AITA for locking food so my roommate doesn’t eat it?
In the quiet struggle of shared living, a young woman’s carefully planned meals become a battlefield of boundaries and respect.
Each Monday, she invests time and effort into meal prepping for her grueling week ahead, only to return to an empty fridge by midweek, her hard work consumed without consent or consideration.
The betrayal stings deeper than hunger—it’s a silent erosion of trust in the place she calls home. Her pleas for understanding fall on deaf ears, met with excuses that twist kindness into selfishness.
The weight of exhaustion is used to justify taking what isn’t hers, leaving her feeling powerless and unheard.
In this delicate dance of cohabitation, the lines blur, and the question remains: how do you protect your space and dignity when those closest to you disregard both?
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The original poster (OP) experienced repeated theft of their pre-prepared meals by an older roommate who rationalized the actions based on the OP's financial support and the perceived need to prevent food waste.
This culminated in the OP installing personal food locks out of necessity, leading to severe retaliatory behavior, including insults and social exclusion from the roommate.
Given the conflict between the OP's need to protect their property and the roommate's feeling of ent*tlement and subsequent anger, the core question remains: Is taking defensive measures to secure personal property against a repeat offender a justifiable act of boundary setting, or does the dependent financial status of the OP make such actions inherently selfish and inappropriate in a shared living situation?
Users Wasted No Time Telling It Like It Is:
It didn’t take long before the comment section turned into a battleground of strong opinions and even stronger emotions.