u/ledurr_

t was like 2020, and my LED strip lights in my room were tinted a pinkish red. It was 3am, and I was super bored- so I plugged in my cd player, and began going thru some cds that I had. I saw MMT in there, so I said fuck it and I slid it in. I wanted to play a song I had never listened to before, so out of just pure randomness I decided on SFF. I sat there at 3am in a room with only red light, with a CD playing strawberry fields forever. Trippiest experience ever

It was like 2020, and my LED strip lights in my room were tinted a pinkish red. It was 3am, and I was super bored- so I plugged in my cd player, and began going thru some cds that I had. I saw MMT in there, so I said fuck it and I slid it in. I wanted to play a song I had never listened to before, so out of just pure randomness I decided on SFF. I sat there at 3am in a room with only red light, with a CD playing strawberry fields forever. Trippiest experience ever

EDIT: didn’t expect this to be so long, so just bear with me here (maybe if you really care enough put it through a TTS machine 😂 ).

I (16 M) am a junior in high school. Last year, I made a group of maybe 7 mates at my school, who I thought were just the most awesome people ever. We basically did everything together (atleast 3 group sleepovers a month, going to the cinema, shopping centre, etc.), so I was beginning to really trust these guys (little 14 year old me can trust anyone if you give him access to your pantry 😂). So I decided to just fuck it, and I came out to them. They were the first people I had ever told, and looking back the decision was maybes bit premature, as I had only known them for around 8 months. But these were people I really enjoyed being around, and I wanted them to know who I really was. Flash forward around three months later, one guy in the group broke up with his girlfriend, let’s call him Ryan. It was nasty, and did not end in good terms. Eventually, another guy in the group (let’s call him Matthew) admitted that he had massively crushing on this girl for the better part of a year (even while her and Ryan were together). Matthew and the girl began hanging out A LOT, which really confused me why nobody was saying anything / protesting this. What really confused me was that the guy was perfectly okay with it! But anyways, I began voicing my opinions about it his relationship to the group- Matthew did not like this at all (He has also been bringing a lot of substances to sleepovers which I also wasn’t a fan of, but it would basically just be the same story with me voicing my opinions, him not liking me for it, etc.) He began calling slurs (related to my sexuality), making fun of my weight (I was a bit larger than most at that time), and began to spread these ideas through the group. Halloween comes around, and what group of 15 year old boys doesn’t take the opportunity to all go out together and terrorize a neighborhood 😂. Matthew had only been at our school for about a year or two, moving from a more run down, or “gangster like” area as someone might call it. He has a childhood friend still talked to, and we all wanted to meet him - so he invited him to Halloween. Me and Matthew already had a known tense relationship, so I sort of expected the name calling or “picking on” to be how it usually is (news flash, I was dead wrong!). Turns out, this kid is a very well known homophobe, so it began probably the very second that I walked into that room (where we all hung out). For example, anytime I would talk, I’d get a “shut up fag!” Or something along those lines (it wasn’t the best night for me.), and Matthew would just stay dying of laughter. This continued for weeks/months to come, and for the most part I took it. Eventually, they just all became toxic as shit (of course my blind ass was too scared to do anything and couldn’t see that these people were not my friends). After a while of this going on, I began to defend myself. Not really physically, just more telling them to “shut the fuck up” or something like that. Flash forward to December of 2025, Matthew was having a Christmas party with all of his friends. We had one large group chat (atleast that I knew of at the time 🥀), where we would just send snaps, chat, etc. That night, I had not known of the party. Im in Walmart, and see that I got a snap from my one mate at the time Mason (He will be VERY important later). I can still picture it in my head, and how much it just broke me. It was of all of them, sitting where we always usually are, together, without me. I had known that my time in the group was coming to an end, but I had wanted to go out on my own terms. Not like this. It may have been the next night (or it may have been that one I can’t remember), that a really bad argument between me and this one mate in the group, that we can call Harry happened. Harry was maybe the one person before this incident I thought I could really trust, an ally so to speak. Harry could not sleep over at his friend’s houses, so he went home every sleepover around \~22:00 ish. On Halloween, he was the one who comforted me over text that night, while everyone was asleep and I was sobbing in the next room over how I was treated. WE were the two who had left Matthew’s house because we didn’t like being around drugs. WE were the ones who were always together. And HE was the one that I knew I could trust, but again I was dead wrong. I cannot remember exactly what we were saying to each other that night. All I know was that it was nasty, and it ended our friendship, and basically my time in the group. Flash forward to today, and I hang out with different friends. Closeted, depressed, and constantly having to make fun of gay people because that it what my new group does (and I know people are going to say “just leave the group! You shouldn’t be around people who don’t except you for who your are!”. While that is very true, anyone who has been in a similar position know that it is not that easy. But most of my new friends are very familiar, if not very good friends with many of the people in my old friend group. Specifically, Mason & Harry sit with me and my new group at lunch. Around November of 2025, I told them about this boy I liked, let’s call him Aiden. They inevitably became very good friends with Aidan, and told him about this (after I left the group of course, atleast I think.). He sits with us/them at lunch as well. Every lunch without fail, the will say things to this guy like “Bro, wouldn’t you just kill yourself if you were gay!”, or “I actually hate faggots so much, I can’t even explain it.” (Not to me directly, but very obviously directed at me.). Recently, I have been saying shit about it. Today, my new friend says to me at lunch “Bro, Mason told me you’re gay, and you like dick.”. I have tried to keep contact with these guys as minimal as possible. But I turned to this guy and said “oh really now?” And Mason just starts laughing. So I say, “Yeah keep laughing see what happens dog.” Or something along those lines. He keeps laughing, and goes “oh yeah I really should start watching my back right 😂 “, with Aiden of course. Next time Mason does this, I am genuinely considering punching this douchebag in the face. The only problem is that finals are coming up, and I do not want this to affect me taking the tests, or it going on my record. I know for sure I could beat the shit out of this guy, but I just don’t know if I should or not. I do not want to get outed to my school, but at the same time I’m not really sure if anyone would actually care (aside from my friends, and I really do not want to lose my friends as I will be alone, and just have more people that make fun of me and do shit.).

What should I do?