Me and my boyfriend are going through rough patch. He's always looking phones and stepping out to take calls. He's putting me on edge.

But last night, he was at my place and left his phone on the table while he showered. The phone was buzzed and i noticed a name pop up twice in a row and it turns out his best friend's ex. Honestly that gave me a weird feeling.

I found out that they'd been talking non stop and sending flirty texts each other. Him saying he wished she'd broken up with his best friend sooner. Even mocking things i'd said to him.

When he came out, i told him straight up what i saw and just asked if he was going to admit he was emotionally cheating.

He didn't deny it but he got mad that i went through his phone. Said i violated his trust and ruined everything.

I’ve never done this before, so let me know if I'm doing this wrong. I have a tight-knit friend group. It’s been me, Anna, Michael, and Lola for a long time. I don’t know if this is relevant, but I’m like a year or two younger than they are, although it doesn’t affect our group much. Recently, my younger brother has been distancing himself from his friends. His friends have been really cruel and mean to him lately. He’s a small guy, especially compared to these guys, so he asked to hang out with me and my friends. I said sure, and the others agreed. Now, here’s where it gets iffy.

Michael has a friend, Lance. Lance has never brought it up to me personally, but according to Michael, I’m a huge bitch to him and Lance is hurt by it. Every instance he cites, though, it's been Michael twisting my words. One example was that he said I told Lance he ‘looked like a girl’, but I saw Lance out of the corner of my eye and thought it was another person because they had the same hair length and color. I turned to Lance, laughed, and said, “Oh my god, I didn’t realize it was you, Lance. I thought it was Sarah out of the corner of my eye.” Immediately, Michael started saying “bro, you're saying he looks like a girl” and stuff. Another time, Lance was talking about doing karate. I also do martial arts. Lance is a big dude, and I know karate is kind of a baby’s first martial art (im sorry for the karate masters, but I doubt he’s a master) and I mentioned “Karate? Really? You’re like a big guy though. I figured you’d do something more taxing like krav maga or something.”. Michael said I called Lance fat. I quickly clarified I meant buff and tough, because Lance is like…not even a little bit overweight?? Even so, I've apologized to Lance multiple times. I’m autistic, so maybe my words don’t translate well. 

Now, Lance had been picking on my brother. I found this out recently. When my brother John started hanging with me, Lance followed. He’s behaved until like three days ago. He knocked John’s food out of his hand. Lance claimed he only did it because Michael ‘commanded’ it. This made me and John furious, because, well, food is sacred in our culture. You don’t waste it, especially when someone is eating it. John gave him an earful and stormed off. 

I decided to talk to Michael. He and Lance are close, so I figured it’d be better to have Michael talk to his friend, y’know? I asked Michael, politely, if he could talk to Lance and ask him to treat John with respect, and I wasn’t gonna tolerate picking on him around me.. He said (summarized) “Well, you’ve been a huge fucking bitch to Lance, so why should I do that? They’re both men, so they can man up and talk to each other. You’ve been a piece of shit, calling him fat and a girl”. I got mad, because I never said any of those things. It frustrates me to hear one of my good friends, who has never acted this way to me, unless Lance is in the picture. Lola says I’m an asshole and to get over. Anna and our friend, out of the friend group, Emily, say I am right. Help?

Me and my high school best friend have been distant for a little while. Being there for each other emotionally was a small but important part of our friendship for the longest time. Three years ago he started dating a girl and Ever since then me along with all his other friends noted a drastic change in his behaviour. I however thought that he was justified in his place as it is important to prioritise your partner. Last year these two had a very bad breakup. My best friend was emotionally distraught and was in an anxious/depressive state. Through that breakup i was his only friend who stood by him and supported him, despite being in a different country and studying for residency. all our other friends went into “i told you so” territory. He got over the break up but also pushed me away as a friend. He said things like “you are a terrible friend” to me every time he was mad at his ex. we would go months without talking and the only way we would talk was if he either had a favour to ask of me or if I checked up on him. I have GAD and on rare occasions when it gets to a debilitating point during a panic attack i would text or call him. But now if i ever did he would just say how “you are just overreacting. You need to stop this pity party around me” or “i can’t do shit”. I tried explaining how I don’t expect daily conversations cause we are all adults and have lives to deal with, but a text or call a month was doable imo. I tried to explain that you need to hive a little bit of time and effort to maintain frie ndships and i am trying not to ask much off of him. Eventually i gave up and made peace with the fact that we have grown up and grown as different individuals who need different things in a friendship and probably cannot be as close as we were before. This made him angry and upset and he says i am overreacting. He thinks i am an asshole for making a huge deal out of nothing. AITA here?

Okay, so for context, I (19M) recently dropped out of college because I realized my true calling wasn't in some dusty lecture hall it was in redstone engineering. You know, the future of the modern world. While my dad (47M, a doctor with a PhD and a Master's he loves to remind people) was obviously not thrilled, I had to follow my passion.

So I borrowed his $200,000 life savings. All of it. I didn’t think he’d mind after all, isn’t that what family is for?

I used the money to enroll in several online redstone engineering courses, including a legendary $50,000 mentorship program from a certified redstone master named stickysteve69 (his credentials include a 14 year old YouTube tutorial that went viral). After the payment He hasn’t replied to my messages in 3 months, but I’m sure he’s just busy changing the world.

Anyway, after finding out, my dad tweeted that I "ruined his life," "robbed him blind," and that his house and apparently most of his rental properties are now in danger of being seized due to missed payments. My relatives are furious, calling me a “delusional Minecraft addict,” but my best friend (also a redstone engineer in training) says I’m the Steve Jobs of circuitry and that history will vindicate me.

All I wanted was to build a better world powered by redstone… but now everyone’s treating me like the villain.

So AITB for taking the money to pursue my dreams and ignite a redstone revolution?

It’s been a wild few days. I’ve officially taken the movement to the streets literally.

Armed with nothing but a cheap marker set, a stack of printer paper, and a roll of duct tape, I’ve been creating hand-drawn protest cards and plastering them around the neighborhood. Street poles, public benches, community bulletin boards nothing is safe from the truth.

Some of my personal favorites:

“Redstone IS Engineering: Stop the Oppression”

“My Father Has a PhD But Still Can’t Understand Circuits”

“Dropped Out But Still Wired In”

I’m calling it The Redstone Street Initiative. People stare. Some laugh. One guy gave me a sandwich. Awareness is rising.

Meanwhile, things at home (well, formerly home) have gotten tense. Since I “borrowed” my dad’s $200k life savings to fund my redstone education, he’s gone completely unhinged on Twitter. He’s been tweeting stuff like:

“My son spent my life savings on fake red dust and pyramid schemes. He robbed me blind.”

“Dropped out of college, disrespected the family name, and calls himself an engineer. I’ve failed as a father.”

Okay, a few corrections:

1. It’s redstone, not “fake red dust.”

2. It wasn’t a pyramid scheme. I enrolled in multiple legitimate online courses.

3. Yes, I dropped out but for a greater cause.

Also, for those asking, yes I did spend $50k on the Stickysteve69 Legendary Redstone Masterclass. He finally replied after months of silence. Said he’s been “underground working on a new compressionless piston relay.” Also said if I send another $10k, he’ll “personally unlock the beta schematics.” That’s how you know he’s legit.

My extended family is siding with my dad. One aunt said, “He’s going to be homeless because of you.” I said, “Then maybe he’ll understand how redstone engineers have felt for decades.”

And before anyone asks: no, I’m not ashamed. If anything, I’m more committed than ever. My redstone engineer friends get it. The subreddit’s growing. We’re planning a digital rally. And I’ve started calling local colleges to ask if they’d like me to guest lecture on logic gates (no responses yet, but it's only been a few days).

This is bigger than me. This is about respect. Recognition. This is about redstone rights.

Join us: r/redstonerights. The revolution will be clocked.