AITA for telling my girlfriend to move back to her own country if she won’t learn my language?
Hello everyone!
We hope you all had a great July and that you get to enjoy the last part of summer! For those of you who are gearing up for the school year, make sure that you balance your preparations with plenty of summer fun and relaxation!
This week we’ve got lots more AITA fun for you, including our third-ever ASSHOLE IN THE WILD! If you have your own Asshole sightings, feel free to drop them in the submission box at AITApod.com.
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This Week’s Contents:
Asshole of the Week
Asshole in the Wild
Validation Post of the Week
Asshole of the Week
Posted by Reddit user throwawayfanficwork
AITA for reading my coworker’s fanfiction in front of everyone at work?
OP (27M), happily married, is a general manager at a fast food restaurant. His assistant manager is Sophie (23F). OP wrote that he and Sophie have worked together for a couple of years and have become friends. They work a lot of shifts together and like to play pranks on each other (prank calls, fake orders, fake surveys, playfully splashing each other with soda).
When business is slow, Sophie writes fanfiction on her phone, something that OP has teased her about and the two have joked around with. Last week, OP decided to search for Sophie’s fanfiction using a line that she let him read. OP was surprised to find that Sophie’s fanfiction was pretty much about the two of them.
The premise of Sophie’s fanfiction, as reported by OP, was that the two main characters work in a fast food chain restaurant and fall in love. Sophie had even written some of their real-life conversations into the story. It was graphic and the man in the story was cheating on his wife to be with the woman. OP stated that he would never cheat on his wife, so the romance in the story was fantasy.
A few nights ago, the employees of the restaurant threw a party to celebrate some successes they had recently. Sophie “pranked” OP by shoving a cupcake into his face. To get back at her for this, OP decided it would be funny to find Sophie’s fanfiction that he had read and read it aloud to the group. The group was laughing and joking around about it, and Sophie ended up crying and leaving the party.
Sophie no longer shows up to her shifts, and is not answering OP’s calls or texts. OP is confused, since Sophie usually loves pranks, but wonders if he “took it too far.” He also wrote that “she shouldn’t have been writing those things about me and her,” as a way of justifying his actions.
Our Opinion: YTA. Clearly the fanfiction was deeply personal to Sophie, and it was cruel for OP to read it in front of all of their coworkers. Arguably, OP shouldn’t have read it himself if Sophie wasn’t offering it up for him to read. If OP were upset about what she wrote, he should have confronted her directly instead of saving it to humiliate her as a “prank.”
Top Comment: “So here’s an interesting question for you, OP: what’s the prank? What’s the joke? What are everyone supposed to be laughing at - Oh that’s right. They’re meant to be laughing at Sophie. Not something funny she did. Not because of something you did to her - just at her efforts and passions. That’s not a joke. That was bullying. YTA.” - Reddit user StripedBadger
Asshole in the Wild
Submitted by Anonymous
“In the city where I live there are, I think, 5 main Catholic high schools. For anonymity’s sake I will call them W, D, H, R, and C. I personally attended W when I was in high school, but I now coach the girl’s tennis team at D.
C is an all-boy’s Catholic school. Many of the parents and staff have adopted a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude, and the students are notorious for being elitist and disrespectful to women. When I went to W and our football teams played each other, the student cheering section of C shaped themselves into a penis and called themselves the ‘Cock Pit.’
Anyways, since the schools are in the middle of the city, D had to reconfigure their space and they don’t have their own tennis courts anymore. I usually have to hold practices and matches at public park courts. Yesterday, I paid the city for a permit to use four tennis courts at a park. When I got there I had to ask a few people to move down so that we could use them. One of the groups I had to ask was a group of four teenage boys, two of which were wearing T-shirts that advertised sports teams for C.
When I asked them to move to another court, one of the boys responded by saying it was ‘horse shit’ that I had a permit. I showed them the permit on my phone and apologized for the inconvenience. The boy then asked what school we were from. I told him.
He then said, ‘What, you don’t have tennis courts over at that poverty-ass school?’
I responded by saying, ‘Excuse me, that is extremely disrespectful and you should think more before you say anything else.’
The boys all laughed in my face and as they were leaving they continued to make fun of D, saying ‘They won’t win many games this year’ and some other stupid things.
The girls on my team were put-off by this interaction, but brushed it off fairly quickly and we had a good practice. A little while later the boys came back, and one walked over to us asking if we had seen his wallet. None of us had, and after he left we all started laughing.”
Validation Post of the Week
Posted by Reddit user Bruvikmage
AITA for telling my girlfriend to move back to her own country if she won’t learn my language?
OP (28M) is Dutch and his girlfriend (25F) is Italian. The couple lives in a city in the Netherlands where most of the people speak English, so not knowing Dutch isn’t a big deal. OP’s girlfriend has lived there for 5 years, and the two have been dating for almost 2 years. Despite having lived in the Netherlands for 5 years, the girlfriend has made no effort to learn the language—not even greetings or simple phrases.
OP wrote that he didn’t really care at first but has found it strange as time has gone by. The girlfriend said that Dutch is difficult and ugly, and since everyone speaks English at work and in her social life, there isn’t any point to learning. OP wrote, “That’s all true, but for some reason it bothers me.”
Recently the two were discussing vacation plans, and OP suggested they travel to parts of the Netherlands that his girlfriend hasn’t seen. The girlfriend said jokingly that she wanted to go somewhere that she “doesn’t have to hear Dutch.”
OP was annoyed by this and tried to end the conversation. However, the girlfriend persisted and asked why he reacted that way to her joke. OP asked her how she would like it if he moved to Italy and refused to learn Italian. The girlfriend responded, “If Italian sounded ugly like Dutch, then I would get it.”
Angry, OP replied, “If that’s what you think then maybe you should move back there.”
OP didn’t mean it, but the girlfriend said that he crossed a line and isn’t speaking to him anymore.
Our Opinion: NTA. Regardless of what Dutch “sounds” like, if a person moves to a foreign country they ought to make an effort to at least use the greetings and basic polite phrases. Additionally, this girl is telling a Dutch person that their native language is ugly. That’s rude as fuck.
Top Comment: “NTA. She is telling a Dutch person that their language sounds ugly (which is bigoted BTW) and she doesn’t need it for her social life - which includes her partner, right? Most people realize that when you’re in another country than your own it’s polite to at least be able to say courtesies and basic phrases in that country’s language. Her attitude would be a deal breaker for me. I hope you find someone more compatible with a better world view, because if that’s her attitude toward her host country I imagine she’s rather high maintenance in other ways also.” - Reddit user MmeHomebody