I became public enemy #1 of the Filipino community in my city

(Going to delete later)

I moved to Japan from the Caribbean a year ago to work for an English speaking company. I was the only foreigner in my section that wasn’t the from the Philippines. I (28F) quickly became friends with this Filipino girl (27F) who helped me get used to life in Japan. The company introduced us to each other because we lived in the same area, and we also moved to that city at the same time (except she was already in Japan for a year at that point).

We did everything together. We went shopping, got lunch, and sometimes even walked home together after work. She was really nice to me at first but I quickly realized she was starting to show some questionable behavior.

1) She expressed to me that can never not be in a relationship so I don’t judge her, everyone has their own preferences. So she joined Bumble and quickly found her Japanese boyfriend. What made me uncomfortable though was when she told me her boyfriend didn’t find me attractive at all and that he would be ashamed to be seen with me in public because I like to keep cute keychains on my bags. I found it a strange thing to tell me. She also used to show me pictures of other women and ask if she was prettier than them. Sometimes even ask me if they were pretty in general, and if I said yes she would get upset with me. That’s when I realized she was probably showing her boyfriend my pictures and asking if he found her prettier than me. She then asked me if I found him cute, I said no (because I really didn’t) and that I found it would strange if I thought my friend’s boyfriend was attractive. She quickly got offended and said I can’t be one to talk.

2) Whenever we went out she would start to curse Japanese women in English if she felt like they were prettier than her. I always told her she shouldn’t because they’re just going about their day minding their business and a lot of Japanese people in our city actually speak English but she didn’t care.

3) She started to tell me my body type isn’t considered attractive in Japan because I’m short and chubby and she’s tall and skinny. That she was the beauty type. This made me feel kind of bad but I didn’t beat up about it because I knew it was the truth. I just found it was strange to tell that to a friend. But I did eventually lose all the weight, started dressing better and got contacts instead of wearing my thick glasses.

4) When people started to compliment me she got so angry.

5) Even on days when I wanted no visitors she would follow me home and go through my closet to see what I had.

6) When we went shopping she would yell at me in the store for browsing because she wanted me to follow her around and tell her the outfits she tried on looked nice on her. If I picked up something for myself she would yell at me and tell me to put it back because she didn’t like it.

7) That’s when I decided I didn’t want to be friends with her anymore. I started ignoring her at work and she blocked me on everything. I ran home jumping for joy that day.

I needed a second opinion on if I did the right thing so I told my other Filipino friend what happened and she agreed that I did do the right thing. That’s when I thought it was over, I was mistaken.

I started to notice whenever I went in public, Filipino women that I didn’t know would point at me and laugh.

Long story short I found out my second Filipino friend told everyone in their community what I told her and my ex-friend got mad and said I’m going around talking to people about her behind her back. I only told 1 person because I needed a second opinion, it wasn’t to spread anything about her. I even asked my other friend to keep it between us. But I should have known better, people don’t keep secrets like that.

Then I noticed all my other Filipino coworkers started to turn against me. At work if our Japanese coworkers (my nickname is Hime-sama, princess in Japanese) would compliment me they’ll get irritated. They would even go as far as asking why do they only compliment me instead of them. One of them said my ex-friend was right when she told me my body type is not attractive in Japan. I’m curvy but toned and our Japanese coworkers asked if I train because my body is very attractive. That pissed my Filipino coworkers off even more.

They warned me that I made a mistake by making them an enemy because Filipino people never forgive. On the bright side I’m moving to a different branch and city so I wouldn’t have to work with them anymore.

I feel like I could have handled this situation better in the beginning if I had just talked to my ex-friend. But whenever I saw the hate in her eyes I don’t think I could have saved that friendship. AITAH for cutting her off?

I feel like a terrible person because now I’m afraid to be friends with Filipino people again after this experience. I’m scared for my life just posting this.