AITA
For those unfamiliar, the title is a commonly-used abbreviation for “Am I The Asshole”, regularly employed in questions on chat groups and websites from people seeking opinions from readers on potentially controversial actions they took in social situations.
Occasionally, I’ll see an article containing various posts from people asking these questions, and will even be thoroughly entertained by some. Others hit close to home and I’ll wholeheartedly empathize with the plights described therein. But I’ll also remind myself that I’m only reading one person’s side of the story, and so there may be details that aren’t being told. After all, very few people are willing (or able) to give an unbiased full account of the events that led to a situation.
For example, there’s a post asking if the poster is an asshole for not taking down a wedding video his friend put up. Specifically, his parents last-second canceled their attendance at his wedding, citing that his sister’s dog was sick and she was upset; this was hardly a new thing, they missed a good bit of his life because of his sister’s need for attention. This friend posted a video which was captioned “My best friend. He is an amazing person even if his parents NEVER showed up for him.” The video also included, instead of music, “The sound behind the video was my moms voice mail explaining how they couldn’t come because my sisters dog was sick.”
Not knowing anything otherwise on the situation, I’d have to say this guy is totally in the right. This is exactly the kind of shit my family would pull on me, constantly. My sister would be disaster after disaster, and my parents would keep putting out for her; I’ve told stories about this previously, if you’re not familiar, feel free to ask and I’ll drop some of the larger ones on you. It’s ultimately what led to me cutting my family from my life- my sister physically attacking my mother, me stopping her from it, and then getting treated like I was the bad guy in the situation. Not the first time, so I made sure it was the last.
Funnily enough, on my Facebook memories today, this gem popped up:
“In other news, my sister is not moving to China, but instead working at Missouri Southern for less money, and will be dwelling at my parents’ home until the next ice age. Not the good day.”
To my knowledge, she still lives there. She’s 44, and has openly declared that she has absolutely no plans on leaving. Ever. And she expects the parents to leave the property to her (which would not surprise me in the least, though I do have an agenda to piss on their graves if that happens).
I don’t believe I’ve ever posted an AITA, though I’ve been tempted.
For the last few months, I’ve been somewhat regularly invited/encouraged to attend various events for friends or their organizations. I’ve encountered varying degrees of pressure to attend, even if it interfered with my work or other scheduled events; in one case, it became, “Well, can’t you cut your trip back a day early??”
I tend to attempt, at least, to handle such things diplomatically. I’ll let people know that I can’t afford to miss work, especially since that was before my housemate was getting her disability pay, so all household bills were on me (and isn’t it just grand that we live in a country where a person can lose their job because of a disability but still has to wait for months- if not years- to start getting disability pay??), or already had plans for which tickets had been bought and there was no way to get a refund nor sell them off at the last second. In one case, I had to work that day, didn’t know how long it would be lasting, I already wasn’t feeling my best (physically and mentally), and didn’t feel like rushing home from work, cleaning up, then going to a thing.
Incidentally, if you’re able to read this, then it’s likely you’re not one of the people in question, so please, let’s not get all defensive and such.
The more-childish part of me wants to yell, “Uh, how many of you attended my birthday gathering this year? That’s right- NONE of you did. I got apologetic texts from a couple of people before the event, one after, and the rest of you just couldn’t be bothered, but now you expect me to come to all of your things? And how about when I was pleading for donations to help my housemate get a treadmill to better remain in decent health and keep her legs? How many of you even donated a dollar to that?? But now you want my time and support??”
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I know such things don’t go over well. To ask the questions privately would be to invite a litany of excuses; to go public would bring down the wrath of the self-righteous.
And Lord knows I’ve better things to do.
My first instinct on encountering the AITA threads was to think that it’s just people coming out to get encouragement, as is the case prominently on social media. People don’t want direction; they want to be told that they’re right. Simple as that. I was therefore impressed to see some posts wherein responses told the poster that they were, in fact, being an asshole about things. And even a few where the original poster took what was said to heart and admitted their faults.
One woman asked, AITA for refusing my son’s Christmas gift? Yeah, you are. Another, AITA for telling my dad he’s just being dramatic when my stepmom died? Yep, and commenters agreed.
I still believe it’s, to some, a forum to get validation from others, and, for many commenters, it’s a way to, cost-free, butt into other people’s lives, but I will admit to the usefulness of the site as a whole. So that’s a positive in the world.
In other news, I realized yesterday that I had not viewed two of my traditional items this Christmas- Merlin (the 1998 version) and Dash & Lily. The former, that’s been a tradition for the last, I don’t know, six or seven years, while the latter has been one since it came out on Netflix in 2020.
Merlin is a quality film- great cast, fine visuals, the whole thing. But it’s also pretty damn depressing. I didn’t feel like having that hanging over my head on Christmas, and, especially after the dismal performance of the 49ers, I didn’t need any help. Dash & Lily… I just didn’t think about til yesterday. Then, since I was tired of scrolling through all my providers, I said, What the hell? and kicked it on.
And I was reminded of why I love that show so much. It’s not the stereotypical teen rom-com Christmas stuff, it’s got a great soundtrack, and it makes me laugh. Not to mention it’s just eight episodes, a little over twenty minutes each, so that’s not too tough to handle, either.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s not too late to enjoy some after-Christmas spirit. I strongly recommend it. Dash & Lily, available on Netflix.
Beyond that, it’s the usuals. Back to the grind. Just trying to keep my head together, prevent my back from going out, and get through the normal post-holiday return to the blah. Even though we’re not technically post-holiday, which is why my wreath will remain up through the first week of January, and if my neighbors have a problem with it, they can tap on my door and ask me about it, thank you very much.
Actually, I’ve got pretty all right neighbors, come to that (as far as I know, anyway), so I rather doubt that’ll be anything.
Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got on the brain this morning. I should likely get something to eat and then off to the gym again. Shoulders and abs day- not the hardest one on the routine, but certainly one I should not be skipping.
Hope everyone’s taking care of each other.
