In a Reddit post shared to r/AITAH (am I the *sshole here), site user u/Few_Relative4595 explained that he and his girlfriend had been together for ten months.
"We haven't had any heated arguments or fights," he shared, "except that she keeps tickling me randomly despite me repeatedly telling her never to do it again. I can react strangely to it (due to something from my childhood which I won't delve into)."
Anyway, the poster (OP) said that he had recently gotten his car repainted and loved the results. So, he took a day off work to take his girlfriend on a short trip outside the city. "We drove to a lake, ate some food, and relaxed for a couple of hours until it got pretty dark and we decided to head back home to get some sleep as I had to go to work the next day and she had an exam," he shared.
But on the drive back, things took a turn for the far-less-cute. "On the way home, I started talking about how happy I felt with the paint job turned out and out of nowhere, she starts tickling me," OP explained. "I pushed her hand away and told her to stop, then she reached for my ribs with both hands and got me swerving off the road."
Thankfully, nobody was hurt, the poster shared, partly because he slowed down after her first attempt to tickle him. But his car got some "deep scratches, but that doesn't even matter anymore." He asked his then-girlfriend "What the f*ck is wrong with you?" after the incident, he says, after which she began crying. But OP says "I couldn't care less as I felt as if my veins were about to pop."
When they got home, he told his now-ex to pack her things and go to her friend's house. "She threw a tantrum and begged me to forgive her for 'a little mistake,'" he says, but "I didn't say a word, I simply stared in disgust and pointed to her luggage."
"This happened on Tuesday, and she's been blowing up my phone ever since, but I haven't answered any calls or texts and just blocked her," the poster added. "This led to her friend coming to my house and telling me to at least hear my girlfriend out, but I told her to f*ck off and leave me alone, to which she told me I'm more in love with a car than I am with my girlfriend."
He then asked, "So, AITAH in this situation? Should I talk to my girlfriend? I already feel like I can't trust her after what happened and that our relationship can't be fixed." Unsurprisingly, people had *thoughts* in the comments.
People overwhelmingly agreed that the poster was NTA (not the *sshole,) with Redditor u/eakpenguins writing, "It wasn't just 'a little mistake,' you don't mess with someone while they're driving. Period. You've also told her time and time again not to tickle you and she refuses to respect that boundary, to the point of putting you and everyone on the road around you in danger."
"I would say you're more in love with being alive than being with your girlfriend. NTA. It's 10 months, not 10 years," u/xanif said.
u/DawnShakhar commented, "What your ex-girlfriend did could have ended in manslaughter. And even before that, her tickling you when you told her repeatedly that it disturbed you was disrespectful. But tickling you while you were driving was ridiculously cruel and dangerous. I'm sorry, but there is nothing to talk about here — she has shown you what she is, believe her and don't let her near you."
"It wouldn't be 'a little mistake' anymore if you actually sent someone into the hospital or worse into the grave. This was so fucking dangerous for everybody and she acts like an idiot about it. And what the hell is the friend' deal!?" u/slimfat_boi chimed in. "You dodged a ballistic missile. This woman would send you into a coma and still would insist that she did nothing wrong. Take care man, and stay away from her. You did not overreact AT ALL!"
And u/HoldFastO2 said, "There was a case years ago, in New Jersey I think [note — it was actually Brookyln]. A few young people were driving home from the beach. The driver wore just a bikini top, and the guy sitting behind allegedly her thought it would be funny to pull on the strings behind her neck. Her bikini fell open, and she reflexively grabbed at the cups and wrecked the car."
Speaking to Vice, Alan Fridlund, associate professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California said, "Too much tickling can turn unfunny and become abusive, and the ticklee may be yelling ‘Stop! I mean it, stop!’ even though she continues smiling and laughing. There's no fighting back by the ticklee because extreme tickling causes cataplexy, a temporary paralysis that occurs commonly with strong excitation."
And common decency says you shouldn't tickle someone if they say they don't like it — especially when they're driving. Forbes writes that roughly nine people die in the US every day from distracted driving (over 3,000 people a year).
H/T for r/AITAH and u/Few_Relative4595 for having this discussion.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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