The explosive WhatsApp message accidentally posted in my group chat that caused a toxic row and reveals the perils of ‘splinter chats’

When I read the WhatsApp message from one of my best friends, my heart started pounding.

The only one in our group chat who is still single was dating a new guy and asked for our opinion. “He seems great, good for you!” we all sang in response.

We then hastily created a breakaway group on the app – without her – to express our true opinions…

But her angry message showed that some of us had accidentally posted some thoughts in the main group. She now knew that the rest of us agreed that he was “way too young,” ten years younger than her, and that there was something “a little weird” and “unreliable” about him.

Welcome to the modern perils of the WhatsApp subgroup, those splinter cliques we set up to gossip and bitch about all the other people in our larger group chats.

Are you going on a bachelor party that is way over budget? Set up a subgroup with a few other chickens to bitch about the bride or bridesmaid or whoever is putting pressure on the expensive party.

In a group chat in a large office with colleagues while you are all working on a project together? You need a subgroup that complains about your boss or team member not getting their due.

And I don’t think there’s ever been a group of school mums who haven’t set up a brand new WhatsApp group.

If you’re reading this and thinking ‘what the hell is she talking about?’ then I’m sorry to say that you’re probably the friend who didn’t get invited to the breakaway chat and is still posting in the main group, blessed unaware that the real conversations are taking place elsewhere.

But for all the clandestine joy these subgroups can bring to those in the know, you really need to concentrate when using them. If you’re not sure you’re in the right chat when you message, you can get raids like the one above.

Her feelings hurt, our friend jumped and left the group in anger, only to ask twenty minutes later if she could join again. She was so bloated that we let her boil for three hours before adding her back.

This is why I have a love-hate relationship with WhatsApp and the countless groups and subgroups I juggle every day. I’m in so much, it’s exhausting – and there’s the constant fear that I’ll accidentally post in the wrong place.

As well as groups with friends, there are also groups with family, colleagues, industry colleagues – I work in fashion – and more chats are organized for weddings, holidays and social occasions, most with at least one splinter group.

The writer only found out she wasn’t taken on a trip to a Beyonce concert when one of her friends, who was in a secret breakout group, left a message about the event in the wrong chat group.

My main group consists of me and 11 friends who have been friends for over 30 years since primary school. Despite our bond, there have been plenty of dramas along the way, most recently when five of them formed a breakaway group to get tickets to a Beyonce concert last year, ignoring the fact that I’m a big fan.

Inevitably, someone sent a “can’t wait for Beyonce” message to the main group and all hell broke loose.

Comments from those of us who didn’t go included: “How dare you go on a trip and not invite the rest of us?” and ‘Who do you think you are with your secret group?’, as well as ‘What else do you talk about in your private chat?’

It felt like I was being left out of the schoolyard and it gave me a real, albeit temporary, sense of insecurity within the group, knowing that I was left out. And that’s the problem. While subgroups are a guilty pleasure for many of us, they always have a hint of backstabbing or playground bullying. We all ended up going to Beyonce’s performance, after the rest of us bought tickets separately, but tensions were high.

And for a while there was an element of mistrust and a sense of wondering what other groups might exist under the radar.

WhatsApp is also a threat at work. A few years ago I was bullied at the fashion company where I worked as a buyer. I had a few mornings off work to visit my sick father in the hospital, but my manager, a company director, said about what she thought was a segregated group but was actually the department conversation, “I hope her father is really ill and she doesn’t sneak out for job interviews, otherwise that would be disgusting.’

As soon as I saw the message, my heart sank. I felt out of place and isolated in the company, and that made me feel even worse. It also scared me about what else they had said in their splinter group chat. There was no remorse from the woman who sent the message and no apology, so she clearly meant what she said and stood by it.

I decided that the only thing that was disgusting was our toxic work culture and quit my job a few months later, after finding a new job (on my own time).

A few weeks after I started in my new role, a WhatsApp notification pinged on my phone screen, inviting me to join a work subgroup with a few other women on my team. But I think I might just leave this for a while…