AITAH for sleeping with a single guy while I’m single, and now somehow having to apologize to my friend for it?
I honestly don’t even know why I’m questioning myself, but here we are.
I(29f), and my friend(31f). We’re both Asian and currently living abroad in another Asian country. We met when we first moved here and have been friends for about 5 years now. Like any long friendship, we’ve had misunderstandings and arguments, but we usually worked things out (to be fair, I’m usually the one who compromises).
Now to the main issue.
For the past 6 months, we’ve been working at the same place. My friend has been married for 10 years and lives here with her husband and child. During this time, we got close to a male coworker who is a foreigner. We all worked together, and the vibe was friendly—almost like we were just coworkers who joked around like friends.
He’s around our age, objectively good-looking, and has a decent personality. My friend and I would jokingly call him “cute” or tease each other like, “That’s your crush,” but always in a playful way. Since my friend is married with a kid, I honestly took all of this as harmless jokes.
I, on the other hand, have been single for about two years. I don’t even really date because I’m busy all the time. So over time, I did start seeing him a little bit as a man, not just a coworker—but nothing ever crossed a line.
Then one day, he suddenly told us he was transferring to another location for work, and that day would be his last day with us. We were all shocked.
That evening, he messaged me out of the blue and asked me to go out for dinner. I didn’t overthink it. I assumed it was just a farewell dinner since it was literally our last time seeing each other.
He picked me up, we had dinner, and then he drove me back home. When we arrived, just as I was about to get out of the car, he asked if I wanted to spend a little more time together. I did have some feelings for him, so I said yes—but in my head, I thought we were just going to drive around and talk.
(Yes, I know. Peak naïve Asian girl thinking 😅)
Instead, he confidently turned the car around and… boom. We were suddenly in front of a hotel.
I was surprised and nervous at first, but then I thought: he’s single, I’m single, no one is being cheated on. So… it happened.
Two days later, we had to work together one last time because of unfinished paperwork. My friend jokingly said something like, “You two are acting kinda suspicious, what’s going on?” So I told her that we had slept together.
At first, she laughed and seemed totally fine with it. She kept joking around like usual—right up until the end of the workday.
But later that evening, when the three of us went out to eat together, she suddenly started crying. She wouldn’t talk to us, just cried the whole time. After he left, she became angry at me.
She said things like “I’m feeling so many emotions right now. You shouldn’t have told me. It feels like you’re saying you slept with my man (Excuse me??? You’re married??). I’ve lost all respect for both of you. Men really are all the same. I feel like my husband has been disrespected. Why did I ever say he was cute? What must he think of me now?” kind of things like that
She even implied—very indirectly—that by sleeping with him, I somehow made women from our country look “cheap.”
I was honestly so confused. I didn’t understand why she was this angry or why she was crying. I couldn’t even respond properly. I just stayed quiet… and apologized.
But now that I’ve had time to think about it:
If two single adults made a consensual decision to sleep together, why on earth do I owe my friend an apology?
So… AITAH or ho?
