Ah, the joy of sharing a meal.
But if you have siblings, you probably remember fighting as kids over who got the biggest piece when it was something you all shared like pizza or cake.
Oddly such squabbles never occurred over meatloaf.
Now fast forward to adulthood, and are you still comparing the size of your portion to others’, with people who aren’t related to you?
How about adding in the twist that the biggest person is required to get the biggest portion?
A woman found herself in just such a situation with her roommate, so she turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for a fresh perspective.
DibsOnThisNameOk asked:
“AITA for taking the largest slice of pizza because I paid for it?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“I know this might be a bit more tame or silly than most posts here, but I just wanted to know what everyone else thinks.”
“Me and my 2 roommates had pizza for dinner last night, my treat. I was the first one to grab my slices, 2 of them, and grabbed the biggest slices since it looked like they sliced it a bit weird.”
“Now, I (25, female), can eat the 2 slices just fine, and with the cheese bread we got with it, it’s a nice-sized meal for me.”
“My roommates B (26, female) and H (28, male) came to the kitchen shortly after to grab their peices and to thank me for buying dinner. H saw the 2 slices I had before he opened the box and said ‘Wow, did you get the XL pizza?’ and when he opened the box he got a disappointed look and his shoulders drooped.”
“When I asked what’s wrong, he started saying in a depressed tone, ‘these peices are all smaller, I’m the biggest person here, so I should have gotten the biggest pieces honestly…’.”
“I said ‘No, I bought the pizza, so I get to pick my slices first, and I wanted these ones’.”
“To which he replied that I was throwing the fact that I bought it in everyone’s faces, and that was a sh*tty thing to do. He then said, ‘since you got more pizza, I should get more cheese bread to make it even’.”
“I then replied that no, we each get an equal amount of peices of the bread. B was quiet through it all like she didn’t care and just grabbed her food and sat in the living room.”
“Was I being sh*tty?”
The OP added:
“I did it just to be nice since I was in a good mood.”
“We usually buy our own food, or they get some when I cook bigger meals, because I’m the only one that likes to cook.”
The OP summed up their conundrum.
“I think I might be an a**hole because the biggest person didn’t get the biggest amount of food since he’s twice my size.”
“I also might have been an a**hole for not giving more bread even though we shared.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors were divided in their opinions.
Some felt the OP was not the a**hole (NTA) since she bought the pizza.
“NTA. He’s bigger so should get the bigger slices, wtf? You didn’t do anything wrong, and it sounds like everyone got some pizza. Nice of you to treat your roommates!” ~ FierceCatLady1302
“If this were a dystopian future where every calorie counted and he was responsible for doing something more laborious I could see him expecting a larger slice regardless of who procured the food. Otherwise, no. Therefore, the OP is NTA.” ~ theloveburts
“NTA. It’s pretty damn rude of this person to complain about the food you bought them.” ~ He_Who_Is_Person
“Yeah, NTA totally. A friend of mine comes over to hang a lot and usually orders a pizza for us. It’s HIS pizza, and he doesn’t eat the crust, so he has 5 slices.”
“I am perfectly happy to be getting 3. He knows he can help himself to my beer in the fridge, but if it gets down to the last one, he refuses to take it, even if I say it’s OK.”
“Basic etiquette and respect for each other.” ~ wigglecandy
“NTA—he can eat zero slices if it bothers him that much.” ~ Bulky_Mix3560
“NTA. You should offered to give him double his money back if he wasn’t satisfied!” ~ Positive-Source8205
“NTA. This is why the phrase ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’ exists. We could change it to ‘don’t complain about your gifted pizza to the person who gifted it to you’.”
“You offered to buy pizza. Cool. If roommates don’t like it, they can eat something else.”
“‘I’m the biggest person here so I should have gotten the biggest pieces honestly…’ is just ridiculous.” ~ VeronicaSawyer8
“NTA. This man is nearly 30 complaining about who got more like a kid squabbling with their sibling.” ~ widefeetwelcome
Others felt the OP was the a**hole (YTA) because she treated her roommates to an unequal portion.
“YTA. You bought it to share, right? Take one big one small for f’f fake!” ~ Incantanto
“YTA. I think it is incredibly kind when someone offers to buy dinner for me. Or when someone invites me to a dinner party or offers to cook for me. I am appreciative, and I will likely do the same for that person in the future (not to repay them, just because we are friends).”
“When this happens, I also expect that I will receive a fair portion of food and that my host will not hold their ‘generosity’ over me. I did not ask for the meal. I am perfectly capable of buying my own meal.”
“I would prefer to buy my own meal (or cook) if I knew my friend was going to act the way you acted. I do not mean that in a snarky way—I literally mean that if you had honestly laid out how you would behave beforehand, your roommates likely would have said ‘thanks, I’ll arrange my own dinner’ with no hard feelings.”
“A simple ‘Hey, I’m getting a pizza. You’re welcome to have whatever I don’t want.’ That is generous in its own right, but it is NOT the same as buying someone dinner.”
“You admitted yourself that your (larger) portion was sufficient for a meal, which leaves me to assume a smaller portion (which is what your roommates received) was not. So, after accepting your gracious and disingenuous offer to buy dinner, they are still hungry or trying to pull together their own meal later.”
“Imagining a dinner party scenario makes this even more obvious. If someone invited you to dinner and took more than a fair share of the limited food because ‘they cooked’ or ‘they bought’ and you left hungry, that would be a pretty bad and awkward party.” ~ Pickle_Distinct
“YTA. If you tell people that you’re buying dinner for the night, while a kind gesture, they are entitled to the reasonable expectation that they will be appropriately fed and, for all intents and purposes, equally fed.”
“You’ve intentionally taken the largest slices from the get go meaning that you will be better fed than your friends, and you’re unwilling to budge on the cheese bread suggestion, which I think is actually a fair compromise.”
“If there was a spare slice at the end, then sure, whoever paid should get first dibs. If I’m left hungry because you took all the large slices, leaving me with the scraps…I’d rather have bought my own pizza.”
“It was a nice gesture on your part but somewhat undone by your intention to avoid an equal distribution of food.”
“You can also say it was unintentional, but your remark about the cheese bread compromise shows that you don’t really care if you and your friends had equal portions of food (in which case you shouldn’t offer to buy them dinner in the first place).” ~ PMKotchi
“If you’re going to buy food for people, buy food for people. Don’t buy saying it’s for everyone, then take the majority of it for yourself. Then lord your ‘generosity’ over them.”
“If I’m buying a meal to share with people we’re splitting it equally. Because I’m buying it for all of us.”
“By taking what you want and leaving them with the rest you’re not really buying it for them are you? You’re giving them your scraps.”
“Imagine someone saying they’ll buy you dinner at a restaurant, they buy themselves a nice steak or whatever and they buy you a small meal off the kids menu. Sure you don’t really have the right to complain about a free meal, but then again that’s such a massive faux pas on their part it hardly even matters they’re buying for you.”
“Either be generous or don’t be. I think YTA.” ~ DefiantFrost
While some felt everyone sucks here (ESH) except B, who didn’t complain.
“ESH. It’s common courtesy only to take one big slice if the slices are that uneven. Roommate made too big of a deal about it.”
“You’re both rude.” ~ TheGayestSon
“ESH, you said dinner was your treat. If you’re ‘treating’ someone to dinner, then common courtesy would be to split it evenly, or by needs.”
“And I’m not saying that he automatically needs more because he’s a male, but you purposefully took the two biggest pieces, leaving them what is probably not enough for their dinner, so you weren’t really treating them to dinner.”
“You were just giving them your leftovers. I’m grateful when someone offers to treat me, but most times I’d actually just rather pay for myself and get what I want/need.”
“It’s awkward if someone offers to treat you but then doesn’t actually get you enough because you’re not allowed to say anything, or get stuff yourself, because then you seem ungrateful…” ~ Wise-Hat-5067
“It would be perfectly fine if you had ordered for yourself and then decided to share.”
“However it seems as though you offered dinner, and in that case, you could have easily just recut the pizza so that the slices were more or less the same so that everyone had their fair share or else what is the point of treating them?”
“It’s okay for the roomie to be disappointed but he should have kept that shite to himself. ESH.” ~ ComfortableBig8606
“ESH. I wouldn’t complain about free food, but I also wouldn’t share dinner with people and distribute unevenly. If I did I wouldn’t say ‘hey I got us pizza’, I’d say ‘hey I got a pizza there’s some left if you want it’.” ~ cockmanderkeen
Sounds like the OP didn’t communicate her intentions to her roommates or herself clearly.
While she said she was treating her roommates to a meal, her further explanation…
“I can eat the 2 slices just fine and with the cheese bread we got with it, it’s a nice sized meal for me.”
…said she was buying herself a meal and offering her roommates her leftovers. While one roommate didn’t care, one did.
In the future, being honest about her intentions should eliminate her culpability. As for her roommate’s contention that the biggest person gets the largest portion, maybe he just needs to buy all his own meals.