A woman recently faked a pregnancy that resulted in another woman becoming their friend group's pariah—and the online consensus is that her actions were justified.
A Reddit post titled, "AITA for pretending to be a sugar baby to humiliate someone?" has been upvoted over 18,000 times and received over 1,700 comments.
The 31-year-old female poster described how she recently moved into her 42-year-old boyfriend's house. The couple has been together five years and she is "friendly with almost all of his friends, except for his best friend's girlfriend, who hates me."
She said the other woman, whom she referred to as Elle for anonymity, thinks she's a "gold digger." The poster admitted to being a freelancer with "a decent job" who works hard yet makes "a lot" less money than her counterpart.
"Part of the reason she thinks this about me might be because we've got different backgrounds. He (and most of his friends) grew up wealthy, and I grew up working-class," the poster said. "She's forever making little digs at my background (I'm from a poorer part of the country, with a strong accent) and trying to pass it off as banter."
Things escalated between both women. The other woman made a series of disparaging comments, such as that the poster "bagged" her boyfriend to live in an affluent place; or that the poster would fake a pregnancy to "lock him in."
"I can't have children, but she doesn't know that," the poster said. "When she said that, it got to the point that it was no longer funny to me, so instead of laughing it off like I normally do, I decided I'd just play along."
It led to an encounter in which the other woman made a comment about the poster not having a full-time job, to which the poster responded by fabricating a pregnancy and touching her belly to make it seem as if there were other future priorities.
"I'm not sure why I thought this was a good idea, but I was enjoying how angry it was making her so I kept doing it," the poster said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that among heterosexual women ages 15 to 49 in the United States who have no prior births, about one in five of them are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying—meaning they are infertile. About one in four of the women in the same group have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term.
UCLA Health reports that most couples, about 85 percent, will become pregnant within one year of trying. An additional 7 percent of couples will conceive in the second year of attempts.
Things came to a head last Friday during a group dinner with friends. The poster was dieting so she wasn't drinking any alcohol anyway, which drew questioning from the other woman—including another dig at the poster's upbringing.
Then, the woman blurted out, "You must be happy you're expecting, Miles, but I thought you didn't want kids?" Miles was a name used to replace the poster's boyfriend.
"I pretended to be shocked and looked over at Miles, and said 'Actually, I can't have children,'" the poster said. "Literally everyone was silent. I got up and left and Miles followed me."
The woman was "apparently mortified" and the comment even caused the woman's own boyfriend to stay at a friend's house. Nobody else in the group is talking to the woman either, filling the poster with consternation about whether she took the fake pregnancy too far.
The vast majority of Redditors said she didn't, however, with many saying the other woman "had it coming" for her repeated negative vitriol—including making a comment about pregnancy in front of a group of people.
The poster's boyfriend knows the truth and background of the situation and is supporting her.
"She stuck her nose where it didn't belong for no good reason," one user commented. "And let's pretend you were pregnant, her goal was to announce it for you? Who does that? Seems you saved his friend from a bad relationship. And you're being honest with your bf."
Some speculated that the other woman secretly is attracted to the poster's boyfriend and made it a mission to alienate and embarrass the poster.
"If your bf thinks she had it coming, don't feel so bad," another Redditor said. "She's in the situation she's in for behaving in a wholly inappropriate way. It was all a situation of her own creation."
Newsweek reached out to the original poster for additional comment.
