It’s difficult saying no to people trying to set you up on a date. On one hand, it can seem like they’re doing you a favor, but if you really don’t want to, they don’t always take no for an answer.
When ingolos’s family friend tried to set him up on a date with her daughter, he said no. But the conversation continued and the original poster (OP) was accused of being rude.
Was he wrong for what he said? To find out, OP took his story to the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit to be judged.
OP asked the board:
“AITA for telling my mom’s friend the reason I’m not interested in her daughter”
There’s a little more to the story:
“So I stopped by my moms house to pick up some stuff yesterday. Her friend was over because they had just gotten back from shopping. I’ve known my moms friend ‘Carla’ for a while. She has a daughter my age Carla has hinted before about introducing us.”
“Well I was running some stuff back and fourth to my car and I heard Carla talking to my mom about how she just wished her daughter would get her life together and meet someone nice.”
“Then she called my name and asked if I’m seeing anyone, to which I said no. Then she was all like ‘you should take daughter out sometime I’m sure you’d hit it off, she needs to meet a nice guy like you’. I was like ‘uhh I’m not sure I’m kinda busy’. Then I went back in my old room.”
It’s just a date, what could be so bad?
“I’ve heard enough from both Carla and my mom about her daughter to know that she’s not my type. Her daughter was in a 2 year college for 4 years and then dropped out, which is normal and not bad.”
“Then she had a decent job and quit because ‘it was boring’. She has a drug problem and is in and out of rehab, and she bounces from one guy to the next and somehow gets them to pay her bills.”
“A while passed and I got what I came for and was saying goodbye to my mom and Carla started badgering me.”
“‘So when are you going to take her out? I’ll let her know’ I said ‘like I said I’m kinda busy right now’ ‘too busy to take a nice girl out on a friday?’ ‘Yea and I’m not really interested, sorry’ ‘well why not? She’s a nice pretty girl, you’d be good for her’”
“I was getting annoyed because I felt cornered and looked at my mom for help but she didn’t do anything so I said ‘yea maybe but that doesn’t mean she’d be good for me.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ ‘Well I’m not really into girls that don’t have a job and have addiction problems’.”
That was a step too far for Carla.
“She flipped out and said ‘she can’t believe I’d be so rude, she’s known me since I was a kid and she was just trying to fix me up with her daughter. I should take it as a compliment instead of insulting her daughter I could have just said no’.”
“I left and my mom called me later and said that it was really mean to say that to Carla when she was just trying to be nice. That I came off like a snobby ahole even if I wasn’t interested I could have been nicer about it.”
“AITA”
OP’s comments were rude, but does that mean he was a jerk for saying it? To find out, commenters judge OP for how he reacted.
This is done by including one of the following in their reply:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everybody Sucks Here
OP made it clear he wasn’t interested but Carla kept pushing. More importantly, she was insistent on finding out why.
Don’t ask a question for which you don’t want the answer.
“NTA. It wasn’t their place to pressure you into a date in the first place. You were direct and honest.”
“They straight up asked why you didn’t want to go on a date with her and then they didn’t like the honest answer. Not your problem.” – Ropeslug
“NTA.”
“Carla wasn’t trying to be nice. She was trying to use you. She was trying to get you to spend at least a few hours, and, she hoped, substantially more time, getting her daughter on a better track.”
“Carla’s the kid’s mom. That’s her job. Not yours. You didn’t lay things out until you felt cornered. 100% justified.” – farahad
“‘I could have just said no.’ Which is exactly what you did. NTA, OP.” – Crafty-Addition9105
“Came here to say this. OP said no, she shouldn’t have asked ‘why’ if she didn’t want to hear the answer. Even if the answer wasn’t ‘she’s an addict’ it was bound to be something that was not going to be complimentary.”
“She’s the AH for asking the question and then getting mad at him for answering honestly.” – justchilinghbu87
Fair enough that OP said no a few times before giving the answer. But some commenters weren’t convinced.
They felt that OP’s response was still a jerk thing to say.
“YTA.”
“The whole point of being an a**hole is often that you’re rude when there is no reason to be.”
“All you had to do was keep saying no, OK, so the mother shouldn’t have pushed it but it doesn’t sound like she was rude about it.”
“I know on AITA, people expect you accept the first ‘no’ and if you don’t, it’s fair game to rain hellfire down upon you, but that’s AITA, it’s not reality.”
“Reality is that you shouldn’t have brought up the daughter’s disease of addiction.” – Click_To_Sign_In
“That’s exactly my thought. Old people can be annoying and they usually are.”
“He is not wrong in being honest, but being honest will sometimes sound like an a**hole, which is this situation.”
“One of the skills I started to value the most as I became older and as a lawyer who is always facing litigation and confrontation as part of my job is to avoid all unnecessary and meaningless confrontation in my personal life.”
“If he had gone with ‘ok’ or even lied by telling he was seeing someone would avoid embarrassment for literally everyone involved. Plus, looks like her daughter has mental issues as well, not need to bring that up.”
“And just to state one last time, I don’t think this guy is wrong, I just think he could’ve avoided that honesty specially dealing with old people.”
“When your grandpa says ‘God bless you’ you don’t answer that you are an atheist, you just say ‘and you’ and that’s it, but people in this sub would be like ‘NTA you have the right to ascertain your faith’ and etc.” – ichand
In the end, it comes down to how OP’s interactions with his mom and Carla will go in the future. While it might be a little reassuring that random strangers on the internet back up your decision, how much is that going to help the next time you visit your mother?