Hi all! I (20M) am in my third year of college (for film production) and recently worked with a friend of mine, Paul, (20M) on an assignment for class.
We had to reach out to someone in the film industry to learn how they got where they are today. Other classmates said they were interviewing multiple people off-the-record so they could only hand in one of interviews reflection as they just wanted to capitalize on the free networking opportunity, not the coursework.
We got an interview with a Showrunner of one of the most famous Canadian sitcoms. In the excitement, I messaged Paul on instagram and suggested we interview a second individual like a lot of others to really get the most out of this opportunity and gave him a name of another showrunner. He then said something along the lines of “If you want to email him sure, I’m not sure if we should though.”
To me, that sounded like a green-light to send. The moment I click send on the email to this second Showrunner, Paul messages me saying it’s probably not a good idea to send the email on second-thought.
I told Paul I just got his text and had already sent the email, and he instantly lashed out at me on a voice-note essentially saying he “couldn’t understand what was going on inside my head” to send it and claiming I’m “risking ruining his reputation with a big level prouder” and said he said I could send the email but to leave his name out of it, but I double checked the message and he never said that I should leave his name out of it. I apologized stating it was a miscommunication and tried to explain my perspective on how I misread his message, but it didn’t seem to matter. He continued to say he didn’t want to do more work than he had to. He forced me to send an apology email to this person a few days later saying we couldn’t interview him (he never responded to the initial email).
Paul said I was showing I don’t respect him because I sent the email. He said (unbeknownst to me until that moment) he has been annoyed at me for nearly a year, all very little things that had piled up and the email was the tipping point. I acknowledged I was in the wrong for everything prior to the email and apologized for it, and said I wished he told me he had a problem with me so we could have talked about it. I told him I understood nonetheless. I wanted to talk in person about it but he refused, so I later sent a long apology to him over text for everything, and he has yet to respond to that either (it’s been five months). We’re still friends, but not as tight. Whenever I see him in person, he acts like nothing had happened but the tension is still there.
Paul later reached out to a documentary editor on his own and interviewed them outside of school. (What he got mad at me for doing).
I feel like the situation has become a bigger deal than it really needed to be — my partner and friends told me that I’m NTA. However, getting an online unbiased opinion would be helpful. AITA for sending the email?