Can you help me with another awkward situation?

My personal feelings? Yes, you should have called her on it right away, but since you didn’t, call her on it now. Tell her you saw her do it and you think she’s way out of line to use that info, even if she says it’s harmless and she’s teasing, it’s an invasion of your privacy and you were doing her a favor letting her use your phone.

I personally would have said something as soon as I noticed it.

That being said, since you can’t go back in time, you have to find a way to handle the situation now. If you don’t want to flat out accuse her of it now, then when she brings something up that you believe she learned from the texts, ask her where she got that information. When she doesn’t answer right away, you can tell her that you know she read your texts (if you want) and that you prefer if she would stop bringing up what she read.

If she can’t stop taunting you with it after you ask her to do so, I’d question the friendship. Ohh, and no more letting her use your phone since she can’t be trusted not to look through it.

I’d move her out of your confidants circle; she’s not a friend if she’s got the nerve to taunt you with info’ she pillaged. Tell your mutual “friends” to watch their celly’s if they don’t want the same thing happening to them.

I know I have to confront her about it now and usually I’m all up for confrontation but when it comes to friends it’s so complicated. I’m very sure that I don’t count her as a friend anymore, but its so difficult to bring up something that I should have straightened out right then and there! I have to say something though. I was thinking of trying your approach @Seaofclouds hope it goes down well

This is not a friend. Friends do not invade your privacy. Friends do not go fact finding in your privacy and then use it to taunt you. Should you have any further dealing with her, I’d advise you let her borrow someone elses phone. She’s definitely not to be trusted.

I guess, pretty much what @Seaofclouds said….

1. How would you have confronted a friend about this right when you noticed her going through your texts?

I would have said, “Hey, you aren’t going through my personal texts are you?” I would have then proceeded to move close enough to her to see whether she was or not. If she was, I would politely take my phone away from her without saying another word.

2. What would you do now that she’s acting annoying with it?

You said you could assume she had gotten the information some place else if you hadn’t seen her going through your texts. My question to you is why would you permit ANYONE, especially someone you count as a friend to tease you with comments that annoy you? Let her know her comments bother you. Regardless of where she obtained information that she turns on you and teases you with, that isn’t nice and is unacceptable. Just let her know how bothersome and hurtful it is when she does that to you and that you wouldn’t think a friend would do that.

I wish I’d done No. 1 @bkcunningham… GA

I would tell her straight out not to ask to borrow your cell phone again. If she asks why, I would say because I saw you going through my text messages, and I don’t appreciate how you have been making little digs at me using that information.

If she argues or denies it, just say, “I know what I saw, and I am not going to change my mind. This has definitely hurt our friendship.”

It’s easy to deal with the “should have done this before” syndrome. You were shocked. You were aghast. How could a nominal “friend” abuse your good nature in such a way? It’s as if you went to see a doctor and the doctor intentionally injured you. You may not know how to react, in the immediate situation, because you simply would not believe it was happening. So don’t beat yourself up that you didn’t straighten this out right away. Yours is not an uncommon immediate reaction; it’s not your fault that you didn’t confront her right away.

But you have to deal with it now.

You’ve started correctly by not considering her “a friend”. She certainly is not! It’s not uncommon for us as humans to “snoop” a bit, especially about those we are close to. People in close relationships often check each other’s texts; we hear about that on Fluther all the time. But to do it right in front of you! To taunt you with her “discoveries”! To do it at the same time that you did a favor for her by letting her use the phone! That’s effrontery that can’t be ignored.

@CWOTUS thanks. That felt like a much needed hug.

I love delivering those. Thank you, and you’re welcome.

As soon as I noticed her going through my texts, I would’ve grabbed my phone back and said something like “hey, private stuff there.”
Now that she is saying stuff confront her. If she says something like “you are such a crybaby” when she actually only knows that from reading your text message telling your mother you broke down and cried while watching Marley and Me, reply “the only way you know that is by going through my private text messages and I’d appreciate it if you’d shut up about the things you found out about while snooping where you shouldn’t have been.”
You have nothing to lose by calling her on it, she isn’t a friend.

I had a similar situation with a neighbor that was riding in my car with my wife and I. She asked to use my cellphone and I gave it to her. I thought she was making a call to check on her daughter or something important. Instead, she called her boyfriend. I knew I was running really close on my cellphone minutes, so I asked her to hurry up with her call. She just ignored me and kept talking, like there was no tomorrow. Again, I asked her to hang up. She still ignored me. This was the turning point. I reached around and grabbed my cellphone from her hand. She then said she was sorry and thought I had unlimited minutes on my phone.

Sometimes, you have to take the bull by the horns and take action.

She will never use my cellphone again.

Very disrespectful.

You could change the context for all this: Next time you get a text, read it, then hand her the phone and say, “Here, you need to catch up.”

Hahahahahahaha @6rant6 that would be so epic. I might do that once I have confronted her about it just to make her feel bad!

I agree with all of the above posts.
Don’t trust her again and don’t let her make you feel uncomfortable about something that is her wrongdoing.

I completely agree with everyone’s ideas. You need to sit her down and have a serious talk with her as soon as possible and nip this in the bud. If you don’t think you will be seeing her within a week, then set up an “appointment” to meet with her. Don’t let her know what it’s about or you will just have an ugly “she said, she said” conversation on the phone. You owe it to yourself to have this conversation face to face.

Try to remember the exact date that you loaned her the phone and then say something like, “Erica, the reason I wanted to talk to you in person is because something has been really bothering me lately. Remember last Tuesday when I let you borrow my phone to make that call when we were at Robert’s party? Well you didn’t notice, but I could see you and I could see that you were scrolling through my private text messages and ever since that day, you’ve been making little sarcastic jokey comments to me, based on the information that you found in my phone and I’m extremely upset about that.”

At this point, she is likely to get indignant and start accusing you of being a bitch and making up stuff. Try not to let it get to you, try to control your own emotions and not scream back at her or start crying (there’s plenty of time for that after she leaves). Simply repeat that you know that she looked at the texts because whenever they’re viewed, it leaves a record and you have checked that your texts were indeed looked at that night. Plus you saw her scrolling through them. And she’s been teasing you with private information that she could not have known otherwise (even if she could have, it’s not relevant in this case).

Even if she tries to apologize, which she probably won’t, just let her know that you don’t feel like you can trust her anymore.

If you really want to have some fun, talk to another friend who also knows this girl and let her know what happened, then ask her to send you a text before you have the talk that says something like, “What a bummer that Erica went through your texts. I can’t believe anyone would actually do that. I won’t be letting her use my phone anytime soon.” Then say to Erica, “By the way, you missed one of the texts care to read it?” Either she’ll read it herself or you can read it aloud to her. Either way, she’ll get the message and she’ll know that she’s been ratted out.

Then just limit your involvement with her.

A bunch of underscores and lurve for what @wilma wrote.

I’d make a joke about it when I’d see it something like “Are you going through my texts, lol?” As to whether she’d use it against me later, I’d address whatever she’s saying rather than the douchy thing she did before but I wouldn’t trust her as much, overall.

You could plant a text. Agree with someone else that you’ve told about this and send them (or have them send you) a made-up text. If you leave your phone lying around and your friend reads the text, then baits you with the informattion, you have all the proof you need as this is the only place they could have garnered this information. Your friend might feel they’ve been tricked. So what, they’ve been reading your private messages, that’s plain disrespectful. I’m not sure you guys will be friends for much longer, except your friend might be full of insecurities and this is one way she gets the upper hand, so what do I know? Maybe she needs to be given a little slack. Look on her with pity, if that’s possible. And/or deserved.

I would have said something to her when you saw her doing that.
You didn’t.So what? Never too late.
Why don’t you just tell her that you saw her reading your texts and see what she says? You have nothing to lose.;)

Seriously @sarahhhhh, if you just let her read stuff, then it’s no longer a problem for you. What are you hoping to gain by confronting her? I would suppose that planning that makes you tense and angry. Actually doing it could cost you the friendship. Is there worse that can happen if you let her read them?

Some day, can you imagine saying, “I was really pissed the time I saw you reading my texts. I still feel like you owe me french fires or something.”

she sounds like a trouble maker.

Are you sure that’s what she was doing?

An acquaintance once handed me his iPhone to show me something and it was the first time I used one and got a little carried away trying out some of its features. He got a text while I was doing this that I didn’t want to see, and I just ignored it. It might have looked like I was reading all his stuff while I was using the phone, but I wasn’t.

Now that I’ve said that, 1. It might not have bothered me at all. Or if it did, I might have quickly grabbed it and made a joke. 2. I would tell her straight that she is being annoying and ask firmly that she stop.

I agree with those that say she’s not your friend. Whether you say anything or not, you should distance yourself from her. She invaded your privacy and is now trying to make you feel bad – these are not actions of a friend.

This is really up to you on how you want to handle it. The situation can either be confronted, albeit after the fact, or it can be let go. Which will bring you greater comfort?