Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : Background: High school Freshman, Male



A few weeks ago my AP English teacher assigned a year long group research paper on the writing style of “Jane Eyre” and how it contributed to the overall story. She said that we could partner with whomever we wanted, but we must be in groups of 5-7. I have a friend in this class who I’ll call R. I’ve been friends with R for 2 years, but never actually had any classes with him. This year was the first time we have had a class, and it’s also when I realized that I don’t like working with him in school. Despite him being a good student, he sucks up to our teacher on extreme levels, is very extroverted and has a “My way or the highway” mentality that came out on every other project that we’ve worked on together thus far, and is very belittling and doesn’t let anyone else do any work. When we were getting into groups, R asked if I could join. I was on the fence, until I saw the other people he had picked to be in it, all of which were who you could consider “popular” kids that I didn’t really like, including one girl who never stopped talking about herself and always fished for compliments by calling herself ugly, and another girl who was extremely racist, despite being black. They were toxic people, and when R is around them, he acts like a completely different person and is a total asshole to anyone that isn’t them. I also have another friend named A who is in that class, who, like me, is not talkative and very introverted. I asked if he could join, and of course, R told me no because the racist girl doesn’t like Asians very much. 

At this point, I knew that I would be in hell if I joined this group, and decided to decline. I joined with A, Another friend named L, and 2 others that I was acquainted with. R was OK and understanding of this decision, as he knows that we are not compatible when working on projects, but the others in his group called me selfish and an asshole for not joining them and doing a project with my friend, and even tried to convince him not to be friends with me anymore. I think that what I did was completely OK, but since I did have people disagreeing, a decided to this subreddit if I am in the wrong or not. Thank you for your input in advance