Dealing with friends, even when you're trying to help, can be difficult.
Reddit user @California098 found out the hard way that sometimes, no matter what you do, people just don't want to change.
Here's The Story
OP is a 24-year-old woman who has a 26-year-old male friend. OP says they've been friends for 12 years and that her friend is a great person with some really ‘desirable traits.' His one drawback is his lack of personal hygiene.
OP says that her friend works out several days a week but only showers once. He has a bad habit of not brushing his teeth and often smells of stale body odor. Plus, he isn't one for laundry until his “clothes are all stiff.”
She's tried encouraging him by offering to leave her toothpaste out or asking if he has shower supplies if they have to stay overnight somewhere. But, nothing's changed.
The situation has reached a point to where she's embarrassed to be in public with him and admits to stop asking him to go places. He always shows up “greasy, smelly and with an inch thick of plaque on his teeth.”
She Doesn't Want To Tell Him He Smells
Recently OP's friend put her between a rock and a hard place. He confessed to having a crush on one of her newer friends. He asked OP if her friend was single and she said her friend was — but wasn't looking for anything right now because of a recent breakup.
But, he wouldn't take no for an answer and reached out to her friend himself. The friend turned down the date offer, saying she was already seeing someone else. That's when he knew someone was lying to him and it didn't take him long to confront OP about it.
That's when she finally got extremely blunt with him. “I told him everyone I knew thinks he's disgusting because of his hygiene, they don't want to be near him, let alone date him,” she said.
OP said after the confrontation, her friend hasn't talked to her in a month and says she needs to apologize and tell everyone they knew he didn't have poor hygiene. But OP feels she did her friend a favor by being honest.
Here's What Reddit Has To Say
@realstareyes makes the point that all OP was trying to do was help her friend by being honest.
“NTA. You‘re trying to help him, and you‘re only telling him the truth. He needs to get a reality check and improve his hygiene. Otherwise, he can‘t expect people to be willingly around him, even less to want to get intimate with him.”
User @bearcatdaddy thinks OP's friend's issues may reach beyond hygiene into other areas of his life.
“Exactly. I bet this goes beyond personal hygiene too. If you're not one to make yourself presentable, I doubt your cleaning standards for your home are much better. No one wants to be a mom to their significant other. Having no personal hygiene would be a huge red flag indicator of that”
Redditor @Suspiciouscupcake23 wants to remind people that OP didn't lie and doesn't need to ‘correct anything.'
“Plus it's not her job to tell everyone he's clean. This isn't a lie she's been spreading and needs to correct. If he fixes the problem, people will notice that on their own, too.”
In The End
OP is definitely between a rock and a hard place with her male friend. Would you have told your friend the truth? Should OP apologize, and if so, for what precisely?
Read the full story here.
This article is produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.