TW for content
I just recently had to leave an online “friend group” of 4 years. I felt completely justified for it, but part of me mourns and even cries thinking about everything back.
For years, we made characters, wrote stories, laughed over calls; I truly thought they were my friends. And they even cared for me. I saw their faces, they introduced me to their lives. It really felt like my own friend group.
Then suddenly, my POCD and morality fears came up due to content one of them was posting. Now, this person posted a lot of suggestive stuff, which was fine with me since we’re all adults. But some thing I started questioning, for example furry material, but in the end, I thought it was just me. It was fiction, and they said they were completely against abuse, and never had any sort of immoral attraction.
Yet, it started to get worse. I was losing sleep, I was crying, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was happening. I was so sure who I was talking to was a bad person. Every fear I had, they had an explanation, but I would just keep finding more. The day came where I couldn’t take it anymore, and invited them to a call, where I apologized. And they said,
“That’s okay, I forgive you. I’ve been accused of being a pedophile multiple times.”
That broke me. Excuse me? What do you MEAN multiple times? I questioned them on this, they said it happened “probably once every 3 months”, that “I don’t know why, I guess it’s because I’m a furry and I’m into things kids like?”
Even THEN, I STILL felt like I wanted to believe them. It was accusations; what was I supposed to do about that? And furries did get a lot of hate. Yet, I still avoided them.
The final straw was when I went through their art page favorites and found pictures of a character (basically a parody of slenderman that was specifically meant to be sexual) interacting with a child. That was it. I couldn’t justify it anymore. I gave the info to the other members. The results after?
One blocked me. One said I was “schizo-obsessive”, and the one I accused wrote a letter on their art page saying they were hurt and hoped I got help, telling me “those pictures are from when I was 16 and being edgy, they’re old”
I left. I told one of them I was leaving, and that I wouldn’t be back. I cried the whole night. I look back at characters I can’t use anymore, stories thrown in the garbage. The video game we bonded over is so hard to look at now because it reminds me of them. But, I feel justified. It had gone too far, in my opinion; I couldn’t have let that slide. Those pictures, the accusations, the constant question. And I’ll never know if I was right or wrong, but they were just that: people online. And I regret ever making a connection.
It still hurts, and I wish I could just let it go. I don’t want to go back to them, I can’t. I can’t risk talking to bad people. But the hurt is still there.