6 Women Share Their Most Embarrassing Group Chat Stories
I have a recurring nightmare about a Whatsapp group. It goes like this: I am in a group chat with my friends from college. I text someone from said group chat on the side to complain cattily about something from the group chat (perhaps someone’s emoji usage or penchant for all caps) — or at least I intend to. But I instead send the snarky text to the group, setting off a chain reaction of cyber drama, the culmination of which results in me being banished from the friend group (and accompanying group chat) forever. And then I wake up and text the group.
If you, like me, are in no fewer than ten group chats — between iMessage, Instagram DM, Messenger, and Whatsapp — and you, like me, are in constant fear of sending the wrong text to the wrong group, you know group chats are a true breeding ground for friend drama. Read on for six true group chat horror stories, and try to heed their warnings.
Victoria, 23
“My friends and I have a group chat of the four of us. There is a smaller one with just three of us, for when we need to talk about the fourth. Once a friend said ‘I hate when she does this’ (regarding some boy drama that was entirely her own fault) and of course it when to the full group chat with the girl we were talking about. She was able to cover it up by claiming it was something about her coworkers, but it was a close call.”
Kimberly, 30
“Someone started a group chat so we could manage our pub quiz team. For the last nine years, we’ve been a rotating group of friends playing a pub quiz in our area. I had taken up doing roll call for the group and making the reservations, but because of my loathing of group chats, I tried not to engage if I didn’t think it was meaningful. Well, we’d been drifting apart and apparently that all came to a head when my friend’s husband blew up at the group in all caps and said, ‘TAKE ME OFF OF THE GROUP CHAT!’
“I figured that was the end of it, but people kept texting at him to see what happened. We may never know honestly, but it kinda killed the pub quiz. It’s made for a great running joke, though, since we now shout it at each other when we get together (without him there, of course).”
Delaney, 28
“When I was in uni, three of my friends and I were all planning to move into an off campus flat together. This apartment complex was highly sought after, and people would literally camp out starting the day before they accepted new applications for the following year. While two of my friends were already in line and waiting/taking the first half of the night shift, my other friend and I were in my room hanging out. We were all texting in a big group chat and laughing, when out loud, my friend said she actually decided she didn’t want to live in the flat with us.
“I tried to figure out what was going on, but she went radio silent and left the room. I went to tell the other two in our three-way group chat, but messaged the four person one instead saying: ‘[BLANK] is being such a fucking bitch. She just up and left saying she doesn’t want to live with us anymore, and we’re screwed.’ She never replied. She never said another word about it to us. A mutual friend told me I took it too far calling her a bitch. We had to end up finding alternative housing because we couldn’t find a fourth person at the last minute. She ended up moving in with her then-boyfriend, and they broke up about a month after they moved in.”
Renee, 42
“I am in a group chat with my husband and four of our adult/teenage children. I mistakenly texted some sexy time texts to the group. My children were not happy!”
Hannah, 27
“One time I was in a group chat with a group of people (let’s call them Ashley, Bob, and Michelle), which we made specifically because we were trying to set up Ashley and Bob. It was just an excuse for them to have each other’s numbers. After we made it, Michelle accidentally texted the whole group chat instead of just me and Ashley and said, “YASSSSS, WE SET IT UP. GET IT, GET IT. ASHLEY AND BOB FOREVER. And then Bob was like, ‘Lol hi.’”
Olivia, 27
“At the end of my first year of uni, I was trying to figure out my housing situation for third year because you have to plan far in advance to get a good house. So my best friend and I were planning to live together, but we had another friend who wanted to live with us too. We liked her, but we really didn’t want to live with her because she had some annoying habits.
“We were all texting in a group chat about the possibility of living together, and my BFF and I were simultaneously side-texting about not wanting her to live with us. That was a mistake, because my BFF accidentally texted the group chat going on and on about all the reasons she didn’t want to live with this other girl. The chat was silent for a long time, and it was SUPER awkward. We felt so bad about it that we eventually just ended up committing to live with her anyway. She never brought it up. She just went along with it like nothing was said. We actually ended up getting really close, and we’re all three close to this day. But, we were right — she was hard to live with.”
Originally published at https://www.refinery29.com
