Hello, world. My name's Stephen LaConte, I'm a writer here at BuzzFeed, and according to my friends and family, I'm pretty darn good at giving advice.
So I've invited readers like you to message me on Instagram and Twitter (@StephenLC in both places) with your biggest problems — and I'm solving 'em right here on BuzzFeed, one DM at a time. Let's get right to it.
Today we've got this woman, whose friend recently accused her of sleeping with her boyfriend. How can she convince her friend she's innocent? Here's what she wrote to me:
Is there a way to prove your innocence? Maybe! But at this point, I wouldn't bother trying. You've already told your friend, multiple times, that you aren't sleeping with her boyfriend — and if you have an actual friendship with her, she should believe you without needing, like, a full DNA scan of your bedsheets.
Now, it's not clear from your DM why your friend thinks this is going on, but I assume you would have mentioned it if there was some actual, tangible piece of evidence she was clinging onto — like if she caught you texting her boyfriend inappropriately or something. Barring anything like that, it sounds like her claims are baseless, and that she's operating from a place of pure paranoia right now.
And if that's the case, then I think it's safe to say your friend is in a really shitty, distrustful relationship! In fact, I'll go one step further and hazard a guess that the boyfriend might indeed be sleeping around — not with you, but with someone — and that your friend is spiraling as she tries to figure out what the hell is going on. That sucks, and I feel for her, and I hope she gets out of that toxic situation soon. However...
None of that can excuse the horrible way she's been treating you. It would be one thing for her to voice her concerns with you, get the facts, and then move on. But instead, she's doubled down on her claims without evidence, called you a liar and a phony, and attempted to destroy your friendships by telling everyone you know. It's understandable why you're so hurt by this. What she's doing is extreme and totally unacceptable.
So, where do you go from here? Unfortunately, I think the answer is...nowhere. This is not a friendship you can or should continue, at least right now — so I think your best course of action here is to disengage from the situation entirely and walk away.
Sure, you could indulge her paranoia and try to find ways to prove, irrefutably and without a shadow of a doubt, that you aren't sleeping with her boyfriend. You could let her search through your phone, get eyewitnesses to confirm your alibis for each alleged tryst, submit yourself to a full-blown interrogation of your entire sexual history. But that sort of thing isn't fair to you, and it isn't healthy for her. Ultimately, the only real way you two can move forward is with trust — and honestly, I don't think she'll be able to trust anyone in her life until she dumps the man who seems to be wreaking havoc upon it.
I genuinely hope your friend has people around her who can help guide her to this realization, but you are not the person for that job. She already suspects you've got a thing going on with her boyfriend, and if you start telling her to dump him, I'm guessing that's not gonna go over too well.
No, I think the only thing you can do here is wipe your hands clean of this, and keep some distance from this woman moving forward. And here's the good news: None of your mutual friends are buying her wild stories, so you don't have much to do in terms of damage control. Just let those friends know that what she's saying is indeed false, and that your friendship with her is not a healthy one for you anymore. And then move on. Let this mess be her problem, not yours.
And hey, maybe someday when she's no longer in this relationship (which seems inevitable, one way or the other) she'll look back on the way she treated you and realize she really fucked up. If and when that day comes, I hope she gives you a REAL good apology. You're certainly owed one. Good luck.
That's all the advice I'm giving today, folks, but if you've got any words of wisdom for our DMer, share them in the comments! And check out my one-on-one conversation with our letter writer in the video below:
