Featured on @StorylineReddit: November 19, 2025
At 11 p.m., a phone call lands wrong. A casual nickname slips out. Someone in the room hears it. The word hangs there for a second too long.
On paper, it’s a stupid joke. A fake vampire girlfriend. A ridiculous name. Two friends texting in shorthand that only ever made sense to them. From the inside, it probably felt harmless. Maybe even funny. Familiar, at least.
From the outside, it’s something else.
This isn’t only about immaturity. It’s about what happens when a private language between two people gets exposed to someone who was never invited into it. The tone shifts the second the inside becomes visible. And once that happens, other details start to feel heavier than they did before.
The scream isn’t really the beginning. It’s just the moment everything surfaces.
What begins as a misunderstanding about an inside joke quickly reframes itself. The nickname, invented long before the girlfriend entered the picture, survives into a relationship that grows more serious. It remains contained in private texts, used casually, almost reflexively. When she discovers it, she doesn’t hear context she hears exclusion.
From her position, the secrecy confirms suspicion. From the friend’s position, it’s continuity. Neither perception is entirely irrational.
The situation escalates in visible stages: accusations, message reviews, a late-night confrontation, distance. And then the frame widens. Information about the boyfriend’s behavior role-play with partners, selective disclosures, inconsistencies about age and identity changes the scale of the conflict. The nickname becomes less central. It reads differently once surrounded by those details.
What looked like a petty rupture begins to resemble something layered. Not dramatic at first. Just cumulative.
Text Version
A friend’s [27M] girlfriend [23F] hates me [22F] after discovering our shared nickname for her – that out of context is totally awful
CONCLUDED
I am not The OOP, OOP is [deleted]
A friend’s [27M] girlfriend [23F] hates me [22F] after discovering our shared nickname for her – that out of context is totally awful.
Original Post Dec 7, 2018
Copy of the post
My friend “Nate” and I met about a year and a half ago when I was finishing up my degree. He was an assistant lecturer/PhD student in my department and taught a guest lecture very closely related to what I was doing my dissertation in. I thought he was gorgeous, but the uni has a pretty strict rule about dating students after something messy happened and they decided the power dynamics are messy.
Whatever, I stayed to chat with him about my paper and he agreed to help, this turned into a series of hangouts/dissertation help. We went off topic at times, and by the time I was done with uni Nate was still talking to me, as we’d become friends.
I won’t say that nothing ever happened, because we did drunkenly kiss once – after Nate was no longer in danger of breaching any uni rules. It wasn’t a bad kiss, but there was no spark. whatever initial attraction was there disappeared and it was all platonic. We agreed to forget about it and it was never an issue again until yesterday.
In the time he was helping me, we developed a few weird inside jokes. One of these was that he was dating a vampire. His parents are very pushy and manipulative and pretty much decided for him that he should get married in the next few years since his younger brother has. He wasn’t dating anyone and certainly wasn’t about to marry the next girl he took out just to make mum happy, so I jokingly told him he should say he’s dating a vampire. Stupid joke, but we gave her a name (a ridiculous name, say Veronica McVampire for the sake of the post), a personality, even booked tickets to a gig as “Nate and Veronica McVampire” (informal £5 entry thing, nobody would question the silly name as king as the credit card matched his name.)
Anyway, in all the time we spent together we used this joke a lot. It became a weird running thing that any girl he went out with was someone he was cheating on Veronica.
This includes his current girlfriend, “Kate”. What was different about Kate, is that she actually fit a few of the personality traits that we’d assigned to Veronica. It was nothing bad – she had a messed up sleep schedule due to night shifts and rarely left her flat during the day. Before they were seriously dating we’d ended up deciding that in our weird inside joke world Kate is Veronica. It’s all some vampire test to make sure he loves only her. It’s a stupid joke, it doesn’t make a tonne of sense without a long explanation about something we made up before we met her, and I don’t know why we didn’t just use her real name. But as time went on, we referred to her almost exclusively as Veronica.
This was only in texts to one another or if I met up with just him. Kate and I actually got along and while I wouldn’t say we were best friends, I had nothing against her and it was clear how happy she makes Nate. We never said anything bad about Kate or “Veronica”. It would just be something like “hey are we still on for dinner with V tonight?” Or “V isn’t feeling well, so you’ll have to go to the party without us”. It was obvious from the messages that he meant her, but because we didn’t expect anyone to see the texts it didn’t matter.
Yesterday Nate sent me a text at 11pm that just says “can I come over? It’s important”.
I assumed it was about something entirely unrelated and I had just finished work, so I was closer to his flat than my own. I offered to go to his instead, but he rang me.
Nate: it’s really not a good idea for you to come over. It’s about Kate.
Me: oh shit, is everything okay with Veronica?
Kate [who I didn’t know was in the room with him or on speakerphone]: starts shrieking and crying why the fuck do you call me that? What’s wring with you?
I should note that while I’ve used “Veronica” here, the name we’d assigned his fake girlfriend was a bit weirder and not a name you’d hear for a woman in her 20s in the UK.
Nate quickly tries to comfort her but she leaves the room, and he explains.
An earlier message from me had made her suspicious that something was going on. I’d mentioned his plans with “Veronica”, and she’d seen the notification come through. She thought it was weird that he had plans with someone when they’d decided just moments ago to cancel their plans for the night. Rather than tell her that it was a nickname, he went with “it’s an inside joke with OP”.
She took that to mean that I’m Veronica and accused him of cheating. He’s told her about us having kissed before and that there was no chemistry. It was brought up pretty early in because we spend a lot of time together and she accused him of having something with me then. I’d also talked to her about it and thought the whole thing was sorted then. But she demanded to see the rest of the messages.
Of course it became clear pretty quickly that it was about her, and he told her the truth, but she didn’t accept that.
Why would we call her names and make shit up about her (not getting that we created the stupid character before ever meeting her), why would we talk about her at all?
She left pretty soon after she screamed at me and Nate asked me to go over. Given the circumstances I told him going to his was a terrible idea but we should go have a drink and talk so he wasn’t alone. He ended up staying on my couch last night anyway, but Kate won’t return his calls and texts. She’s out of town until Sunday night now anyway with pre-existing plans with her dad, but I don’t think she has any plans to get in touch with him when she’s back.
I really don’t know what to do. He’s asked me to speak to her but I don’t think getting myself more involved right now is a good idea. It all seems like something that would be an argument amongst middle schoolers, not three people in their mid-late twenties, but I know that we were the ones that were initially immature.
Please help.
TL;DR Called my friend’s girlfriend a jealous vampire because of an inside joke that pre-dates their relationship. She found out about it and accused us of cheating on her and being cruel. Now he wants me to fix it but I don’t think I should be further involved.
TOP COMMENTS
sandman_42
Hoo boy this is messy. The Captain Hindsight answer is that you guys should have either stopped using the nickname OR let her in on the joke as soon as it became serious, because this does look sketchy from her end. Not to mention hurtful.
Put yourself in her shoes.
You’re dating a guy, it’s going well, and things are getting serious. You notice he has a female friend who’s significantly younger than him, and he is very close to her. They text and talk all the time. You then find out that they hooked up in the semi-recent past. You’re trying to be cool about it, and you tell yourself it’s not a big deal (because it isn’t). Then you see that he’s texting this other woman about spending time with “Veronica.” All those little moments of jealous suspicion suddenly seem validated. You ask what it means, and you find out that your boyfriend and his female friend have a somewhat unkind nickname that they use to talk about you. An inside joke of which you are the butt.
Can’t you see how that looks to her? Can you imagine how that feels?
This is on him to fix. But I think it’s fair to make yourself available to speak to her (ie, text her and say “Just wanted to let you know there’s nothing going on between him and I, and if you ever have questions or want to talk I’d be glad to discuss it with you.”) as you are a part of this.
~
italkwhenimnervous
Stop judging yourself by your intentions and others by their actions. You are too close to your friend to help and honestly your friend is being a garbage boyfriend. The term for involving another party in assuaging guilt or problem solving is triangulation and it is an indication of enmeshment/poor boundaries. I do think you two were cruel and I am side-eyeing the criticism of the girlfriend here. You guys poisoned the well by your behavior in private, like when 2 friends gossip about the 3rd and then act 15% meaner the next time there is a group activity. You both should reflect on how you guys create a sense of exclusivity that is threatening to romantic partners.
Personally I’d apologize for my own behavior and avoid justification. Because it is mean, and you should apologize when you’re mean to people.
Update Dec 8, 2018 (Next Day)
Copy of the update
My update got locked and deleted so I’m just going to paste it here on the top post because I’m getting a million angry messages and half of it isn’t even relevant anymore.
Hopefully any new people at least will see the rest of it.
My earlier post about calling my friend’s girlfriend a jealous vampire got a lot of attention. Most of you hate me, and that’s fine. I come off nasty and petty when the only thing you know about me is that I did something nasty and petty. I could write you a novel about how I saved a kitten once or whatever but it wouldn’t change anything relevant to this.
That said, there have been some weird developments, there was a lot more to this whole ridiculous argument, and if only for your amusement, here’s the rest. I don’t really need advice on this one, going forward Nate will be blocked, contacting me or Emily will result in a formal report to the university on both our parts.
A lot of you asked why he slept over/mentioned that that was stupid. Why has we gone drinking at all? That’s true, it was, we shouldn’t have. It was late at night when this all went down and the only things open were pubs. I honestly thought a chat in a public place would look better than him running to my place for comfort or whatever. He then missed the last bus home and stayed because taxis are expensive.
The apology was badly worded – I was upset and tired, and trying. I know it wasn’t a real apology and I have since spoken to her and actually said the words “I’m sorry”.
When I said I would “win” in the comments I didn’t mean that I thought getting rid of Kate was “winning”. Basically when I met up with Nate he started to go on about how this was Kate’s fault. I shut him down and told him it wasn’t, and he proceeded to tell me that if it came down to it he’d always take my side… knowing what I know now I get why he said that, and I’m so ashamed I didn’t catch on to how fucked up this all is a lot sooner.
My friend sent me updates on what she’s said with her permission. I wasn’t sent screenshots or anything, basically just “she’s been crying and she told me that there’s a lot you don’t know”. This led to a phone call with the friend acting as a mediator.
So back to the story.
As mentioned in the comments of the last post, a friend got in touch and told me that Kate had reached out saying that her relationship was falling apart and it was my fault. My friend “Anna” was told everything Kate’s been through and was shocked. There’s a lot more than any of us had been told, and Anna was 99% sure I didn’t know about this. She asked Kate if she honestly thought I’d be friends with Nate if I knew, and she agreed to talk to me.
On the phone I immediately apologised properly and she blew me off. She asked if I knew Nate was “obsessed with” me, and I told her that we’re just friends, the kiss meant nothing, blah blah.
Yeah, turns out that’s not what he told her. Shortly after she asked about our past and we were open about it, he admitted to her that the only reason we weren’t together is that I’d told him I hadn’t felt anything. He had wanted something with me as long as I had up to that point, but where I didn’t feel anything, he genuinely thought it could continue. He didn’t want to lose me, so he just avoided his feelings.
That’s bad enough in itself, but he also admitted to that being a pattern. Of the girls he’s dated, they all seem to be about 5 years younger than him. Apart from Kate and myself, none of them have been in his department or at any risk of breaking uni rules, but all but one of them do attend my university. He apparently likes “role playing” and asking these girls to pretend to be girls he’s into. Specifically myself and his ex-girlfriend from a couple years ago. Kate flat out refused after she met me – but went along with it a couple times before, because he doesn’t tell them that the girl they’re pretending to be is someone that he actually knows. He got a wig and an outfit (a dress identical to one that I wear a lot, a cheer uniform for his ex) for each of us, and makes them say certain stuff – I can’t control what people fantasise about, but to go to this length and not tell your actual partner that they’re playing your ex or your crush is a little serial killer-ish.
Anyway, he’s also lied about his age. When he met me he said he’d just turned 26 a couple months ago… when he met Kate, he’d turned 26 a week ago – probably about a day after we made plans to do something for his 27th birthday 🙄 she looked at his provisional in passing once and noticed that he
A. Uses his middle name instead of his first. Not that weird by itself, but a bit strange that he didn’t tell her. When she asked about it he just said he decided to go by his middle name in sixth form.
B. Lied about his birthday. His actual birthday is the date he gave me, but he’s a year older (28). What he told her was just random and wrong. He justified it by saying he didn’t want her to “feel uncomfortable”. Then got annoyed when she told him that she was definitely uncomfortable, the age gap is almost two years more than she previously thought.
C. Had an address from a city different to where he said he was from and our uni. She asked him when he’d lived there and he said that it’s where his parents lived. She asked why he’d said he was from a different city and he told her it’s the city in his post code, the nearest city to where he grew up. But without giving too much away, he essentially told her that the reason his ID has a York address on it is that he lived in Leeds once and Leeds is in Yorkshire. Not those cities but similar logic. Like it made no sense.
She knew about the nickname. That wasn’t what any of this was really about. She’d seen it a while ago, asked, and been told it was a name I called her. He went along with it for fun or whatever. She asked him to stop and he told her she was overreacting.
It was still a shitty name and even now knowing my version of events she doesn’t like that the joke didn’t stop when she stuck around, but she says she probably would have found it funny if I’d told her about it before all of this. Instead, she was convinced that Nate and I were having some weird affair and distancing ourselves from her with stupid nicknames and lying about what we did when she wasn’t around.
She doesn’t want to see Nate again, and while she forgives me for the name thing she doesn’t really want to drop everything and be best friends. That’s fair. She’s asked me to gather her stuff from Nate’s house and meet her for a chat. She told me she won’t make decisions for me but hopes I’ll reconsider my friendship after all this.
To be honest I don’t feel comfortable going to his place after what I know, so Anna is going to come along. I haven’t said anything to him about what I know and don’t plan to until we have Kate’s stuff. I don’t think he’ll get violent or whatever, but I can see him damaging her things as some petty revenge, and since I’ve learnt I don’t know him at all I can’t guarantee he won’t react really badly.
After Anna and I grab her things we plan to contact Nate together and tell him that he needs to stay away or we’ll report him to the uni. I know he’s been very careful about not breaking the rules and hasn’t “technically” done anything wrong, but since befriending students and trying for romantic relationships immediately after his restrictions end seems to be a pattern, I’m sure they’d at least watch him and it would look bad professionally.
I don’t think there’s much more to say. Like I said, I don’t think Kate and I will be best friends, but if she wants to stay friends with anyone in the group it’s pretty safe to say we’re all dropping Nate. Going forward I’m going to watch what I say and assume anything said about someone without them present is going to get back to them – with or without appropriate context. I’ll be better about boundaries and suspicious of anyone who isn’t.
TL;DR it turns out the topic of my post was a side issue and the reason for the massive shit show that followed had to do with my creepy friend making his hookups pretend to be girls he’s infatuated with, including myself. I have apologised properly and while I’m not fully forgiven we’re moving forward and taking the appropriate steps to avoid the guy causing more problems.
Source
She hears, “Is everything okay with Veronica?” and she starts crying. It’s late. The phone is on speaker. No one expected her to be listening.
For a moment, nothing else matters. A girlfriend discovers that her boyfriend and another woman have a shared name for her one she didn’t choose, one she didn’t understand. Add the fact that they once kissed. Add how often they talk. Add the feeling of walking into a room mid-conversation and sensing something has already been decided.
It doesn’t take much imagination.
Inside the friendship, the nickname had a backstory. It was born out of a joke about pushy parents and imaginary vampires. It accumulated details over time. They kept using it because it was already there. Because it felt normal between them. They didn’t stop when the relationship got serious.
He tells her she’s overreacting. He tells the friend he will always take her side. He stays on the friend’s couch. He doesn’t clarify the nickname earlier when he has the chance. These are just actions.
Then the revelations come. Role-play scenarios. Wigs. Scripts. Younger partners asked to pretend to be specific women he knows. An age that shifts depending on who he’s speaking to. A birthplace explained with logic that doesn’t quite hold. Each disclosure lands, then another follows.
The tone of the story changes almost mid-sentence.
What initially reads as jealousy starts to look like pattern recognition. What reads as immaturity begins to feel curated. The two women compare notes and realize their versions of him don’t fully match.
There’s a point where the nickname stops being the issue. It becomes background noise to something more structural, though no one says that outright. A private alignment that created distance before anyone labeled it that way.
In the end, the relationship ends. The friendship survives, at least provisionally. Whether that private shorthand could ever have coexisted with transparency is left sitting there, unresolved.