Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : Okay, so I have a feeling that I might look like an asshole straight away from the title, but let me give a bit of context.

I’ve been friends with this girl since we were young, we’ll call her Lily. For the first few years, everything was great, but as we got older the friendship became quite toxic. Lily fell out with pretty much everyone I knew, and became very jealous of my other friendships, claiming that I was replacing her. For a while she was my only friend because I felt bad for being friends with anyone else. Then I realised that I couldn’t spend my life like that, and so I reached out to other people more and made some new friends. Lily was friends with them at first, but eventually fell out with them too. We had a huge fight about it just after we left school, and almost broke friends, but she apologised and I forgave her.

When she started university, I went to visit her quite early on. At the time she was friendly with her flat mates, so I talked to all of them and became quite friendly of them. I exchanged contacts with one girl (we’ll call her Nina), and over the next few months we talked a lot and became quite close friends. In that time, Lily fell out with most of her flat mates, and had a huge fight with Nina’s best friend, ending up with the friend kicking her out of their plan to share accommodation next year. Obviously, Lily hates her now, and is on speaking terms with Nina but doesn’t like her very much. 

Recently, I went to visit Lily again. A few months have passed since my last visit. It was a bit awkward because I wanted to spend time with Nina too, but the only chances I got were at night when we ran into each other in the kitchen when Lily was asleep. Then I met another friend of Lily’s, who she’s planning on living with next year. He also hates Nina and her friend, and told me that they kicked him out of the housing plan too. I asked Nina about it, and she explained that he’s basically been stalking her friend, even going into her room at night when she was asleep, and so they decided they couldn’t live with him. Obviously she could be lying, but her story matched up completely with what I’d been told by Lily already, just putting things into the right context, and also Lily has twisted stories in the past to the point that I don’t trust anything she tells me anymore. 

So, after I’d returned home, I was still in contact with Nina. She mentioned to me that there was a shop she’d like to show me next to her university next time I was down there (it’s several hours from where I live). I told her that, much as I’d love that, i didn’t think I’d feel comfortable with visiting Lily next year if she’s going to be living with this creepy friend. Obviously I’m going to try and warn lily about this friend, but I haven’t done so yet as I’m not sure how to bring it up. Nina said I was welcome to visit her instead, if I’d still like to visit.

I would love to visit Nina, because we’ve grown quite close recently, and I think she’s an absolutely lovely person. Staying with her would be so much fun. But if i stayed with her, I’d also be staying with her best friend who Lily hates. Lily would never let me do that, because she believes that I shouldn’t be friends with people who she hates (which in some cases is fair enough, but let me remind you that she hates nearly all of my friends already). I would have to keep it a secret from her. Of course she may run into me there, but I’d try not to let that happen.

You may also be wondering why I don’t just break friends with lily, since she’s so controlling. I know I probably should,  but with her track record of falling out with people I worry that she’ll never keep any more friends. She has a lot of mental health issues, and at one point I had to call an ambulance because she was texting me threatening to overdose. Her mental health is a bit better at the moment, but could quickly get worse, and I worry that if I leave her she may actually do something.

What should I do in this situation? I don’t want to be dishonest, but I kind of already am being dishonest just by being friends with Nina. I don’t want someone controlling who I spend my time with, but I can’t just abandon Lily, because then she might have nobody. I feel like lying about it is the only way.