Featured Image Credit: Maskot/Willie B. Thomas/Getty Images
Topics: Food and Drink, Reddit
Jess Hardiman
Topics: Food and Drink, Reddit
There’s nothing worse than being stuck socialising with someone rude and having to bite your tongue all night.
But while you’d usually be able to make a discrete excuse and slink off, it’s not so easy to escape the situation if you’re in your own home.
That’s exactly what happened to one person recently after hosting a dinner party for friends.
The 27-year-old man took to Reddit’s ‘Am I the A**hole’ forum to explain how he resolved the issue in the end, asking other users if he’d been unreasonable.
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“I’m no professional chef, but I enjoy cooking, and I spent hours prepping a nice meal,” he began.
“Everyone seemed to like it, except for my friend ‘Mark’ (28M).
“From the moment he sat down, Mark kept making little comments like, ‘Did you forget to season this?’ or ‘This is why I stick to takeout.’
“At first, I laughed it off, but he wouldn’t stop. Eventually, he said something like, ‘Man, even a frozen pizza would’ve been better than this.’”
Oh, Mark.
That last comment proved to be the final straw for the Reddit user, who bluntly told him to just leave if he hated it so much.
“He laughed, thinking I was joking, but I wasn’t,” the post continued.
“I made it clear he wasn’t welcome to stay if he was going to keep insulting me.
“He ended up leaving, but since he didn’t drive, he had to walk home (about 20 minutes).”
He said a few friends accused him of ‘overreacting’, arguing that ‘kicking him out was too harsh’, while others agreed he ‘deserved it’.
“Mark texted me later, calling me ‘petty’ and saying I made him feel humiliated,” he added, concluding by asking others if he was out of order.
While Mark may have found it a petty move, many others sided with the Reddit user.
One commented: “You didn’t make him walk home. You asked him to leave because he was being rude to you in your home.
"He could have gotten an Uber, taken the bus, or asked one of your other friends to drive him home. Sounds like he walked on purpose to make it more dramatic and get more sympathy for a situation he put himself in.”
Someone else said: “He is 28!! WTF is wrong with him that (1) he doesn’t have decent manners and (2) he can’t walk 20 minutes. He sounds pathetic tbh.”
A third wrote: “Also kinda telling none of your other friends stood up for you or offered to drive him home.”
Another recalled how they’d done the same thing with their in-laws a few years back, but said, as they are senior citizens, they ‘called them a cab’.
One person felt the Reddit user wasn’t being an ‘a**hole’, but argued that ‘there are better ways to handle this’.
“The minute someone insults you like this, you make them repeat it,” they suggested.
“‘I'm sorry, could you say that again?’ The room's attention will shift to them, and it never sounds like a joke when they are forced to say it the second time.
“Then you ask him why was he wanting to insult you, to make you feel bad. Be relentless for a few times, and he'll stop. You will have shown everyone who he was without making him leave.
“Instant feedback is the best way to deal with insecure pricks like this guy. You look like the good guy and they look like who they are.”