Brandy Jensen, The Outline’s Power editor, has made a lot of mistakes in her life. Has she learned from them and become a wiser person as a result? Hahaha oh gosh no. But it does leave her uniquely qualified to tell you what not to do — because she’s probably done it.

Dear Fuck-Up,

I have a male best friend, let's call him John, whom I've known for 8 years. We met in our freshman year of college and became fast friends, sharing in our late teen/early 20's experiences of fucking up in life, romance, work, etc. We were inseparable for a few years, and there was a point at which John was someone who I could tell absolutely anything to with confidence that he would be honest with me and wouldn't ever judge me. He stuck by me in the roughest, darkest period of my life, and I've been there for him for a fair amount of his dark periods. We even got to a point where we made the typical “if we're 40 and not married, let's just marry each other” pact (we've since found our proper life partners). Point blank: John and I cared for each other deeply and were the closest friends you could possibly imagine.

Everything changed last year when I found out through a friend of a friend of a friend that John had raped someone in high school. That was all I was told, it was enough. I confided in a few people about it, but I didn't confront John. I just didn't know what to do. I cut off communication with him, but he obviously reached out to me and asked if he had done something wrong or if he had hurt my feelings, and said that he just missed me and wanted to hang out again.

My friends decided that we couldn't confront John since we have no idea who the victim is or if we're even allowed to share their story and we also didn't want him to reach out to anyone he might think is the victim. Our friend group is huge, and I've since hung out with him, but my boyfriend is uncomfortable around him (fair) and doesn't want to see him.

I know I can't confront John without the risk of ruining the victim’s life or having the pain they suffered resurface. I also know that any pain or betrayal I’m feeling will never come close to what she’s suffered her entire life. I feel like a traitor to my own gender for continuing to see and talk to John, but I just can't bring myself to disappear from his life without him asking questions. It's fucking awful, and I know one day this will all culminate into something terrible, but the only thing I can do now is ask — what should I do?

Sincerely,

Heartbroken

Dear Heartbroken,

I will admit, when I initially saw the subject line “someone told me my best friend raped a girl in high school” I was already crafting a some righteously cutting lines about how unaccountably men get to move through the world and how some days it feels like a cruel joke that we must share that world with them.

But having read your letter, I’m mainly left with questions. This is a bit ironic, since you don’t seem to have many yourself. Let’s start with this one: You heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that someone you love deeply committed a terrible act and you feel it would be somehow unethical to ask him if it’s true?

What do you mean you “know you can’t confront John without the risk of ruining the victim’s life?” Do you plan to ask him via full-page ad in a major newspaper complete with as many identifying details as you can gather? This is clearly causing you a great deal of distress, but I truly believe you are burdening yourself with an unrealistic responsibility here toward a person you don’t know, who may or may not exist. Even assuming this is all completely true, as someone who has been sexually assaulted, I am baffled by the idea that a group of people out there could be having this conversation about me.

I’ve written before about how this push to elevate assault to a life-ruining event in all cases does a disservice to the many women for whom it was simply one bad thing that happened among the litany of bad things that happen to us. I certainly would not feel gratitude that the current friends of the person who hurt me failed to ask him about it out of respect for my journey.

What you and your friends are framing as concern for the unknown victim feels to me like an alibi for being afraid to confront the situation. This is understandable, since if you ask him about it he will either deny it — at which point your large, ethically minded friend group will have to individually adjudicate that claim and likely end up on different sides — or he will admit it and then you must ask if he can be redeemed.

But if the answer is no, that if your extremely close friend John is now someone you feel you cannot have in your life, he needs to know why. For social opprobrium toward despicable behavior to be effective at all it must be clear that the behavior is the reason for it. As it stands, John just knows you have ended the friendship for mysterious reasons.

No matter how you move forward (and to be clear, I do not feel you are a traitor to all of womankind should you decide, based on whatever information you glean from John, to maintain your friendship) you absolutely need to ask him if this is true. You owe it to him, and to yourself.

Love,
A Fuck-Up

Have a question for A Fuck-up? Email DearFuckup@theoutline.com