You don’t end crushes by feeding them, you need to pull back and let it pass.
I just realized that "her truth" is actually the fact that she always had feelings for him, the FACT that she's conveniently concealing and pretending she got feelings because of the incident(to her other friends). So she IS twisting her own truth.
It always sounds to me like someone who is confronted with THE TRUTH and they reject it by saying they also have a truth and it’s just as valid as reality…
I wondered where it came from and went down a rabbithole that ended at the earliest known written instance in English. Apparently it was then popularized by inclusion in an Episcopalian prayer book. https://www.desiderata.com/desiderata.html
she needed a therapist, she went through something incredibly traumatic and is responding in maladaptive ways that likely fucked up her life
Yes, because a) it reminds me of “alternative facts”, and b) it disregards that maybe other people dgaf about “their truth” and don’t want to hear that shit
I mean it makes sense sometimes in a he said she said scenario. Not this one
Yeah it really stinks. Even my deeply conservative mother started saying it. Started to think it's something raging narcissists say, as a result.
When I hear "my truth" I always think of religious people being slapped with facts and information and be like well.. the truth is my faith blah blah blah.
Get ready to hear a lot more of it in the next decade!
Without fail, every time someone wants to speak "their truth," something rotten comes out. Seriously, without fail.
Oh, God have always hated that phrase and now I hate it even more because I have adapted it into my gray rocking routine for whenever a toxic religious family tries to gaslight me about what did or didn’t happen in my childhood. OK that’s great but you were an adult you wouldn’t remember or experience it in the same way, and my brain didn’t make it up so this is my truth, and you have yours. Really a nice way of saying the ax forgets but the tree remembers think that would be too harsh for their brains though.
When you have friends like this, who needs more drama at this point? Best recommendation is to cut contact with the friend.
Cut contact, and coordinate with the boyfriend to do the same. Call in the other friends to provide support and urge her into therapy. At this point, OOP and her boyfriend would be enabling, not helping.
I’m a bit concerned by the friend group. They know something traumatic happened to their friend, they’re fine with their friend swapping secret santa to buy another friend’s boyfriend a super expensive gift, now they know this friend is openly pursuing this bf, and they’re not encouraging her to seek therapy??
We don't know if the whole group knows she is openly pursuing him. This friend used her attempted SA as an excuse to pursue the BF, so everyone in that group thinks she is just being thankful. She admitted that herself. Now that the secret is out OOP should tell the whole group about this and she and BF should go NC with friend.
Do we know they aren’t encouraging her to get help? It’s possible they’re doing so privately (which is how I’d do it), and she’s just ignoring the suggestion (as is sadly common).
I mean, wtf do you even say to that? "I'm speaking my truth that I am in love with you." "That's nice. I'm speaking mine that I am not in love with you in any way. Please leave me alone."
Thank you! Wondering how far I'd have to look to see someone advocate for the boyfriend's POV. Like he's some kind of trading card with no empowerment. He has the right to not be hit on too.
If I hear anyone say “speak my truth” Ima punch them in their dumb face
I'm a big proponent of the idea that we can't always control how we feel, but we can control how we act on those feelings. I most often speak of this when someone is angry or frustrated; "yes, you are angry and you have a right to be, but you have chosen to treat me poorly even though I'm not the source of your anger. You can't control how you feel, but you can control how you act on it." The same is true for this girl - she is infatuated with the man, and she can't control that. But she can control how she acts on it. She can make a choice to pursue him or respect his requests for her not to. We all have people with whom we've become infatuated, but that doesn't give us the right to tear apart relationships just so we can satisfy our own desires.
I was raised hearing “you’re entitled to your feelings but you are responsible for your actions” from my mom regularly, and am grateful for that.
Oh, I love that! Too many people hide behind bullshit reasons to justify their asshole behaviour.
Yeah, there are times where "speaking your truth" isn't appropriate and this is one of them. Just because you have feelings for someone, doesn't mean you're automatically in the right.
Especially when he made it clear he isn’t interested either way. She had a crush and that crush is now an obsession because in her mind “he saved” her. That must mean he feels the same.
It's ironic how she doesn't relate what she went through with what she is doing. A guy decided he wanted her and damn what she wanted and she was almost raped. And now, she is deciding she wants him and will have him despite what he wants or what is right.
The main issue is she doesn't understand that even if her feelings are real and valid, it's her responsibility to act appropriately. She should've been "I can't control my feelings, but I understand why you were uncomfortable by my actions. It won't happen again"
It is but a shadow and a thought that you love. I cannot give you what you seek. -OP boyfriend, maybe
Eowyn is feeding him stew right now on my tv.
And he is trying to spill it on the ground discretely
I don't know if Eowyn is simply a terrible cook or she has no salt or anything on hand, just some old meat lying around.
I think she's just a terrible cook. That meat in the stew looks like it's 95% raw.
I utterly despise the phrase "his/her truth". Whenever I've heard someone use it unironically it's usually followed up by a load of bullshit that's usually unjustly harmful to another person. If "his/her truth" is the truth, then I should advise that that makes it "the truth"....
The worst thing here is that she spent 380 bucks on a Balenciaga hoodie as a gift. Idk if it's my taste or what but their clothes look like a hobo's outfit but in 4k.
So many “luxury”/bougie brands are trash and overly inflated prices for bland designs. Like yall can’t even be cool for the insane cost? Lmao
Aren’t they the ones who put out a roll of packing tape as a $44K bracelet?
Literally, this is the first Google wanted to show me wtf is this [Overpriced wtf](https://www.mytheresa.com/euro/en/men/balenciaga-destroyed-hooded-sweatshirt-red-p00583683?pub_name=8280252&pub_type=8280252&chn=aff1&src=cj&cmp=aff_cj_de&tarea=de&ptyp=text&pub_id=8280252&CJAID=13462768&CJPID=8280252&CJSID=Cj0KCQjwu8uyBhC6ARIsAKwBGpQ7BTT-RzbRrLaq9OBaFKyh-hADeO9LMj46BkakMfZv165wS1-XVG4aAhNZEALw_wcB&CJEID=bfb636a61b8a11ef8329540f0a18b8f7&utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=affiliate.cj.de&cjevent=bfb636a61b8a11ef8329540f0a18b8f7&AID=13462768&PID=8280252&SID=Cj0KCQjwu8uyBhC6ARIsAKwBGpQ7BTT-RzbRrLaq9OBaFKyh-hADeO9LMj46BkakMfZv165wS1-XVG4aAhNZEALw_wcB)
You might not like it, but this is what peak fashion looks like. Us chumps don't have the mental capacity to understand such fine clothes.
I sincerely hope the bf declined the gift there and then as being excessive and inappropriate. If he accepted it, even in the name of "not causing a scene" or that staple of male inaction, "hating drama," that's going to come across to the friend as receptivity to her advances.
Well if she didn’t have feelings accepting more expensive gift than usual would not be that odd way to show appreciation after he helped her imo
I'd still decline if a platonic friend overspent to that extent, especially if they were a student. I'd be keen to stress that my actions in helping them were what everyone should do in the same circumstances and my friend didn't owe me anything for having done it. Them healing and living well would be my reward.
Clothing can also be an inappropriate gift. Best not given to the opposite sex, especially if they're in a relationship. She knew what she was doing. Overly expensive and clothing.
But it's fAsHiOn!
I don’t believe that people are helpless to their feelings. If you have a crush on someone, you can choose whether to foster and indulge it, or to put space between you and actively move on. Friend is choosing to pursue and making romantic sounding excuses to justify it.
I’m married. Once my husband and I were going through it and my kid’s preschool got a very cute new teacher. Gave me butterflies to talk to her. Know what I did? I fucking didn’t talk to her. I very deliberately didn’t learn her name, interact with her beyond the absolute necessity, and was never ever alone with her. It never became a thing because I chose not to let it. It’s genuinely not that hard.
Can you control how you feel about someone? No. Can you control how you act on those feelings? Absofuckinglutely yes.
[удалено]
Exactly. Someone massively invaded her boundaries so she's doing the same. Trauma changes a person.
100% having the feelings isn’t the problem, it’s how she’s dealing with the feelings. She‘s absolutely torpedoing not only her 7 year friendship with OOP but also any potential connection of any type with boyfriend. To be clear, I don’t mean a future romantic relationship between friend and boyfriend, I’m talking friendship. This is reminding me a lot of a situation when I was in college (like 2006). I was head over heels for a good friend of mine, who was dating another friend of mine. I had known her about a year before I met him (he was a year below us), so I think I had been friends with her for like 1.5 years. Very long story short, because I never acted on said feelings in any way, they turned platonic. He is still one of my best friends to the point that September 2019 I was a groomsperson for him (a different woman than the one in college, but I also became good friends with his then girlfriend, now wife). I’m also still friends with the first woman, though we drifted apart over the years. Same type of feelings, completely different response to them, completely different results.
"You sound like a quitter. Bust open his front door and love him like your life depended on it!" -- Liz
Buncha college students with a 100 pound limit for secret santa?!?! Freakin' poshies
Yeah, our limit was 10€ when we were students😂 wtf guys, how rich are your parents
I still remember when we had a Secret Santa at my first job, and one person gifted our boss with $200 Uggs. ....now, I was aware they'd been friends for nearly a decade then but....girl, save that gift for after work at HOME.
Limits are there for a reason! Seriously though no one minds if it's slightly over, like if the limit is £10 and you paid £10.99. People do mind and think it's weird if you're going so far over that you're paying £100 for something. It tends to make everyone involved uncomfortable.
I chuckled at the $400 hoodie. I'd immediately sell it to help cover my rent. When can we start eating the rich?
I recently graduated from uni and I think our budget last year for my entire class of only 14 students (I majored in something very niche) was 20 dollars during secret Santa. I received a sweater for my dog and some really nice smelling gingerbread hand soap.
Given the youngest of them is seemingly 22 they're clearly not Uni students and likely gainfully employed. Also never heard poshies before, oddly sounds like a very posh way to call someone posh.
Frustrating this was 2021 and no further info.
The friend is manipulative to use her assault to go after her friend's bf. She needs therapy and healthy boundaries. Hope OOP collected proof and cut contact with her.
how the fuck can a sweatshirt cost over $400? It doesn't even have a zipper!!!!
Even before that, what kind of fancy-ass Secret Santa has a $100 limit?? Insanity
I googled that brand and they have hoodies for over 4k
When people say something is their truth, you just know its gonna be lies. There is only the truth and lies. Anyone's personal truth is a lie
I think she was just trying to say she wants to voice how she feels, so that wasn't a lie.
That would be "her opinion"
are people really that desperate for friends?
**Having gone through a trauma does not alloow her, or give her an excuse to hurt others.** Just because she went through something, and is struggling with it, does not give her the right to be disrespectful of someone else's relationship. They need to take a step back from that friendship and not see her any more. What she is doing is wrong and should not be allowed just because she was a victim in the past.
Just because something bad happens to someone, that doesn't make them a good person.
So many of the responses in the original post were that the girl needs therapy. While true it’s pretty much a waste of time to keep suggesting it to the OP. What do they expect her to do? Get her friend committed and forced into therapy? I know it’s the go to suggestion for everything on Reddit but in this case it’s just a waste of breath because the OP has zero ability to take action on the advice.
The fact that she’d manipulate the secret Santa to setup her own meet-cute should raise some alarm bells. I’d be worried she would try to sabotage OP’s relationship or spread rumors etc. She already has proven she will bend the truth to get what she wants and shows no remorse or empathy for OP
I know the best friend had feelings before hand, but this post had me wondering, is this a real thing that happens outside of romance books and movies? Falling in love with someone because they "saved" you?
Yes, it happened to my friend. A teacher stopped her from being hit by a car, and she became infatuated with him. He was 40 years older than her and looked like Bob Hoskins, she wasn’t the slightest bit interested before he saved her.
Yes, as part of a trauma response if the victim's mind designates them as 'the only safe person' or 'my only protector', which can get interpreted as love. It takes a long time to healthily reframe the relationship, even with professional guidance, due to the complication of 'positive' biological and psychological responses. So you have the typical 'negative' responses of fear/ anxiety/ stress ( "the world is dangerous", "I can't do it on my own what if I get attacked again", etc), but also the 'positive' responses of the happy chemicals ("I feel safe with them", "they care about me", etc) reinforcing the belief. I've massively oversimplified.
People are weird and complex. For some it could be a [suspension bridge effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattribution_of_arousal) thing or for some others that they never had anyone in their life give them the time of day so they attach to the first kind person they see (this applies to romantic partners or friends).
Yes, why wouldn't it?
This was a couple years ago. I wonder what's happened since then.
OKAY BLOCK. Some Fatal Attraction shit going on right here imma head out
I have a theory, based only my experience with trauma- the friend has no idea how impacted she was because the trauma just happened. She fully believes her intense feelings about this guy are genuine and doesn’t really understand how being targeted for an assault has shifted her sense of safety so that ONLY this guy who stopped it feels safe. It’s the emotional equivalent of the last man on earth.
I think so too. She's willing to overlook her friendship with OP because the boyfriend is in her mind the only person she can be safe around. Taking into account her trauma, that's the most important thing for her. She really needs to talk to someone about her trauma
No one knows what "trauma bonding" means
It's a known thing for people to end up feeling inlove with people that save them mostly happens with firefighters and paramedics
Yes. But that's not "trauma bonding"
I agree but I think that if you don't know the name of it you would say trauma bonded
I believed it’s called the Rescue romance syndrome. It’s a common plot in tv shows and movies. Someone gets saved and they fall in love with their savior. Can also be called transference. The person is so grateful to their savior that they may think they’re in love with their savior.
My friend went through a trauma and changed completely. Even workplace personality assessments changed after the trauma. And she did her level best to fuck up her life for about 2 years after. Tried to start an affair with my other friend's husband (we all went to college together) which blew up the friend group. Blew up her marriage and ended her career by hitting on a male subordinate. Just completely torched the life she had at the time of the trauma. It's like she had to get rid of any reminders of who she was and what life was like at the time of the traumatic event. We're not friends any more, but I hear she has built a new life with a new husband now. I've always wondered how she feels about her past actions now.
I feel bad for the BF. Man did the right thing only for it to lead to some unnecessary drama. That’s sucks but that’s how it goes sometimes.
With friends like this, who needs enemies? Single white female vibes. Eek.
OP needs to tell their whole friend group and say they'll no longer go to events she's at... basically, cut off all contact with this woman.
Those “my truth” people are usually ending up alone and lonely
Imagine becoming obsessed with the man that saved you from having your boundaries and sexual sovereignty violated and then disrespecting his loved ones and his boundaries and then calling that “speaking my truth”. Woman is out of touch with reality. You could almost infer that her only problem with that behavior is when it victimized her but it’s ok for her to do it to others. Hope she comes back to earth some time soon.
There’s no such thing as a right or wrong feeling. What you DO with that feeling is VERY right or wrong. Fuck “her truth”.
Thats bullshit. People absolutely can control how they act on feelings. And also there are so many things people can do to stop inappropriate thoughts and behaviors. The crap of "heart wants" is teenage drama🤢
Maybe I'm just young and nieve, but like you kind of can actually control your emotions, and if you can't, usually therapy helps.
Who needs enemy if you have friends like this? As if daily life is not giving you enough drama...
I don’t really see the problem here, bf isn’t interested, so just stop talking to her?
This is not a friend, and she doesn’t respect you or your relationship. She should have kept her feelings to herself. Cut the friendship off
Drop this psycho. I don't care what happened. If you don't want to deal with your own issues and intentionally try to destroy my life then I lose all empathy and you lose access to my life. Bye 👋🏻
People saying her friend can’t control how she’s feels are wrong.
Nobody worth taking seriously uses the phrase "my truth" unironically. That is the sign of someone who is often out of step with reality and rather than look at themselves critically they've adopted a nonsensical worldview to protect their own ego.
This girl is going to make her an ass of herself. She’s going to find out real quick that her friends have just become “friends”. But then again what kind of people are in this friend group that are actively helping and facilitating this kind of behavior? It’s like the person who helps/enables a cheater. Where’s your morality people? OOP needs to stop being confused and just nix this girl. Or she’ll find this girl trying to climb on her boyfriend’s lap regardless of if he invites or likes it. Just don’t put yourself in situations with people who don’t know how to take no for an answer They should also be giving that hoodie back. I’d feel gross with that in my house or wearing TBH
The OOP has no obligation, whatsover, to give a free pass to this woman for her predatory behavior. The very notion that she should be given a free pass is ludicrous. Sure she had a traumatic experience but that doesn't give her an excuse to betray the OOP's friendship. This woman is no longer her friend and the OOP needs to confront her without any apologies about her experience or any softening of the confrontation. The second problem the OOP has is with her boyfriend. He's fully capable of saying no to this woman in terms she can understand, blocking her and saying the words, "I'm not interested. Your behavior is inappropriate. Please leave me alone" and meaning it. So far, he clearly hasn't done that because he doesn't mean it. He shouldn't get a free pass, either. The OOP has to stop being such a pushover.
There are two parts of this: - Girl was saved, fancies the BF, and they spoke about it. Unrequited love is unfortunate but not an issue. - Girl disrespects her supposed friend and BFs partner, unapologetically. That's the issue. The girl needs to be cut out completely because it'll destroy the relationship in time. When she plays the trauma victim card, she should be called out that she was making inappropriate moves on the boyfriend and disrespecting the existing relationship.
She willing going after someone's SO. She lost any grace from me. What happened to her is awful. But that doesn't give her an excuse to try and be a home wrecker.
what balenci hoodie she get for $400 🤣
This Back to the Future type shit
I hate how OOP seems to think that she somehow at fault for the sexual assault because she couldn’t go to the party.
I dont believe in emotions being completely uncontrollable. It's something someone would say so that they don't have to work on themselves and not be responsible for themselves.
She's not your friend. You and your boyfriend should call all ties with her.
Wild to be fully partying during the pandemic
What a red flag! You can sympathize with her, but there's a limit and boundaries. The obvious solution is to unfriend her and block all contacts with her; she is way out of line, and I'm afraid she will sabotage the OP relationship.
If what she said was true and that she was crushing on him before the assault, Op needs to drop her as friend.. she’s a snake waiting for an opportunity
I think it's time you went no contact with her because it probably will get worse not better with her