Woman Says Her Friends Left a Group Chat After Her Boyfriend Made an ‘Inappropriate Joke,’ but Admits, ‘I Don’t Think He Should Have to Apologize’

A woman is defending her boyfriend after he offended some of her friends with an "inappropriate" joke in a group chat.

The 18-year-old woman told Reddit's "Am I The A------?" forum that she added her 19-year-old boyfriend to a group chat with her friends. The conversation was flowing but "after a few minutes he made a somewhat inappropriate joke which freaked them out a little."

She later updated the post with the joke itself, though she didn't give too many details about the context of his quip. He reportedly wrote to the entire chat, "Do not announce to the server that you are going to masturbate. No one will give you a high five, considering where that hand has been."

The woman explained, "It was a joke and yes, I did find it funny." Some of her friends did not. "My friends ended up leaving the group chat and I texted the main group chat we're in, apologizing for him," she said. The young woman shared that she and her boyfriend often joke about things of that nature, but she "forgot" to tell him that some of her friends "might be sensitive to that sort of thing."

When she went to apologize for her boyfriend, one of her friends told her that she shouldn't have to. "They said 'don't apologize for him.' I went on to say, 'I'm going to apologize for him because it was my fault he acted like that.' I don't think he should have to apologize for a thing I forgot to tell him," the woman continued.

She asked the forum if they thought that she was wrong to not force her boyfriend to apologize for a joke that didn't land well. Someone responded to her query saying that the joke admittedly doesn't make much sense "out of context."

"It’s a weird and mildly unnecessary thing to say and quite frankly isn’t particularly funny in a vacuum. I suppose in the right context it could be funny, but I am guessing this wasn’t that," they wrote, noting that given the age of the OP, and the fact that it seems like the boyfriend might have been the only male in the chat, it's easy to see how a joke of that type could come off wrong.

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"I could imagine a group of younger women feeling weirded out by that comment especially depending on how sexually advanced they are (no judgment either way, but you gotta know your audience)," they offered.

Others thought that the woman shouldn't have apologized if she doesn't think he did anything wrong in the first place. "They have to lighten up or at least let him know that they don't like sex jokes. You don't have to apologize for his behavior. He is your boyfriend, and you don't mind his behavior, so apologizing for him being himself to your friends is odd," someone added.

In another comment, someone urged the OP to listen to the friend that said she shouldn't take it upon herself to apologize for her boyfriend. They wrote, "I've learned over the decades to never, never apologize for another person. Your boyfriend's behavior is his behavior. You are not responsible for it or for him. How on earth is it your 'fault' he acted as he did?"