A woman’s attempt to save her best friend from what she believed was a terrifying kidnapping has gone viral on Reddit.
In the post, the woman shared that the dramatic stunt and rescue turned out to be a surprise proposal. Now, she is being blamed by her friend’s boyfriend for “spoiling” the moment, despite acting instinctively to protect her friend. Newsweek spoke to therapist Viviana McGovern about the ordeal, and whether or not the woman’s relationship with her friend can recover.
The 28-year-old woman recounted the experience on Reddit.
“So, this actually happened last weekend and I’m still shaking,” she began. She wrote that she was visiting her best friend, Emily, when the incident occurred. “We were walking around catching up when this unmarked white van comes up next to us,” she wrote. “Two masked men jump out and grab her. She begins screaming. I freak out.”
Her reaction was immediate and fierce.
“I did what any sane frightened human being would do, I grabbed my pepper spray (legal where I am) and yelled bloody murder and went wild,” she wrote. “Sprayed one dude in the face kicked another in the shin and literally pulled Emily back by the coat while yelling for 911.”
The chaos quickly dissolved into confusion when the “kidnappers” were revealed as Emily’s boyfriend, Chris and two of his friends. “They were attempting this strange ‘prank kidnapping into surprise proposal’ situation cause Emily wanted a ‘proposal like in the movies,'” she wrote.
The aftermath was far from celebratory. Instead of gratitude for the poster’s intervention, both Chris and Emily were disappointed in her reaction. Emily told her she understood her reaction but wished she had “read the room.”
The woman shared disbelief at the expectation that she should have deciphered the situation. “How was I going to know?” she wrote. “It seemed real. She was crying they had masks and it was a literal van!” she wrote. “Everyone’s acting like I overreacted but I genuinely thought she was being trafficked.”
Redditors overwhelmingly sided with the poster, condemning the boyfriend’s dangerous and thoughtless plan.
“Chris is a moron,” one top comment read. “If he intended to ‘kidnap’ her to propose, he needed to make sure that whoever was with her knew! If he’s stupid enough to think a friend would just stand there while random strangers try to kidnap their friend, he’s a fool. How can you ‘read the room’? You’re not psychic.”
“[She] risked her life to save her friend, despite the situation being fake,” another wrote. “If it were me and I did that to save a friend, I’d end the friendship after those remarks.”
An Expert Opinion
McGovern, therapist, founder and CEO at Full Vida Therapy, analyzed the situation from a psychological perspective for Newsweek.
“This situation sounds chaotic, but what’s underneath it is a basic nervous system response,” McGovern said. “The friend likely experienced a freeze-fight reaction—freezing in shock before instinctively protecting her friend with pepper spray and a 911 call. That’s not overreaction—that’s the body doing exactly what it’s wired to do when it perceives danger.”
McGovern pointed out the fundamental flaw in the proposal plan: a total disregard for emotional safety. “What stands out here is how easily well-intentioned plans can go wrong when emotional safety isn’t considered,” she said. “Proposals are already high-stress, high-emotion events. Adding fear-based elements—like masked men and screaming—can completely hijack the experience, especially for someone who’s sensitive to threat or has a trauma history.”
Moving forward, McGovern stressed the need for accountability and validation from Chris.
“Chris may not have meant harm, but his plan overlooked how the situation could be perceived,” she said. “The friend deserves validation, not shame, for reacting protectively. And Emily may need space to rebuild trust—not just because of what happened, but how it was handled in the aftermath.”
Newsweek reached out to u/BlissfulRush for comment via Reddit.
Read the full article here
