Thanksgiving is the season of gravy and passive-aggressive dinner-table debates. But now it has apparently found Reddit. One woman’s post on the viral AITA or “Am I the A——” forum has sliced the internet in half after she declined to invite a stranger (more specifically, her boyfriend’s military roommate) to her family’s Thanksgiving dinner.
It turns out the 26-year-old woman was gearing up to bring her 34-year-old boyfriend home for Thanksgiving to meet her family for the first time. It was a big deal for someone who “rarely” brings men home. According to her post, everyone was thrilled, and her boyfriend was at least supportive of the plan until breakfast, but hours before Thanksgiving, he asked whether he could bring his roommate along. Now, mind you, this is a man she’s never met. The roommate is in the military, who couldn’t spend the holiday with his family.
The woman refused. She said that for the first time, introducing him to her family, she needed her boyfriend only. The boyfriend, on the other hand, didn’t take it well. Then came a tense phone call, and she was wondering whether setting boundaries made her a monster.
As expected, supporters argued that this was not the time to add a wild-card guest. One user said, “Short of conjoined twins, there’s no brotherly relationship that makes it appropriate to ask to bring someone when meeting her family the first time.” Another pointed out that the boyfriend had 18 months to introduce his girlfriend and roommate if he wanted, but didn’t. Others said if the boyfriend were already a part of family events, he would make sense. But on day one, that’s a big ask.
Take a look at a fun post about a similar situation below:
First Thanksgiving at my girlfriend’s parent’s house. I sat down way too early then she took this photo to make fun of me. pic.twitter.com/rSBUJKtDpF
— Brooks Wheelan (@brookswheelan) November 25, 2021
Meanwhile, the others argued that Thanksgiving is about opening the table to those who have no place to go. They also pointed out that service members often spend holidays away from their families and find connection elsewhere.
This Reddit post went viral because everyone has different feelings about how families should operate on holidays like Thanksgiving. We also scrolled through service-member forums, and the range of Thanksgiving experiences is vast! Some Navy lieutenants roasted turkeys on gas bombola stoves in Italy. Some Coast Guards faced migrant riots on board cutters in the Florida Straits. Cadets say they slept in beds for the first time in months after being taken in by sponsor families. And some people couldn’t get home because of military duty.
RELATED: Donald Trump’s Thanksgiving Speech Attacked For ‘Deplorable’ Comments
So sometimes, the best Thanksgiving involves strangers, but sometimes it can include boundaries. And that brings us back to Reddit. The woman wasn’t trying to reject the roommate as a person, but perhaps simply trying to protect a special moment.
Whose side are you on when it comes to this Thanksgiving dilemma?
