My boyfriend PLANNED our entire wedding without telling me... so I walked out of it! -r/BestofRedditorUpdates | Reddit Stories | EP3138

0:00 Hey, this is Angie. And this is Dakota, your favorite OK Storytime hosts. And we've got some great stories coming up. But before that, we have a quick two-minute break from the sponsors that keep this show running.

0:11 My boyfriend planned our entire wedding without telling me, so I walked out of it. Hey, no surprise wedding's here. Last week... Was that good? I, 30 female, was invited to a supposedly fancy party by my longtime boyfriend... 32 male. We had been dating for five years, and while we had discussed marriage before, there were no immediate plans for a wedding. Excited about the event, I dressed up in my best attire and arrived at the designated venue. As I entered the grand hall, I was completely taken aback to see all of our family, friends, and acquaintances gathered eagerly waiting. It turns out Mark had orchestrated an elaborate surprise wedding for us without my knowledge. Everyone erupted into

1:00 applause as I stood there, shocked and overwhelmed. I just felt a mix of emotions. While I love Mark and had dreamed of our future together, the idea of getting married without any prior discussion or consent felt like a breach of trust. So I pulled Mark aside and tried to express my concerns and reservations about the surprise wedding.

1:22 I explained that I wanted a say in the planning process, to be part of the decision-making, and to have the chance to prepare mentally and emotionally for such a significant milestone in our lives. However, Mark dismissed my concerns, saying that he thought it would be a romantic gesture and I would be thrilled. In that moment, I faced a difficult choice going along with the surprise wedding, putting on a smile despite feeling unsettled, or stand up for my autonomy and voice my true feelings. I ultimately made the decision not to proceed with the surprise wedding, much to the disappointment and confusion of our guests. I mean, like, how does, how is anyone surprised by your reaction to a surprise? So he didn't even, like, propose or anything? No,

2:07 he was like, surprise, it's our wedding, and then everyone is shocked that you don't want this? Oh, oh my god, I would, I would.

2:16 My ex would always be like, I wanna marry you, I wanna marry you. If he did that crap, oh my god, no.

2:22 No!

2:22 I'd be like, that's hilarious. By the way, this comes from a deleted user, and if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash showcase story time subreddit. I'm Sophia. I'm Savannah.

2:31 I'm Mark.

2:32 And we're here to... That's not true! That's Mark. That's Kian, for all of our podcast listeners who Kian doesn't care about. But we're here to give good advice goofily, and if you've got advice, put it down below. Now I find myself at odds with Mark, our families, and even some of our friends who believe I overreacted and spoiled a beautiful moment. However, I firmly believe that a marriage should be a joint decision, with open communication and shared expectations.

2:59 Everyone's excuse for this is I've always talked about marrying Mark. And again, the problem isn't marrying him. The problem is not having any say in my wedding. Mark thought I'd appreciate it, because I always spoke about how stressful planning a wedding must be. Yes, I think it's stressful. It is. But I'd still like to plan one. After this whole ordeal...

3:21 Everyone asked if Mark and I were ending things, in which I replied, no. I emphasized towards them and Mark, I still wanted to marry him. And most feel like this is making me more of an a-hole, since I just wasted a perfectly fine wedding. So am I the a-hole for refusing to attend my own surprise wedding, even though it was intended as a romantic gesture? And we do have an edit, 0% a-hole. stamp of no a-hole here truthfully i don't know what i don't know he just said if your partner surprised you with a wedding you would yeah but the thing is she won she's like yeah i do want to get married to him eventually with her dating uh we don't have five years okay five years you kind of know what's coming you

4:07 know i i think it is like a two-person thing I don't think it should all be on one person. I would be pretty upset if I didn't get a proposal. I didn't get a say in how it looked. I didn't get a say in who was there. No engagement photos. No engagement photos.

4:22 No.

4:23 I didn't get a say in my dress. Yeah, you didn't get a dress. No bachelorette party. No bachelorette party. You deny me a bachelorette.

4:31 Who you invite.

4:33 Keon doesn't listen to me. I just said who I invite.

4:37 I'm keeping you on your toes.

4:38 You guys are just repeating what I say. Give me your toes. You know what? Give me your toes.

4:41 No.

4:42 You guys are just repeating everything I say today.

4:45 Everything I say. I previously admitted this from my post because of the subreddit's word count guidelines. I love surprises. It's a thing everyone has known me to love. Mark, knowing that, the fact that I wanted to marry him, and said wedding planning was stressful, thought a surprise wedding would be perfect. Okay. So he just connected the dots.

5:04 In like a really bad way.

5:06 Yeah, but she's like, oh, I love surprises and I really don't, I'm like stressed about planning a wedding.

5:11 Boom, surprise wedding.

5:12 He tried to read your brain.

5:14 He did, he tried.

5:15 He tried. Which is why she's not breaking up with him. Yes. Good. She's just not marrying him at his surprise wedding.

5:21 It's a weird misunderstanding that sometimes you want to do it, but then you shouldn't.

5:26 A surprise engagement is bland because it will always be a surprise, but not a wedding, LOL. He threw this wedding for the surprise, but explained how in a couple days we could do a courthouse wedding to make it legal. This was his only way to surprise me. I love spontaneity, but legal marriage or not, I wanted a say in my wedding. To choose the perfect date, to choose my bridesmaids to pick out my cake. Again, due to these thoughts, everyone thinks I'm the a-hole because I could have went along with the party and do a redo legal wedding.

5:56 But again, I felt blindsided and confused, so I left. Verdict, not the a-hole. And we do have an update. The blind one says, A for effort. We'll call this a practice wedding. Hmm. Yes, blind one. Yeah, hopefully she doesn't walk out of the real wedding. Yeah, that would be pretty stupid. Especially if she planned it and everything.

6:17 He didn't even propose.

6:20 People are focused on his intent instead of the impact. Exactly. She didn't even get her beautiful proposal. Send him to the principal's office and have him expelled. Which is such a funny, like, he had such a weird logic, you know, train of thought there of him being like, well, I can't propose to her because she'll expect that because that's always a surprise. So what's like never a surprise?

6:43 Let's make it a bigger surprise. What's the biggest surprise I can do? Surprise wedding.

6:47 What if I surprised her with a baby? I was going to say surprise. Boom. Pregnant. Pregnart. Boom. Pregnart. But we have an update. I want to start off by thanking everyone for the responses I got and the advice. However, I would like to reiterate that Mark is a great person. Mark, who did a stupid thing. Mark, if you knew me, though, a surprise wedding seems like something I would love. Unfortunately, I didn't. After talking to Mark, we both got to the conclusion that we didn't do anything wrong. Both of us are valid in our opinions, and the situation was an odd one. Unfortunately, Mark spent a lot of money on planning the wedding as well as family members. He doesn't think that we have the funds to plan another

7:30 wedding until a couple years. That would make me so mad.

7:34 Why?

7:34 That would make me... The fact that he wasted their money on a wedding that she didn't even get to enjoy and now he can't... He doesn't have the funds.

7:43 Yeah.

7:44 Surprise, surprise.

7:45 Surprise, surprise.

7:47 Dang, I'd be pissed. Are you staying in this relationship? Because she is. She is. Would you? Yeah, I would.

7:55 I would. Because it seems like it's a genuine, like, I tried to listen and, you know, maybe I took it a little too far. My bad.

8:05 Yeah. My bad.

8:08 Yeah, I think that he tried and he did not succeed. And when life knocks you down.

8:15 Get back up and wait a couple years before you get married.

8:19 Knocks you down. Knocks you down. Sometimes love does come around.

8:24 Well, we got a little bit left. I will be honest, that choice is really messing with me. I'd like to be married sometime soon and start out life as a family. I know weddings don't have to be extravagant. We could always throw a small party and once we have enough money to do a second one, we could do that.

8:40 But I don't know if that's what I want. I honestly feel selfish and regret not using the surprise wedding. I feel like I wasted a bunch of money. I used to stand by my choice confidently. But now I'm not sure I made the right choice and all this stress is wearing me down. Anyway, I'm staying with Mark.

8:56 Probably will get married soon and have my dream wedding in the near future, hopefully. Opie, I don't think you can say, oh, I made a mistake because you reacted in the moment. Yeah, it wasn't even your fault. Yeah, you were surprised and you reacted. I don't think you could have controlled that. But Awesome Ashley says, I don't think this is breakup worthy, but it does call for couples therapy to improve communication. That's a good point.

9:19 And that's the end of the story. We're going to go on to the next one.

9:22 My boyfriend threw the dinner I cooked at the wall, so I turned off the internet. Huh? What? I, 22 female, had cooked dinner for my boyfriend, 23 male, and I had called him several times. He didn't respond, so I was like, what the heck? And went to find him and bring his dinner to him. He was playing Call of Duty or Halo and said he didn't hear me.

9:44 I was like, all right, here's your dinner. And then I handed it to him and he just looked at it and said, I didn't want mac and cheese. I said I wanted chicken nuggets and fries. Oh my. Are you a little baby? Oh my God. That made me want to throw up. Are you a little baby? baby?

10:00 You want to play your video games and eat your chicken nuggets and fries and you need your mommy to cook it for you?

10:05 I didn't want that. I wanted this. Oh my god!

10:09 It says the one who's upstairs in his room and he can't, like mom's calling you downstairs to come and eat.

10:14 That is like the biggest ick.

10:16 I couldn't pause the game.

10:18 Genuinely, actually, I think Unless you are in some sort of work thing, your partner should absolutely be eating with you. Oh, for sure. If someone made you food, eat with them. That is ridiculous. This is not your parent. Why would you eat separately? That's crazy. I said, sorry, but if you had listened when I got back, you would have heard that the store was all out of nuggets. He then threw the plate with the food on it at a set of drawers. Immediate breakup. Immediate breakup, OP. I said, seriously, what is wrong with you? And he just said he was annoyed because I just made him pass away in the game by distracting him. He was already mad about having mac and cheese. I hate this. I hate, I

11:00 hate him. Oh my God. This is the worst story. I wanted my mac and cheese and now I'm dead. Oh, it's all your fault.

11:09 Now there's no food. Now you're hungry and upset.

11:11 Now you have to be hungry.

11:12 You know what? This is a very good Snickers ad.

11:14 Yeah, yeah. You're not you when you're hungry. This man deserves to be in jail. Jail. Straight to jail. I said, if that's going to make you angry, you shouldn't be playing while eating. He just said, whatever. It carried on playing, so I went downstairs and turned the router off while I ate. Come on. By the way, this comes from Throwaway Onion Kebab, and if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash okay story time subreddit.

11:38 I'm Sophia. I'm Savannah.

11:40 I'm Keon.

11:40 And we're here to give good advice goofily, but we don't have all the answers, and if you've got answers, give them in the comments below. And Opie says, he came storming down asking, what the heck I had done? I said, if you can't listen to me, you shouldn't be playing games when I'm trying to do stuff. He said, I can't turn the internet off because he pays for it.

11:59 So I said, he just wasted food. He says, I should have told them they were out of nuggets and waited for him to be done on the game instead of turning it off. I'm sorry.

12:08 Yeah.

12:09 Once she did that, what would you have done if you knew that they were out of nuggets? Would you not have had a tantrum if you knew that they were out of nuggets? I think he was being unreasonable, especially after he threw the plate. But his mom and my mom are siding with him. Yeah, because they want you to be his new mommy. That's insane. That's, yeah.

12:31 Any mom who says, oh, it's fine that my 23-year-old son threw a plate of food on the floor.

12:37 He just gets a little like that when he's hungry, you know?

12:41 They say I shouldn't have turned the internet off, and I'm thinking they are completely missing the point. So was I wrong to do that, or should I have done something different? You should do something different, which is? Break up! Yes! Big old breakup. Right now.

12:57 This is insane for him to be like, I want a dino nugget, I did not want the free mac and cheese.

13:04 Like, that's crazy. Update. Thank you to everyone that helped me see that what he did was really not right. I had wondered why my mom and his would side with him too, and after speaking with my mom, I found out he had been bad-mouthing me before this and had told her a different story to what really happened.

13:23 He told her he had been at work all day and got home and I was instantly aggressive and turned the internet off and said, no games or food. I don't know why she would believe that, but whatever. He had been playing the game for eight hours straight that day up to that point.

13:36 He was just really hungry. My man was grinding.

13:40 I can't imagine doing anything for eight hours straight. Anyway, I left him and moved back with my mom for now. I am in the process of moving all my belongings, but I have the most important stuff. He's been texting me, begging me to come back because he misses me and also he can't cook. I saw McDonald's wrappers all over the floor when I went to get some of my clothes.

14:02 He also posted a video to Facebook of his crying. No way. Leave Brittany alone. Can someone move in with me, please?

14:13 Can someone come in and cook me food?

14:14 Looking for private chef for free. I tried to cook mac and cheese and I burnt it. I burnt the water. I've done that. Saying I took everything and I'm a witch. His mom is still siding with him and she has been pestering me in messages for abusing her son. She says, how dare I leave him? First, she tried to guilt trip me by saying how he will clean and cook by himself. And with that didn't work, she started threatening and sending harmful messages. I feel much better, though. I didn't realize how much of a strain he had put upon me. So once again, thank you to everyone that helped me out.

14:50 Yay.

14:51 Yay. Kim Fine says he door dashed the McDonald's, didn't even drive to get them. No, he can't.

14:56 Kim Fine, he can't leave his video game.

14:58 Truthfully, he probably doesn't even have his license. No, probably not. Because he was playing his video games when he could have been getting his license. God, that's crazy.

15:07 Yikes.

15:10 Wow. Well, at least you've left your son behind, Opie.

15:15 And that's the end of the story. We're going to go on to the next one. My friend told.

15:19 Me that my girlfriend is cheating on me. So I looked for proof.

15:23 Prove it, please. I, 30 male, have been dating a girl I met at work.

15:29 We'll call her.

15:30 Martha, 29 female, for a year and a half, of which the last half year has been long distance. We have been meeting once a month for a weekend or so. We have another colleague, let's call him John, and we have met his longtime girlfriend, let's call her Jane, on the vacations we have taken in the last year. Jane works elsewhere and has been with John since their school days, more than nine years. A week ago, I got an email from Jane. I don't know you too well, so it's probably not my place, but I got jilted and don't want the same to happen to the other hurt party in this matter. John and Martha have been involved since October. I don't know to what extent or if it was from even before. I don't wish to know

16:18 either because whatever I am aware of beyond a doubt from their messages and subsequently his confession is enough for me to break it off. I am not in touch with anyone in that crowd anymore and don't intend to be. I don't know what your relationship with her is. This was just an FYI. Good luck and take care.

16:38 By the way, this story comes from Magenta.

16:43 And if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash okay story time subreddit.

16:46 I'm Savannah. I'm Sophia.

16:48 I'm Keon.

16:49 And we're here.

16:51 To give some advice, but we don't have all of the answers. We're only going to tell you what we would do, but let us know what you would do down.

16:56 In the comments, please.

16:58 Please.

16:59 As Opie says, I trust my girl.

17:02 So my first reaction was to show her this mail and ask her to find out if John is okay after what seemed to be an ugly.

17:07 Breakup as they are very close. That's so funny. Opie's like, hey, could you check in with John?

17:15 I just got this email that says that you're cheating with him.

17:18 Yeah, what? And he's probably going through a tough breakup right now. I know you guys are close. She's like, is this a trap?

17:26 She got defensive and said, I had no right to accuse her and I should have deleted the mail and never shown it to her if I truly trusted her.

17:34 Guilty.

17:35 Yeah, that was the most, Opie came in with the least amount of accusatory energy, and she just immediately got defensive, so she's guilty.

17:48 I spoke to another colleague, Bill, and told him what had happened. He said John had told everyone he had a breakup sometime before October, but continued hanging out with Jane, which everyone had found odd, intervened, and finally left him alone on the subject.

18:04 He also told me that.

18:05 Martha and him spent a lot more time together now, though he didn't suspect anything romantic. Now, I'm not proud of this part, but I got frustrated at this point and wrote back to Jane asking her for evidence. She wrote back saying she didn't want to get involved any further and the confrontation was in person, so anyway, had no evidence. I wrote back desperately asking for some messages for me to confront him with. she wrote back giving some personal details of the things she had read the terms of endearment they had for each other the physical involvement description etc and said to either trust her or not but please keep her out of it now i confronted martha with the details and she has denied the

18:47 whole thing i really don't know what to do and there's an update she for sure cheated on you yeah there's no way that like i mean yeah count one she was defensive count two you have proof guilty.

19:02 No but you Sophia did you not hear she denied.

19:06 It yeah she denied it so actually it's fine so technically it never happened we should forget it and you should trust her fully yeah have we not tried that I don't know it feels like OP is very trustworthy like trusting and thinks that his partner is deserving.

19:22 Of that trust but everything you've told us makes her sound pretty guilty yeah I'm on the side of guilty stamp it Stamp. Update three days later.

19:34 I was too invested in the relationship to objectively look at things for what they were and needed to hear an external opinion. I'm usually a trusting person, but this reeked of pure BS.

19:47 Here's how it unfolded.

19:48 I told her I was uncomfortable. with this whole scenario, and would prefer if she maintained some distance with John. She burst into tears, saying she was only being a good friend to him to help him through his rough breakup.

20:01 I demanded to.

20:01 Know why she hadn't told me about the breakup, if she knew what with all her continuous yapping about every other random thing. She said he had told everyone about the breakup but was still trying to make it work with her so she wasn't sure what the scenario was. She went on to tell me that Jane was a complete psycho and told me horror stories of things she did for attention.

20:26 Trying to make her seem like a liar. Trying to undermine her reputation so he doesn't believe her.

20:34 Jane was allegedly envious of my girl's closeness with John, even though nothing was going on between them. She said John had finally severed ties, which caused her to lash out and attack her, Martha, through me. I believed her and felt quite terrible for doubting her.

20:51 You know what? That was a really good explanation. But it feels like a lie. Feels like maybe she worked with John to figure out a really good lie.

21:01 After a lot of her tears were spilled, I apologized profusely and suggested we keep our distance from both of them until they sort their own crap.

21:09 No, no, no, no. She's lying. The fact that she said, oh, well, he was like, why didn't you tell me about the breakup? She's like, oh, I didn't know what was going on there. Because if I have a partner, I'm like, oh, my God, did you hear that this happened? I mean, I do have a partner and I do this. Yeah. Please, tell it to me in present terms. When I have a partner now, and I get tea, I do this. It's fun. Yeah.

21:37 I'm like, oh my god, did you hear this happen? He's like, no way. And you're like, gossip, gossip. I say, this doesn't leave the room. Take this to your grave. She reluctantly agreed.

21:51 A day later, yesterday, I get a call from Bill, another colleague, and he tells me They were all out together and he saw them making out when they excused themselves.

22:01 For a smoke break. Martha doesn't smoke.

22:04 I didn't confront or react. I requested Bill to not mention anything to her or John about having alerted me. I told her I had left a few files on her computer and couldn't remember where and what they were called so needed remote access to her system for some time. I pretended it was extremely urgent and I feigned a state of panic. I told her it would take me some time to transfer the files. She gave me access and went to take a shower. I went into her Gmail.

22:32 It had nothing. Facebook chats, nothing. Skype, nothing.

22:37 I felt like crap again, thinking I'm terrible for downing her. You've had two people tell you now.

22:43 Yeah, two people told you that your girlfriend is cheating on you. Yeah, why would they lie? Yeah, why would Bill lie?

22:48 Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was like, I could see Jane why she would, you know, to be like, oh, he can't be with anyone else.

22:53 But Bill is just a bystander. He's just, yeah, he's just a guy. He's just there being like, hey, I want to be the good guy here. Yeah, saw the making out. Saw him out for a smoke break, if you know what I mean. Wink.

23:06 Wink, wink.

23:07 And then I realized she had left her phone on charge through USB on her laptop.

23:13 I accessed the folders and there it was.

23:15 The ugliness bare of the person I had spent the last one and a half years loving. Spicy sleep chats, dirty pictures, references to the nights they were together. Panic at respective other halves finding out. Nope, he hadn't broken up. Just told people in office that he had.

23:33 That's what I was thinking. Because earlier OP said, yes, someone said that he had broken up in October with Martha. Or no, sorry, with Jane. But they were still hanging out together. So people were confused. So I think he just told everyone at work, oh yeah, Jane and I broke up. So it would seem less suspicious when he was hanging out with Martha. Which that's what happened. What a piece of crap.

23:57 And finally, a latest message of, Taking it slow till things settle down. I cleared my traces and logged out. I haven't confronted her yet. I'm deciding between a stone cold dignified walk away and a make her weep drama induced walk away.

24:12 Ooh, ooh, two walkaways. What would you choose? You want to see her weep or you don't want to talk about it? I don't know if I need to see her cry. I think I just want to be like, hey, here you go. This is the truth. Take your things and go. That's what I want. I want quick. I want the quick walk away. Well, that wasn't an option.

24:37 Date and dash. Oh, there's an edit.

24:41 I left without a word. I know she will try her emotional drama and try to explain away even this with absurd logic slash playing the victim slash getting on the offense by attacking me.

24:54 I'm not interested in any of that. I left and she can figure out why. To heck with her! Edit two.

25:00 As advised by a lot of you sent a thanks to Jane, she replied saying, good riddance, take care. Martha has asked a few common friends to ask why I blocked her. I've told them to not speak of her to me or of me to her. She's a mess from what I hear. I honestly don't give a crap. Indifference feels sweet. Didn't expect to feel this good so soon.

25:22 I'm grateful to her for being such an in-your-face witch.

25:26 That sure helps. Thanks everyone for your support to Better Times Ahead. Cheers! Cheers! Great! Awesome! I'm glad that you're done. And also, they're long distance, so that makes it really easy.

25:41 Yeah.

25:41 You just go home. I mean, yeah.

25:45 I've never done that. Just block someone and never speak to them again.

25:49 Yeah. In this circumstance, I get why.

25:51 Usually breakups have like, there's always some sort of conversation, but truthfully.

25:58 With OP, it was cheating and wrong. Yeah, it was cheating, so that's a different story. I get it.

26:03 And that's the end of the story. We're going to go on to the next one.

26:07 My fiancé' s stepfather texted my own father behind my back with lies about me. Don't believe the father! My fiancé and I are finally planning our wedding because we don't want to burden our families by asking them to pay for the wedding. It's our wedding, after all. We plan to pay for everything. And if anyone else wants to help, they can. We're not expecting anyone to help. My fiancé' s parents are really well off, to say the least. Technically... Oh, wait, I don't know what gender you are. If your fiancé is the woman, technically, her family is supposed to pay.

26:43 Historically and traditionally. Anywho, though.

26:46 Yeah, I don't have any.

26:48 Genders yet?

26:49 Nope.

26:50 I respect how they earned their money, and again, we're not expecting them to pay for the wedding just because they can... his mom graciously offered to pay for our honeymoon. Okay, okay. So technically, you're supposed to pay.

27:01 And you go, twist my arm.

27:03 Yeah, twist my arm. Sure, I'll take it. Twist my arm. We say thank you and send them some details. We do plan to take two weeks off work, and the honeymoon outline that I sent them is currently set at 10 days abroad. What's her name?

27:16 Good job.

27:16 She beat me to it. And estimated at 3.7K. And of course, there's room to change the plan since we have a whole year to plan it. His parents don't seem to have any issue with that, other than making sure we will be able to take that time off work. Then his stepdad steps in, saying, We'll match whatever your parents contribute to the wedding. For context, my parents are not well off. But they brought us up with the knowledge that they might not be wealthy, but they would find a way to make things happen. By the way, this comes from PrestigiousTry250. And if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash ok story time subreddit. I'm Sophia. I'm Savannah.

27:55 I'm Keon.

27:56 And we're here to give good advice goofily, but we don't have all the answers, silly billies. But we got some of them, and if you've got more of them, put them down below. And OP says, at this point, they have both said that they would help in any way they can. My mom offered to buy and make the decorations, and my dad is willing to throw money at things here and there. I told his stepdad thank you.

28:18 We'll try to find a way to make it equal. His stepdad suggests that I ask my parents to send us $ 5, 000 and then he will send us $ 5, 000 and we can do whatever we want with that in relation to the wedding. I don't think Opie's parents have $ 5, 000 to spend on their wedding.

28:37 Yeah.

28:38 Why do they need to match it? I don't know. Why can't he just give $ 5, 000? Yeah, that's true. And why did it go up? Because it was going to be 3.5K. That's the honeymoon. Yeah. So LP's fiancé' s parents are paying for the honeymoon, and I guess the stepdad? I don't know if the stepdad is involved in the honeymoon, but the stepdad is saying that I will put in $ 5, 000 if your parents put in.

29:03 $ 5, 000.

29:03 So that's separate to the honeymoon. Oh, I thought this was, wait, is that on OP's side? So stepdad is OP's fiance's stepdad. And then OP's parents are already offered to help out. But stepdad is saying, I will give you $ 5, 000 if your parents give $ 5, 000. But OP's parents cannot afford that, I'm thinking. Okay, so now no one's going to give anything?

29:29 We're going to find out. Well, they're still giving for the honeymoon. Yes.

29:33 Yeah.

29:33 The honeymoon is separate.

29:34 So this is, yeah. So this is for the wedding, but they said they didn't want any money. Like if people want to help out, but they were just going to pay for it.

29:40 And OP continues. This is where the problems start. As mentioned above, my parents are willing to help financially, but they can't just give us $ 5, 000. I told this to stepdad, but he just doesn't get it. He says, we need to see some commitment from them. My parents. First, This is where I admittedly lose my temper a bit. I say, they are more than willing and committed to help in any way possible, but I'm not going to cripple them by asking them to take out $ 5, 000 that they don't have just to satisfy a petty bid for equality. If money is this important to you, you can keep it.

30:17 That's where I intended to leave it, but then his stepdad said, we're not responsible for your parents' poor choices. Dude, no one said you were. We're not asking for your money. What's important to me right now is financing our retirement fund. Not okay.

30:33 Then we don't need your money.

30:35 Yeah, I don't understand why he's like, well, we're not responsible for your parents. And Opie's like, I just don't want your money. Don't give it.

30:42 Yeah, no one said this. No one's bringing this up but you.

30:46 Yeah, he's like, I'll give $ 5, 000 only if your parents give $ 5, 000. And Opie's like, I don't want any money. And he's like, Well, I'm not responsible for your parents.

30:54 What?

30:55 I managed to say, sounds good. I don't think we have enough funding to support your meals at the reception, so I'll go ahead and remove your seats. Thank you so much for your support and generosity.

31:07 Oh, no, that's not going to cause any drama. Okay, pausing right there for a second. Do you think that before OP said that, she should have asked her fiancé? Because this is his side of the family. Yes, and also I don't think she needed to make that rash of a decision.

31:24 In the moment, yes.

31:25 I understand that it was frustrating and he's not listening, but that's a big thing.

31:30 I think it was a drop the mic kind of moment of like, yeah.

31:34 Yeah, you can't be dropping the mic because the mic will get dented.

31:38 You have to put the mic back in the stand. To make that loud screeching booming sound.

31:42 Everyone's going to go, ow! Oh, the feedback. Exactly, and the feedback is hurting your fiancé.

31:47 And the feedback is the honeymoon that you're not going to get.

31:51 My fiance also told them that he was super disappointed in them and told me that he is backing up my decision. Am I the a-hole? I'm willing to admit I was in the wrong. And we do have an update. I don't think you're in the wrong for not wanting people that you don't like at your wedding. But I do, as we said, I think that there should have been some thought gone into that decision. Well, the partner was fine with it. Yeah, that's true. So it worked out.

32:16 It did work out, so maybe OP's partner likes some rash decisions. But we do have an update. Let's see if this gets worse. It's been about two weeks since the original conversation, and I wanted to provide an update based on some of the feedback this post received. Thank you to everyone that provided insight. I agree with the majority of you that we're mostly concerned about punishing his mother for the stepdad's behavior, because at the time she hadn't really been participating in the conversation. Here's the update on how conversations with her have played out. Stepdad was removed from the group chat. And after letting things cool as much as possible, my fiance and I agreed to not send any more messages alone and rather discuss, edit,

32:58 and reframe anything we planned to say to his mom as to not turn the heat back up. This method was working okay, although I will admit to losing my temper. But every time we attempted to reiterate that, the issue was stepdad's behavior, not money. His mom turned it back to the money. According to her version of events, we assigned the honeymoon costs to them while ignoring all other wedding costs. She defended her husband, saying that he was protecting his assets. Stepdad actually texted my father, saying that I had asked them for money to pay for the honeymoon and that I had indicated that I was planning to go into massive credit card debt to pay for the rest of the wedding. I guess this was supposed

33:39 to prompt my dad to offer to pay for everything. I cleared things up with my parents and reiterated to them that I do not expect them to pay for our wedding. And if they want to pay for things, they can choose to at their discretion. Luckily, my parents had both previously written off my fiancé' s stepdad as a classist and self-absorbed person. So they weren't too overly hung up on the insulting comments from him. My dad said that he would take care of the cost of the reception, which is our biggest expense in this wedding at $ 3, 000. 00.

34:11 I offered to split it three ways between us, the engaged couple, him, and my mother, but he insisted on paying for all of it. And this is Papa. This is Opie's Papa. So he has 3K. Yeah, I guess so. Of course, that takes a big weight off of our shoulders financially and satisfies Stepdad's demand for commitment from my parents.

34:31 But at this point, we aren't including Stepdad in the financial discussion since we don't even want him there. We've got a little bit left to the story. Any final thoughts? I mean, he's not invited, so I guess you don't have to worry about him anymore. We're not getting his money, but you don't have to deal with his mouth either. Yeah, true.

34:49 This is like a win-win scenario. Well, it's slightly a lose because we don't get the money. Yeah, but it was blood money. Yeah, it was blood money. They would have held that over you forever. That's what I'm thinking. I think he would have said like, oh, well, I paid for the wedding. Well, I want to see your child.

35:07 Seems like it's like more. I want your firstborn child because I paid for the wedding.

35:10 Yeah, like it seems like it would be transactional in a way, but I don't know.

35:15 I don't know this guy, but he seems horrible, so. I don't know this guy, but he sucks. I wouldn't put it past him. OP continues, we're both still pretty upset because even though my fiance's mother is much more reasonable and generous, she seems to be blinded by this idea that we're apparently trying to take advantage of their wealth.

35:33 We probably said, keep your money. We aren't asking you for money. We don't want your money. I don't want it. At least six times already, and it just hasn't stuck. We reworked the honeymoon to be much cheaper and planned to pay for it ourselves if we even still planned to take one, which isn't necessary. It just would have been nice. And you could take a, yeah, you can take a much cheaper one. You could probably go to somewhere closer. Like if you lived in the US, you could take like a, probably get a flight for, 200 to 300. Or go on a little trip. You could go on a road trip. Cross country trip. Cross country trip to anywhere you want to go.

36:13 There's so many places.

36:15 The bigger problem is that my fiance feels like his stepdad is ruining his relationship with his mother and doesn't want to be on bad terms with her. Neither do I. Kind of at a loss. And that's the end of that story. I don't know. Is she uninvited from the It was kind of unclear if she was still invited. Stepmom?

36:36 Mom.

36:37 No, she said that she would take both seats out. Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. But they're like, oh, well, we still want a relationship with her. You definitely are going to get rid of that relationship if you don't invite her to her son's wedding. You can't really take that back. And it's a little hard to just be like, oh, one of you can come, one of you can't. Well, I think what they could do is send her an invite, say, you cannot bring him, and then she might not come, but at least she's been invited, you know? Yeah, that's true. Like, at least she can't say, like, oh, you didn't invite me to your wedding, my only son's wedding. You know?

37:14 Even if she doesn't come.

37:16 And that's the end of this story. We're going to go on to the next one. Hey, it's Angie, your favorite fake redhead host here, and we're going to get back to the stories, but here's a three-minute ad break from our sponsors.

37:29 My fiance's family demanded changes weeks before our wedding, and I'm paying for everything. That's so funny, you guys actually don't get a say. I, 24 female, am fed up with my fiance's 28 male family BS in terms of the wedding planning process. We are roughly two weeks away from the wedding day, and everything is already very stressful and going to be a race against time. But anyways, I've been having issues with his family since the beginning of our engagement. There was a rift between me and his mother over details about picking my wedding dress. Then no one on his side of the family would fill out our address collector slash contact form. So we had to change when we would send our wedding invitations twice.

38:14 His mom and sister were four hours late to my bridal shower.

38:17 Okay. I mean, how long was the bridal shower? Four hours.

38:20 Yeah.

38:21 Like, I feel like I would have been there and left by the time they got there.

38:26 I'd be like, oh God. Sorry, you missed it. You missed the whole thing, guys.

38:31 Women from his family have asked about incorporating white into their outfits and we're still waiting for people to RSVP from his side of things. Just anytime anyone texted me, is it okay if I wear white?

38:42 I just, no. Just a short, no.

38:46 What kind of ideal is, Women want to incorporate white into their... What?

38:51 Yeah. No, no, no. Actually, you can't do that.

38:54 By the way, this comes from CautiousRespect683, and if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash OKStoryTime subreddit.

39:01 I'm Savannah. I'm Sophia.

39:03 I'm Keon.

39:04 And we're here to talk about some stuff, get some advice, but we don't have all the answers. We're only going to tell you what we would do, but let us know what you would do down in the comments.

39:12 ASOP says.

39:15 And on top of all this last night, people from his family were asking about inviting extended family to the guest list.

39:22 No.

39:23 Again, another quick no.

39:25 I just feel like it's bad etiquette to behave this way. I'm stressed out of my mind already. with trying to hunt down people we invited back in February, get everything handled with vendors, and just 5.

39:36 Million other things.

39:38 Maybe they just don't understand how weddings and wedding planning works, but I just want to be left alone to tie up the loose ends and be ready for the big day on time. I was frustrated with how things were going in regards to my fiancé' s family and just told him essentially to shut down any questions or concerns or inquiries in regards to the wedding. I don't want to be asked about making any decisions or changes or anything this close to the wedding, and he thinks I'm.

40:05 Being a bit harsh. Well, then you deal with it, buddy.

40:08 So am I the a-hole for telling my fiancé? For just like future reference, if anyone asks about changes in regards to the wedding, we don't have to talk about it. Just tell people no further changes are being made this close to the wedding date and it's not up for discussion. Am I the a-hole has no consensus, but OP was not the a-hole.

40:29 Yeah, I don't know in what world you would be the a-hole for being like, no, we're not going to change any of that. Yeah. Oh, for you?

40:37 Oh, well, you know.

40:38 Now that you've said for you. Get on the list, buddy. There's 20 people ahead of you.

40:42 Yeah.

40:42 And they all want to change something. And we're not listening to them. To any of them.

40:47 And Opie's not being a bridezilla from what we have here.

40:50 She literally just said, no. And her husband was like, that's kind of rude. We can't say no because it's rude to say no.

40:58 Watch, I'll do it.

40:59 No. I mean, it is a little hard. I'm not going to lie. It is a little hard, especially if it's like your family. You don't want to disappoint them.

41:07 And they're like, no, this should be, you know, what you're doing.

41:09 It's like, no.

41:11 My question is, have they ever acted like this before?

41:13 Probably.

41:13 Probably.

41:14 But also weddings are like big stressors and stuff and people have a lot of opinions about weddings that they might not show prior.

41:22 There are some relevant comments. OP clarifies the details on her fiance's mother and sister being late to the bridal shower. OP responds, oh, the bridal shower wasn't four hours long. They just showed up four hours late. The shower started at one, but we delayed start time due to everyone, including me. getting caught in some traffic. So the shower was from two to five, including a big lunch. And they showed up at five 30.

41:45 Oh, so, so they did show up after they missed it. They delayed it by an hour and they still missed it. That's crazy.

41:55 Comment to number one says you've allowed this to go on too long. And that's on you, not your fiance.

42:01 Oh, okay. It is his family.

42:04 So now you are dealing with more BS. You need to shut it down now.

42:08 Will this piss them off? Yes.

42:11 If you don't shut it down, they will be late to your baby shower. They will interfere with the way you raise your kids, etc.

42:18 Not the A-Hall!

42:20 OP responds, I only extended the address line because if I hadn't, my fiancé would have had 10 people on the guest list to my 65. I wanted him to be able to truly gather everyone he needed to. And they did miss the shower. They walked in halfway through gift opening and were walking out the door... 15 to 20 minutes later. They can't manipulate me. Every time they ask me things directly, I shut it down. They're resorting to go through my fiance because they can frame things differently and open him up to feel okay discussing things with me. Who is paying for the wedding? OP responds, I'm paying for the whole wedding. My fiance is paying for everything travel and honeymoon related. Relatives are doing nothing

43:02 but showing up.

43:03 Great. Easy. Easy thing is shut up. Yeah.

43:06 Oh, yeah. Every time they bring up something, you go, oh, are you paying for the wedding? I didn't know you were paying for the wedding. Oh, you're not? Then shut up.

43:14 I know it's always hard when people are like, oh, you know, in-laws are paying for this. So, you know, they want a little say in this or that.

43:21 But they're not paying for it. So shut up.

43:23 I don't understand why just because they're paying for it. Like, don't you want to just support your, you know, son, daughter, whatever? Don't you want to just support them? Well, that's if they're like a good person.

43:34 Yeah.

43:34 It's like we read all these stories that are like, okay, since I'm paying for it, you have to do everything I want.

43:40 Everything I want. And it's like, well, then I don't want to take your money. Now I can't pay for it. Now I'm in debt. Thanks.

43:48 Yeah. Oh, man.

43:50 At least I got my way. I don't want your money. There's an update. Two days later.

43:56 This update may be earlier than expected, but I also wasn't expecting to get a call from his grandma today either. So two days ago, my fiance asked me on behalf of his mother if two extended family could be added to the guest list. And as we are two weeks away from our wedding, I told him that just can't happen this close to the wedding. And he also didn't even originally invite them.

44:18 This is so terrible. Oh, he has to be like the coordinator. And he's like, oh, mom, can I can I invite two more people? And she's like, no, sweetie, as I told you, it's two weeks away from our wedding. Like, it feels like she's parenting him.

44:34 I just hope this isn't going to be your relationship for the rest of your life.

44:37 Can we can we can we have some candy tonight? And he's like, no, in the eyes when you speak. Yeah, speak up. Speak up. What did you say? Louder. Call me sir. Stop mumbling. Call me sir. Sir, can we have some candy, please? Call me master.

44:55 I could also tell he was being pressured to bring it up. But anyways, I told him no and told him to tell his family to give me space about wedding stuff because we're in the final stretch and changes are no longer negotiable. They were never negotiable, but you know what I mean. Anyhow, I get off work today, and only two weekends, including this one, stand between me and the wedding, and I just want to settle into the bliss. But then I get a call from an unsaved number, but I thought it was my doctor's office, so I picked up. To a very disgruntled grandma, mother-in-law's mother, grilling me about the guest list.

45:33 Yeah, you go, sorry, wrong number.

45:35 Beep. Asking me what was going on, why some people were invited and not others, and what can I do to change it, and I explained that I took the guest list from my fiancé and anyone who was an immediate family I didn't recognize or ask questions because it's my fiancé' s list of people he wanted to invite. which she angrily said I should have asked her for who should be invited, not my fiance.

45:58 Well, you can yell at my fiance, not me.

46:00 Oh, am I marrying you now, grandma? Why is the grandma pissed now? You should have just asked me to invite people. Didn't OP say earlier that there were only going to be like 10 people on fiance's side? Wasn't this in the story? I just remember her saying, oh, there would only be 10 people. It feels like OP's fiancee just didn't actually put a lot of thought into the guest list. He was just like, oh, I don't know, my parents. Yeah.

46:29 I think he expected his parents to figure it out, but didn't actually tell them to figure it out.

46:34 And then they're like, oh, why don't you invite this? And then he's like, oh, wait, right. Yeah, it's like, oh, I forgot about that.

46:41 Yeah, OP said, I only extended the address because if I hadn't, my fiance would have only had 10 people on the guest list to my 65.

46:49 Yeah, it feels like he just never actually... did the work or asked, oh, who do I need to bring? And he was just like, oh, someone else will figure it out for me. And that's so frustrating.

47:01 To which I then realized I never gave her my number. So how on earth did she get it? Anyways, after I somehow got off the phone with her, I told my fiance everything. And he immediately called her and told her to back off and to spread the word that the wedding is ours and it's in two weeks and it's not up for discussion. And if they have issues to call him, not me. His grandma even sent her apologies. However, now I'm a tiny bit worried how the wedding will unfold, but for now, maybe I'll have some peace and quiet until the big day. If not, I'll start cussing people out myself. There are some relevant top comments. Did OP's fiance give her number to his grandma prior to the phone call? OP responds, it was not him. I suspect

47:45 it was either his sister or mom. He was at work when all of this happened, so he used one of his breaks to make sure I was okay after I sent him a million texts, and then he called his grandma. Why she needed to just say hello, I don't know.

48:00 That's weird.

48:01 And that's the end of this story. We're going to go on to.

48:03 The next one.

48:04 My roommate's girlfriend ruined my kitchen, so I banned her from it. I, 26 male, live with my best friend, Brian, 26 male, in a rented house. Sometime in September, Brian started dating Cindy, 24, I think. Brian can't cook.

48:24 At all.

48:25 He can make scrambled eggs, instant ramen, frozen pizza, and that's about it. He doesn't even know how to cook rice. Everyone point at him and laugh. Don't do that. That's mean.

48:34 Get a rice cooker, dude.

48:36 Also, how about, have you asked Brian, hey, do you want me to show you how to cook, or do you want help with that?

48:41 Let me teach you some things.

48:43 Let me show you the ropes, Brian. I, on the other hand, I am a great cook. And I occasionally, three to five times a month, cook for him as well. Cindy has been staying over more and more often. And a few weeks ago, she was sleeping over on the same day I cooked for Brian. She was apparently really shocked I cooked it because she said it tastes like it's from a pricey restaurant. Brian made the mistake of mentioning that I offered to teach him to cook.

49:09 Oh, there you are, Keon. There you are. He did teach you. He did offer. You did offer Brian said, I don't care.

49:16 Listeners, you can't see me. I'm going to start tapping it.

49:17 Yeah, that's how I feel.

49:18 It's on the nose.

49:19 That's how I feel. when my boyfriend cooks for people. I'm like.

49:27 Cindy decided that this offer automatically extends to her as well. She came to me and told me that I could teach her. She didn't ask. She just told me.

49:37 You teach me now. I'm your student. I'm your student, you teach me.

49:41 She has like a chef hat and a whisk.

49:43 She goes, chef, you will teach me.

49:45 Yes, chef.

49:45 Yes, chef, you will teach me.

49:47 Honestly, that sounds kind of fun.

49:48 Yeah. I must study the blade. Teach me.

49:53 But OP says, I told her I wouldn't. We went back and forth. She thinks I have to because I promised Brian I'd teach him, but he doesn't want to learn. As you can tell, Cindy also doesn't know how to cook anything.

50:05 What do you mean? How did these people grow to like 24 and whatever age Brian is and not learn how to cook anything? Aye, aye, aye. Your parents failed you.

50:17 Opie continues saying she thinks she's entitled to cooking lessons because she's dating my friend. She kept pestering me about this for almost three effing weeks and only stopped when I asked Brian to talk to her. By the way, This comes from user ThrowawayKitchenBan. And if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash OKStoryTime subreddit.

50:39 I'm Keon.

50:40 I'm Sophia. I'm Dakota.

50:43 And us three, we don't know everything. We only know what we do. So let us know what you do in the comments down below. As OP says. Now, last week I got home and could immediately smell burnt food. Is this on OP? Is this on Brian? Is this on Cindy? I'm kind of going and leaning.

51:05 It's on whoever burnt the food.

51:06 Whoever burnt the food, but. Yes.

51:09 However, Opie could have prevented it. He could have prevented it. You could have stopped this tragedy.

51:16 I feel like if Cindy asked in a nicer way, instead of demanding, I need to learn. Like, you're going to teach me how to learn. She's like, I want to learn. Mm-hmm.

51:25 Mm-hmm.

51:26 Opie continues saying, I smell burnt food. I walked into the kitchen, and there she was. She tried to make crepes, burned them to a crisp, and was scraping them with a metal spatula on a non-stick pancake pan.

51:41 No, no.

51:42 And that's where Opie's just staring and his eyes twitching a little bit.

51:45 Number one rule, don't use any metal on a non-stick pan. Oh, and now she owes you a new pan.

51:52 This is what Gordon was talking about when he said kitchen nightmares.

51:55 Yeah, yeah, this is my nightmare. My nightmare, I just got new non-stick pans.

51:59 And as all three of us had lost it, Opie continued saying, I slightly lost it, and I immediately raised my voice to ask her what the F she was doing. She gave me an attitude about how, since I'm an a-hole, she's learning to cook by herself. I told her she can do that at her home and not in our kitchen.

52:20 She smugly told me it's not my decision to make because it's Brian's place as well. I told her, it's my decision because everything in the kitchen is... Mine. When we moved in the kitchen, it was empty apart from a single banged-up pan, one pot, and three dull knives with crappy plastic handles. The kitchen is now chef-worthy. I dropped hundreds on appliances, cookware, nice dinnerware, etc. Brian is, of course, allowed to use everything in the kitchen. I told Sydney that she is not allowed to cook anything in our kitchen anymore. Brian came into the kitchen at this point and defused the argument. And that was last week.

52:56 Things between Brian and me are very awkward. Cindy has not been over since. One of my friends absolutely went off on me, calling me smexist and classist because not everyone has the same opportunities. We also have a fun side note from my OP saying, I grew up poor. I learned to cook on my own.

53:15 Exactly, that's what I'm saying. It doesn't make sense to be like, this is classist because if you don't have a lot of money, you kind of have to learn how to do things on your own because you don't have people... Who can just be like, oh, well, I have time to make food for my children.

53:28 So they're not going to have to learn. I learned how to make great tasting meals out of ramen, hot dogs, rice, whatever was on clearance, etc. I don't think I'm the a-hole for refusing to teach, but I am wondering if banning her from the kitchen was a step too far.

53:42 I don't think you can ban her from the kitchen that is also Brian's. But however, I do think you can ban her from your stuff.

53:49 Your cookware.

53:50 Yeah, you could be like, that's my cookware. Don't use that. Like, get your own if you want to practice.

53:54 I feel like, you know what you do? We just start fresh. Put on Ratatouille.

53:59 Put on Ratatouille. Teach. You go, hey, girl. We're going to watch a master class video on how to cook.

54:06 This is like the classic, like, the teacher doesn't want to teach, but he's fine. This is Ratatouille.

54:11 This is, like, she is freaking linguine. And then you're Colette's?

54:16 Colette, yes.

54:16 Colette? Yeah, you're Colette and you're like, and mommy is not in the kitchen. Is mommy not here to help you?

54:21 What are you doing?

54:22 Yeah, what are you doing? You do that whole fast monologue.

54:27 Lopi continues saying, it's just that I really don't like her. And honestly, I don't trust her not to damage something on purpose. Maybe that's what it is.

54:37 Lopi's like, at the end of the day, the real reason is she just sucks.

54:43 There's an edit. The pan is... Thank goodness. The pan is fine.

54:47 I'm surprised.

54:48 The coal that was supposed to become crepes protected the actual pan. We have some comments here, and Opie added in the comments, My friend grew up middle class and seems to think poor people cannot cook because they can't afford it. Your friend is also an idiot.

55:04 Your friend's stupid. Again, that's just not how that works.

55:09 True for families permanently living in, let's say, motels where they don't have access to a kitchen. But personally... I think poor people are more likely to know how to cook.

55:18 Yes, or at least, like, that's not even saying cook well.

55:22 It's not saying, like, Chef Gordon Ramsay, you know, souffle, whatever.

55:26 It's saying, like, I know how to make eggs. I know how to make simple meals.

55:31 Because I needed to survive.

55:32 Yeah, because I had a parent who was working all the time. So I, as a child or as a minor, had to learn how to feed myself.

55:39 And guess what? Did it start out real good? Did I burn myself a couple times? Did I do stuff that really, you know, scarred me for life? Probably.

55:47 Yeah, the fact that she does not know how to cook anything proves to me that she probably grew up some sort of middle class.

55:53 As a kid, we could never afford takeout or to go out to eat, so we cooked whatever we had. And now to the comments. Comment number one says, not the a-hole. You do not mess with someone's cooking stuff. I just got a new set of Yakushi knives that I'm obsessed with.

56:08 I want new knives.

56:09 Someone just wanted to flex they got some knives.

56:11 Yeah, I just got some knives.

56:12 If someone was using them without my permission and using them incorrectly... I would flip my lid, especially if they were acting as entitled as the girlfriend. Absolutely not the a-hole. However, if you feel like sharing some sweet appliances you have, then I need, in my kitchen, I'm all ears, lol. OP says, if I had Yakushi knives in my kitchen, I would never get anything done because I would be too busy worshipping them. Unfortunately, money is tight due to the vid, so that will remain a dream for me for now. Not gonna say the specific model as I'm not sure They are making them anymore, and I bought it in Europe a few years ago, but I think everyone should have a hand blender with accessories. Mine came

56:53 not only with different heads, but also with two containers where you plug the blender on top and you can change the blades, and they will either blend, chop, grate, slice, or mix bread dough. I much prefer it over a traditional food processor or a blender.

57:07 I mean, I honestly prefer a food processor.

57:10 Look at these chefs talking on the internet. They just go... Yeah, there's, yeah.

57:14 I mean, it is expensive, but I do, I mean, like, a blender is usually cheaper, so it probably would be better if you were on a budget. I do like, I have a food processor, and I do like it.

57:23 Okay, we have an update, Sophia. All jokes aside, Cindy's never touching your, my appliances ever again.

57:30 Oh, no, no.

57:31 But we should talk to Brian and be like, Brian, I think it's time for you to learn how to cook so you know yourself better. But also, you could teach your girlfriend how to cook.

57:39 Yeah, and then you can teach your girlfriend. And yeah, you go to Brian, you go, hey, I don't really want to cook for you anymore, but I do want to teach you. So, like, get up here and we're going to learn. I'm going to teach you at least how to cook one meal. You're going to get really good at one meal and that's it.

57:52 Fried rice. Something simple.

57:53 Fried rice is so easy.

57:54 Mmm, curry fried rice.

57:57 A curry fried rice? Curry barker fried rice?

58:00 Update. Ah, it blew up a lot more than I thought. So, to answer some questions... I already disliked Cindy prior to this because she was unfriendly to me since we met. Not saying hi back, glaring at me whenever I walked into the common area where she was, interrupting every conversation I had with Brian, etc. I love Brian. I'm not in love with him. Do none of you have friends close enough they count as family? The Schmexis and Classis comments were from a friend who recently started getting involved in all sorts of activism after living, in my opinion, a sheltered life.

58:34 Sounds like she's a fake activist. Well, you know what? I'm not going to say she sounds like a fake activist. It sounds like she's a new activist. Because I think a lot of new young activists sometimes get caught in this kind of like, I have to be an activist for everything.

58:49 I have to be the very best.

58:51 I am a warrior. I am a warrior and I have to fight everything, every battle, even if it's not a battle I should be fighting.

58:57 My friend is coming from a good place, I think. Is that they're just very sensitive. Yeah. The Schmex's bit probably relates to me not wanting to attend every single woman's right march and protest that she's invited. me to. I also tried to bring up this situation with Brian again today, and he full on flinched and shook his head.

59:16 What are you? No, no.

59:23 Yeah, he wakes up. Oh, sorry. God, I had a dream. I was cooking.

59:28 Thanks to people who suggested cooking something with a really delicious aroma when Cindy's over next time. You all are so petty. I love it. And that's the end of that.

59:38 Well, there you go. You know what, Opie? You're fine. You're fine. Keep cooking. Keep cooking, good looking.

59:44 And that's the end of this story. We're going to go on to the next one.

59:47 My friend gifted me a shirt, then demanded I pay her back. Hey, give me your pants, too. Me, 18 female, and Melissa, 17 female, have been friends for two years. We hang out usually once a week and we're fairly close. My birthday was two weeks ago and last week we went shopping together. She had a gift card she received over the holiday and insisted on spending it on me.

1:00:11 I'm talking major insistence. She picked out a shirt, made me try it on, said it looked amazing, pranced over the cash register, bought it with the gift card, said happy birthday and handed it to me. Honestly, I didn't even want or like that shirt that much. I would have never bought it for myself. But I still said thank you and said she really didn't have to get it for me, that a present was unnecessary. She said she didn't want to spend the gift card on herself and that she just wanted to give me a present.

1:00:40 So fast forward two days at school, she was totally icing me out. I walked up to her at her locker and she completely ignored me and walked away. I asked some of our friends if she was okay and they said I should really pay her back because it was a witch move to use her present to buy myself a shirt. And then you say, I didn't do that. Yeah, I'd be like, wait, what? I didn't do that. She wanted to. She offered to. She like really wanted to. Well, no, you just say she bought me a shirt for my birthday.

1:01:11 I didn't use her gift card. By the way, a shirt that I didn't even want. What the F? By the way, this comes from Don't Know What To Do 9. And if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash showcase story time subreddit. I'm Sophia. And I'm Savannah. And we're here to give good advice goofily, but we don't have all the answers. So if you've got answers, put them down below. And OP says, I told them she insisted on buying it for me. They were confused, but they said I should probably just pay her back so there's no drama. I'm pissed off because I didn't even want this ugly shirt. And I don't know why she's creating drama over it. I had enough money with me to pay for the shirt that day.

1:01:47 So I walked up to her and later and said, hey, I have the money for the shirt. And she still ignored me and walked away. Then what's the issue? Is that not the issue? I think you need to record this. I think you need to record you being like, have the money for the shirt. Do you want it? She goes, how am I supposed to pay her back if she won't let me? This is driving me crazy. And there is an update. What do you do? I mean, I'd be like, what? is your problem.

1:02:13 Yeah. That's what I'm doing. I'm going up and I'm, you know, I would do it after school. Cause obviously like, you know.

1:02:18 After school in the parking lot, 3 PM, what's your problem? Bring your lunch money. Yeah. I don't, I would, I would.

1:02:28 Immediately, you know, I'd be like, Hey, can we talk after school? Like, is that what is going on? Like, and then also I would tell her like, You're, you know, our friends are saying this, that, and the other thing.

1:02:41 Is that true? Is that what you're telling them? Also, like, why did you not just ask me for the money? You know, like, why didn't you just say, hey, could you pay me back? Like, you never asked me. So clearly she's lying for attention. Yeah.

1:02:55 And I just don't understand. Maybe she like, I don't, I really don't know. I don't know why she would be acting this way.

1:03:02 She's weird. But we got an update. Okay, so there's some more background needed for this update. Melissa and I both applied early action to the same two universities a few months ago. We didn't know this until we both found out we were accepted to both. There is a strong possibility of us attending the same small university. We are also in a science class together where we were recently assigned as lab partners. Most of the responses on my last post said to just give her back the shirt.

1:03:32 I thought that would only make things worse, and I didn't see how I could just give it back if she was literally not going to be responsive to taking it. She's just been icing me out completely. I took a suggestion of texting her. This is what I said. Hey, Melissa, so I want to clear up what happened today. I'm pretty confused, and I'm sorry that we had a misunderstanding.

1:03:52 I can return the shirt if you can give me the receipt so the credit can go back to your gift card, or I can bring it to school if you would rather do the return yourself. She responded back, no, keep the shirt. It was your birthday present.

1:04:04 What?

1:04:05 What is going on? And then you post that everywhere. I don't normally advocate posting things everywhere, but you post that everywhere. Are the friends lying? Like, I don't understand. So I asked why she expected me to pay her back if it was a present, and she did not respond. I figured, oh, well, I tried. Who knows what this crazy witch is thinking? So this was last night after making my post. Today at school, I was called out of class to go to the principal's office. Apparently, I've been bullying Melissa through text messages, had stolen gift card money from her, and needed to show them my phone.

1:04:39 I'm pretty sure they aren't allowed to ask that, but I didn't care because I knew I had nothing to hide. They looked through my phone and said I could go back to class and was at risk of suspension if the investigation shows I was bullying her. Why is she going scorched earth on you? This is insane. This girl is crazy. She's crazy. She hates you for some reason.

1:05:02 Yeah, I think she's like trying to sabotage you. I think she became friends with you just to sabotage you, which is crazy.

1:05:10 Two years? Two years of scheming this? Don't tell her where you're going to school. Well, I mean, I think they're going to the same place. Well, two options. So there's a 50-50 chance. Also, she was going to be assigned a different lab partner so that she wouldn't have to be traumatized. They literally said that. I told the principal that I actually felt I was being bullied because she bought me something and told all of my friends I was a witch for using her gift card money when it was her offering and insisting on doing it.

1:05:39 And now she's trying to F up my life, Regina George style. I mean, you have the text. You have the text. There's evidence. I went home at lunch. I live close to school, brought back the shirt and just asked a friend to give it to her who texted me that she did give the shirt to Melissa. Same friend told me Melissa hopes that if I am suspended, the university will rescind my admission and she can go there without having to worry about me. Not sure what she even has to worry about. I guess she's threatened by the fact that I have better grades than her.

1:06:10 That's all I can think of. Anyways, now she has that fugly shirt and shouldn't need anything more from me. But the school is still doing some sort of investigation. There's an edit. Any final thoughts? this girl's delusional. I don't know what's wrong with her. I don't even think she's delusional. I think she's doing all of this on purpose because she's jealous of OP or something.

1:06:34 And like, doesn't want, like maybe thinks that she's, yeah. Like stole her friends and all this stuff. She's like, and if we go to the same college, it'll be the same again. Yeah.

1:06:44 But, uh, clearly that's not what you're doing at all. And it's kind of ridiculous that the school, I mean, Good, yes, that they're following up on a claim of bullying, but also it's so clearly disproven when they look at your phone, which they also cannot do.

1:07:02 And also, like, you can look at the receipts for all of the, you know, like, actual receipts for, like, the clothes or the gift card or whatever you got.

1:07:10 It's like, she said that. Like, I'm not insane, guys. I'm not. I swear. And also, how would I have bullied her into using her gift card?

1:07:17 What?

1:07:18 Right?

1:07:18 Yeah.

1:07:19 Edit, I've told my parents about all of this going down. They're upset and are ready to fight on my behalf with the school if necessary. It's so smart that you texted her. But they also think that I should go to the university even if Melissa goes there because they don't think I should let her determine what I do with my life. It's a prestigious Ivy League. And they would be devastated if I chose not to go because of her. But I really can't imagine being with her for the next four years. I know high school is different than college, but it's a small school, and we would be getting a degree in the same field. Edit number two says, a lot of people are saying, no matter how small the school is, you won't see each other, etc.

1:07:59 That's not true. That's not true. Yeah, especially if you're doing the same major. I went to a ginormous school, and I always ran into people. I went to one of the biggest schools, maybe not in the country, but certainly in California. We had 30,000 students, and I ran into people all the time. I had like 1,000. At my school. And did you run into people?

1:08:21 I mean, I.

1:08:23 Would run into people, like, what do you mean? Would you see people that you knew? I mean, yeah, because we would have class together. Well, outside of class.

1:08:32 Outside of class? I mean, unless we were making plans together, then no, not really.

1:08:37 Wow, that's crazy. Maybe having a bigger campus means you're more likely. I don't know. I mean, yeah.

1:08:44 Like, I would see my friends, like, like for example like marching band or something like i'd go to like rehearsal for marching band or i see them at the games obviously i always saw people in passing i'd be like oh my god hey in passing i mean like that's what i'm saying yeah like sometimes i don't know depends when i say we're getting the same degree, I mean there's literally less than 15 people, including undergrads and grads, in the program all studying with the same professor. Even if we live in different halls and take GEs separately, there's no way we won't be in contact at least twice a week for the four years.

1:09:19 I mean, hopefully, hopefully your school's investigation proves that she is actually trying to make all of these lies up about you. And then they could send that to the college and say, hey, you know, the student is trying to.

1:09:38 It's just the.

1:09:38 Fact of like, why go through all this for what? Because you don't want to go to the same college as someone. I guess so. You want to sabotage their life. Hopes and dreams, you know?

1:09:48 And that's the end of the story. We're going to go on to the next one. Hey, it's Dakota, your favorite goofball host here. And we're going to get back to the stories, but here's three minutes of ads from our sponsors.

1:09:59 My friend visited for a weekend and treated me like her maid. And where is your uniform? My friend, 27 female, asked if she could stay with me, 26 female, for a weekend because she wanted a break from work and said she'd love to catch up. We've been friends for years, so I happily said yes. I cleaned the apartment, stocked the fridge with snacks I knew she liked, and even planned a couple of activities around town. The first evening was fine, but by Saturday morning I realized I had accidentally booked myself as the unpaid staff at an all-inclusive resort.

1:10:33 She slept until almost noon while I made breakfast. When she finally got up, she asked if I could make her coffee because she was still waking up. She left her dishes on the table, dropped her clothes on the bathroom floor, and every time we got back from somewhere, she'd collapse on the couch and ask if I could grab her water, because I was already standing or moving about.

1:10:52 By the way, this comes from CompetitiveSleep742, and if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash showcase story time subreddit. I'm Sophia. And I'm Savannah. And we're here to give good advice goofily, but we don't have all the answers. We only know what we'd do. So let us know what you would do in the comments.

1:11:08 And Opie says... I suggested we go for a walk, visit a local market, watch a movie, or even play board games. Every suggestion got a shrug, followed by, whatever you want, if you say so. Only for her to complain once we were there that she was bored or tired. I guess her social battery was low and she just needed to rest. By Sunday, I'd done all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the driving, and she'd contributed exactly one thing, a growing pile of cups and blankets for me to pick up And at first that was okay, but now it's the norm. The breaking point came when I started washing the breakfast dishes before taking her to the airport. She looked at me and asked if I could hurry, but she doesn't want to be late. She

1:11:52 didn't offer to help despite standing there scrolling on her phone. I finally said, I love you, but hosting you has been exhausting. I feel like I've spent the weekend taking care of you instead of spending time with you. And we've got a little bit left to this story. Any final thoughts before we get into the home stretch? I don't know.

1:12:11 I feel like I've had friends like this, but then I just will say like, like when I just hosted my cousin, when she was here, she like threw all of her stuff like everywhere.

1:12:21 And I'd be like, why am I stepping on your underwear? And she'd be like, sorry. Like, I just like, yeah, I just like say it.

1:12:28 Yeah.

1:12:28 I'd be like, I don't make it like, you know, like, okay, I'm going to lay down the law now.

1:12:33 You know what I mean? Like, it's more like, are you going to wear that? Is that why it's there?

1:12:38 Like, it's a general question that she's like, oh, no, I would just like ask and be like.

1:12:42 Hey, like clean up your dishes. Hey, can you move your clothes? I don't know, but maybe OP is not as close to this person. It feels a little awkward doing that. I don't know. She said they were like friends forever. Yeah, I don't know.

1:12:54 This is not, if my friend forever was staying with me and acting like this, I'd be, I'd be a lot more, hey, clean your stuff.

1:13:01 Yeah.

1:13:02 I mean, like I get I'm hosting you, but that doesn't, That doesn't mean like, oh, you can do whatever you want and you're on vacation and I have to pick up after you.

1:13:10 I mean, yeah, my friends will make breakfast for me and, you know, they'll be nice and stuff. But I always like to cook for other people, too. I'm like, let me do something for you. She got defensive and said that guests are supposed to relax and that I was making her feel unwelcome over a few chores. And I know how she is. She's always trying to conserve energy for the next task. Since then, she's been telling mutual friends that I was a terrible host and made her feel guilty for visiting. Some think I should have been quiet since we all know how lazy she is. Am I the a-hole, though?

1:13:40 No.

1:13:40 No, for calling her out, for being lazy. Apparently everyone knows. She's an adult. You guys are both adults. You can pick up after yourself. That's just how it is. Absolutely. And anyone who's like, oh, well, you just apologize. Like, no.

1:13:53 No.

1:13:53 She's just not going to come back to my place. Yeah, you're just not welcome here. If you're not going to abide by my rules, then you're not coming back to my house. Yeah. Oh, no.

1:14:00 I don't get to see you anymore.

1:14:01 Bummer. Like did they, did your parents or like teachers, like no one said like leave it better than you found it?

1:14:07 Pick up after yourself. Clean. Yeah. It's like, I don't know.

1:14:11 I could see like maybe like a day, like maybe you were trying on a bunch of outfits and just like, you know, just didn't realize they were on the floor. And then it's like, oh, now we have to go and whatnot. But then don't you like pick it up after? Be like, oh, I can't, you know. I don't leave my room a mess. I love coming back to a nice room. So like my sister's the complete opposite though.

1:14:31 She will try on 15 outfits. They'll be, the whole floor will be covered. Her bed will be covered. And I'm like, oh my God. And I'll, and like, she'd be like, oh, the Uber's here. And I'm like, you're not going to. Yeah, no, I got to keep my room like bed made. Me too.

1:14:44 Clothes off the floor. Yeah.

1:14:46 Yeah.

1:14:46 I like, I just like to come home to like, oh, I can like relax.

1:14:50 I don't want to come home and be like, oh, I have to put my clothes away now after going out and being tired.

1:14:56 Yeah.

1:14:56 My boyfriend's a bit messier than me, so I'll go to his house and then I'll just start.

1:15:00 I'm like, okay, we'll just like put this over here. Yeah. Make this organized. It's just, I don't know. Everyone has different preferences.

1:15:07 You don't have to make them feel bad, but if they're causing you an inconvenience and kind of bossing you around, then yeah, I'm going to call you out.

1:15:13 And that's the end of the story.