No two people have the same relationship with food.
While everyone has foods they like and dislike, some people are so repulsed by certain foods, that the very site, smell, or even mention of it is enough to make them sick.
Of course, what might be their misery might be a friend or loved one’s ambrosia, and should they share a kitchen, they might need to find themselves greeted by that very food in their refrigerator on a regular basis.
Redditor Horizon-Window3675 found himself in such a conundrum recently, when his girlfriend had a constant aversion to his roommate’s cooking.
While the original poster (OP) thought that simply asking his roommate to change his menu a little bit, he was surprised to find that his roommate wouldn’t even consider doing so.
Wondering if he was being unreasonable, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where he asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for asking my roommate to avoid cooking a certain meals when my pregnant girlfriend visits?”
The OP explained how his girlfriend’s current condition made her more sensitive than usual to certain smells, which were unfortunately often found in his kitchen whenever his roommate cooked.
“My girlfriend and I are expecting.”
“We don’t live together but we’re waiting til the baby’s born to figure out our living arrangements.”
“She’s 4 months pregnant.”
“There are certain smells that she just cannot tolerate and my roommate tends to cook some meals with a smell that causes her to be nauseous.”
“That would result in her throwing up and getting sick.”
“I tried to speak to him about it but he got pretty defensive saying he has a specific diet that he sticks to and that he didn’t see how this was wrong.”
“I cleared things up saying there was nothing wrong with what he was doing but asked him to just not cook those specific meal that have a smell that trigger my girlfriend’s nausea.”
“He got upset and ranted about how he’s a resident unlike my girlfriend who doesn’t live here and said that he can’t even consider my request since she’s here almost 4 days a week and stays til 10 pm.”
“I tried to discuss it with him and maybe figure out a compromise but he bluntly told me he doesn’t owe me or my girlfriend any accommodations nor compromises.”
“I thought that was unnecessarily rude and selfish of him.”
“He told me to ‘deal with it’ or tell her not to come which was offensive because she’s my partner and she’s pregnant and I need to make sure she’s okay by seeing her weekly.”
“He’s avoiding me right now.”
“AITA?”
“I figured it wouldn’t be such a huge deal since it wasn’t like I’m telling him to stop cooking at all, just when my girlfriend is over.”
“I can’t go to her place because she’s currently living with her parents and I can’t go over there because I’m not on good terms with them.”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
The OP was met with little to no sympathy from the Reddit community, who agreed he was, indeed, the a**hole for requesting his roommate alter his cooking.
Everyone agreed that the OP’s roommate was correct in believing he could cook whatever he wanted in his own home, with many unable to get past the fact that the OP and his pregnant girlfriend weren’t living together already.
“YTA Why on earth are you waiting to figure out living arrangements?”
“This is a really dumb move.”
“She is pregnant with your child, you’re not going to have time to figure out a living arrangement once the baby is born plus the child should be brought home to a stable environment with both of you there.”
“Right there before anything else this is just classically dumb.”
“Also not your room mates problem, its yours.”
“Again this is why not sorting your own place out is just plain dumb.”
“Don’t project your problems on to your room mate.”- ReviewOk929
“YTA.”
“Also, waiting until baby is born to ‘figure out’ living arrangements sounds like a bad idea.”
“You need a plan now.”- Salz78
“YTA.”
“You are asking your roommate to avoid cooking food he likes for more than half of the week, in his own home, for someone that does not live there.”
“Get your own place, which it sounds like you will need in 5 months anyway or hang out at GF’s.”-gary135793
“Call me crazy, but I would say that ‘just had a baby’ is the absolute worst imaginable time to move house.”
“What are you doing, ‘we’re waiting til the baby is born to figure out living arrangements’?”
“No, you have a baby coming, you need to figure out where tf y’all gonna live before it gets here.”
“You can’t ban your roommate from cooking his normal meals.”
“Your GF doesn’t have to visit you for most the week.”
“You can go to her place.”
“Or you can hang in your room if roommmate is cooking something she can’t handle.”
“But you don’t get to make your roommates life revolve around your baby.”
“He didn’t agree to live with a pregnant woman.”
“YTA.”- Left-Car6520
“YTA and you need to move out asap.”
“You don’t wait until the baby is here to ‘figure out living arrangements’.”
“You needed to figure that out like yesterday.”
“Also, he pays to live there.”
“She doesn’t.”
“She has no say in it.”- Mimi862317
“YTA.”
“Your girlfriend is over at your place for over half the week.”
“Why are you waiting until the baby’s born to figure out living arrangements?”
“Move in together already instead of expecting your roommate to change his diet for her.”- buttercupgrump
“YTA.”
“Finding a shared living arrangement with your girlfriend to raise the child with would be a better use of your time.”- Voidg
“YTA.”
“there’s a big difference in asking ‘hey could you not cook fish for dinner this one night this month?'” or ‘if you are up for it I’ll buy us all a pizza when my GF comes over so we don’t have to worry about cooking?’ and what you are asking.”
“You might be the AH just for her being over 4 days a week, that’s getting close to having an xtra roommate.”- Ana_Kinra
“YTA.”
“She doesn’t live there or pay rent.”
“He does.”
“And with the amount of time she spends at yours, maybe she should pay rent too.”
“On a different note, you’re waiting till after the baby is born, the busiest time for new parents, to figure out living arrangements?”
“Your gf will probably be exhausted, sleep deprived, etc.’
“Are you sure waiting till after is the best option?’
“Newborns are usually hard, they need feeding every few hours.’
‘It would be better to be living under the same roof before baby arrives so you both can be there to bond and share the work as much as possible.”- IcePsychological7032
“YTA.”
‘Go to her house if she doesn’t like what your roommate does in his own home.”-Training_Dance_3572
“4 times a week is a lot, why can’t you go to her place more, why don’t you live together?”-butterflyworld95
“4 days a week is just too often to be making this demand, if it were 1 day a week or an hour a day then I could understand but you are asking him to fundamentally change his eating habits, it’s too big of an ask.”
“YTA.”- thejackalreborn
“YTA.”
“Your roommate is right.”
“If he can’t make the food he wants in his own home, where’s he supposed to do it?”
“You are already bringing this woman into his space much more frequently than most people would find acceptable.”
“You don’t have an independent living situation here’s and shouldn’t behave as of you do.”
“Don’t have her over if it bothers her.”- LadyCass79
“YTA.’
‘For waiting until the baby’s born to figure out living arrangements.”
“Wtf?”
“You’re the one with a pregnant partner, not your roommate.”
‘He didn’t sign up for having to tiptoe around a pregnant woman who’s there more than half the week.”- momokplatypus
“I do not understand why you are waiting till the baby is here to sort out living accommodation?”
“When I found out I was pregnant our very first priority was figuring out living accommodation.”
“Nearly everything else was secondary to that because it was so important.”
“How can that, and gf and baby being healthy, not be the most important thing to you right now?”
“Also maybe just ask him to give you a heads up if he’ll be cooking one of the things that make her nauseous that evening, that way you can go to hers or you can go out for dinner, although she might not be up for that, or something.”
“YTA for insisting he stop cooking what he wants to cook.”
“Asking was fine but you went too far.”- Jemma_2
As the OP’s girlfriend doesn’t live in his apartment, allowing her to have a say in what his roommate can and cannot do is a bit on the presumptuous side.
One can’t help but agree with the bulk of the Reddit community, however, in wondering if his roommate’s cooking should really be what the OP is most concerned about, rather than finding a place for him and his girlfriend a place to live.
Seeing as he doesn’t appear to be on good terms with his defacto in-laws, one imagines he’ll be getting little help from them after the baby is born.