Friendship Fallouts·
THE CARTOON FEUD
Two longtime friends, one autistic and one with ADHD, clash over obsessions and boundaries, a showdown that tests their bond and reveals what really matters.
Was that fair payback, or too far?
Be one of the first to vote.
A 21-year-old woman's oldest friendship nearly blew up over a cartoon show, then turned into a petty little showdown of special interests.
She says she has an autistic best friend, a 21-year-old man she has known since second grade. She also has ADHD, and when they were kids, the two of them were basically each other's only friend. "I have ADHD, so when we were younger, we were like the only friend that the other had on account of our respective conditions making us quite an acquired taste," she wrote.
Now, years later, she says the friendship feels different. She recently graduated from college, while he is still in college and living with his parents for free. "Sometimes I worry that our maturity levels are just different now," she said, adding that his pettiness seems to show up in strange moments.
The latest friction started with one of his obsessions: a popular show he could not stop talking about. He sent memes about it, brought it up constantly, and kept recommending it to her. She says she told him politely that it was "something I would never organically watch."
That answer did not land well. He got extremely offended and kept pushing her to watch it anyway, while she kept refusing as politely as she could.
Then came the turn. While they were hanging out later, she mentioned a YouTuber she likes. He immediately started talking badly about the creator and making fun of her taste. She confronted him on the spot, asking why he was suddenly being rude. His answer was blunt: he was doing it because she would not watch his show.
"When I called him out for his random malicious behavior, he admitted it's because I won't watch his show," she wrote.
In an edit, she identified the series as "The Amazing Digital Circus."
After the fallout, the two of them reached a truce that was as specific as the fight. She said he would read some pages of a book she really loves, and she would give the first episode a try. "he'll read some pages of a book I really love and I'll give the first episode a try :)" she wrote.
She also said he apologized for brushing off her special interests and hounding her about his own. For her part, she apologized if it seemed like a personal attack not to want to watch it. By the end, she said, "the problem has been solved."