A specific friend, referred to as F, initially requested a change to the Friday night meal, which the hosts accommodated by switching from tacos to pasta. However, upon arrival, F decided to order pizza instead of eating the requested pasta, and encouraged other guests to eat the pizza, effectively wasting the hosts’ efforts and food preparation. This pattern repeated on Saturday night when F ordered burgers, overriding the meal the girlfriend spent two hours preparing. The poster is now questioning whether F’s behavior warrants the label of ‘asshole’ due to the clear disrespect shown to the hosts’ planning and cooking efforts.
My girlfriend loves to host parties and especially loves to make food for everyone since she is a great cook. We are hosting a party at her family’s lakehouse. She shared the plans with everyone in advance, including what would be served for each meal from friday night dinner through all three meals on Saturday.
One friend (i shall call them F) was being a little picky about the food, and asked if we could change the food for friday night from make-your-own Tacos to a Pasta dish. It was no problem since the group has lots of vegetarians and food allergies so we dont hesitate to accommodate anyone’s dietary needs.
So we go to the grocery store and spend almost $300 on food for everyone for the weekend.
We arrive on friday night and while my gf is cooking dinner (the specifically requested pasta dish), F says she is going to order pizza because shes “feeling pizza instead of pasta now”.
We’re like “oh ok. we arent going to have pizza. we are making pasta.” F asks how many pizzas she should order. I reiterated that my gf is making food for everyone so we wont eat any pizza.
I said one pizza should be plenty. The fact that she ordered pizza wasnt even what bothered us. But F still insisted on ordering TWO large pizzas and feeding everyone else pizza, basically spoiling all of my girlfriend’s cooking effort and we put most of the pasta in the fridge as leftovers.
It was annoying and felt extremely rude since, not only did we spend a lot of money on this food for everyone, but this was the dish that F specifically requested us to make. And then not only did she not eat it, but she prevented most of the other guests from eating it as well.
She did the SAME THING on saturday night, too. My gf spent almost 2 hours cooking a meal for everyone on saturday, and F decided she actually wanted burgers 1 hour before dinner, and fired up the grill and made burgers for herself and all of the other guests.
Conclusion
The original poster’s girlfriend invested significant time, effort, and money into preparing specific meals for her guests, accommodating one request from the guest in question (F). The central conflict arises because F repeatedly disregarded these plans, making alternative food choices and persuading other guests to join, which felt like a direct rejection and devaluation of the host’s labor and hospitality.
The debate centers on whether F’s actions constituted rude behavior that undermined the hosts’ hospitality, or if guests have the right to change their minds about food choices when hosted. Was F primarily disrespectful of the host’s efforts by ordering and promoting alternative meals, or were the hosts overreacting to a guest’s personal preferences regarding food?
Here’s how people reacted:
what time were you serving dinner? What time were people arriving?
Was everyone happy with the formal sit down dinner vibe that comes from 2 hours of cooking or did you only tell people that was the plan for all meals when they already agreed to attend? Have you invited most of them to this kind of thing before?
What were the other meals you planned- like was the breakfast just buying enough toast and cereal for everyone, or were you planning a full sit down meal for breakfast? Basically, is a non-foodie or just someone with a small appetite going to be bored by the food focus?
I think F is probably the asshole, but I find it strange that everyone else went along with it.
Also your girlfriend is the type of person who confuses me (why would anyone want to spend 2 hours in the kitchen when they have guests that they could be spending that time with? I just don’t get it). Any chance F feels the same as me and was trying to help by making it so your girlfriend didn’t need to spend ages cooking and could just socialise? Is it possibly an asshole move with good intentions?
Not everybody likes to be forced into somebody’s idea of what to do, what to eat. Some people will assert their independence by forcing their way. They only want to spend their rare free time the way they want. F has a different idea of what the week-end is about. She thinks it’s a bit more loose than what your GF thinks it is. F doesn’t like a rigid structure.
While F is clearly rude to accept the invitation, then disregard and ruin the efforts of your GF, your GF likes structure.a bit too much. Personally, I wouldn’t want to spend my week-end at your lake house. I’d prefer a collaborative experience where everybody participates. One meal “entirely prepared by your GF” is enough. Every meal, that’s too much. This puts everybody in a situation where they are indebted to your GF for all the hard work. This is not comfortable either.
It’s the equivalent of going to Thanksgiving and ordering pizza.
I have a slightly different take or perspective. She’s watching or experiencing gf do this cooking and for good reason it’s taking time. She thinks ugh this is outrageous I can just order pizza or grill burgers in less time and I’ll somehow be the hero that saves us from Martha Stewart. Still very rude and I would be upset too.
I have sat at a horribly unnecessarily pretentious multi-course Christmas dinner where the “chef” was also a blind drunk so we would finish the soup or something and the next thing would have to be fully cooked while we sat at the table for a good 25 minutes. At one point a cousin reached on to the buffet and thought passing Christmas cookies around would be a great idea, I quietly said no and no one else actually took one either.
The reason I suggest this is that the rest of the group seems to just go along with F, and not see the cooks side at all. I’m trying to figure out why that would be.
Tho, it seems like if people felt this way, why not speak up after the meal plan was shared..
And who says no to taco night?
How old is this person, 12?
Nta.
Maybe next time you could have people vote on what they want as well as pitch in for food to make it more group effort.
It could be F trying to pitch in a domineering sort of way.
Or it could a one up.
Do not invite F over anymore, they’re doing this on purpose.
Your poor girlfriend..
the pesky picky pizza person is absolutely the AH and I would preclude her presence from future events.
and the chick who ordered the pizzas seems like a nut i would never invite her again
Sounds like the gf is a shit cook, and no one has the heart to say anything. Nta
She was completely rude.