'AITA for refusing to take home leftover food from a trivia night?'

"AITA for refusing to take home leftover food from a trivia night?"

My (M23) girlfriend (F22) and our parents went to a trivia night together last night. Her parents brought a lot of food, which was very welcome and appreciated by everyone at the table.

There were other drinks and some snacks that were available to all guests, but her parents brought enough to have a whole meal, of which I ate more than my fair share. It was overall a good night, and our parents get along very well together when we all go out.

Skip to the end of the night, and her parents are deliberating on how much food they have leftover and what to do with it. Her mom offers me a leftover charcuterie platter, which I accept gladly. However, she continues to offer me other food items that we either do not want or that my girlfriend and I do not have the fridge space for.

I first try to decline politely, but her mom keeps persisting and trying to compromise with us to take it. It seemed very clear to me that she was trying to avoid taking anything home with her, which I understand, but we simply couldn’t take more than what I had already accepted or I knew we wouldn’t eat some of the things she offered.

She continues to prod, and even starts to hand the items to my girlfriend after I said no. I get visibly frustrated, but I bring up the fact that we have limited fridge space and that we are already taking that food (and some other food items from the silent auction) home with us, so we cannot take any more.

She tries to compromise by taking the food out of the container and placing it in the dishes we already have. She tells us that she brought the extra food with the intention of giving it to us afterwards, which she never told us about before.

I sternly say, “I said no, please respect that.” Everyone gets quiet and looks at me uncomfortably. My dad comes up to me and says, “it’s a gift, you should accept it politely.” In my opinion, it felt disrespectful, because it seemed more like she was trying to force me to take food that she didn’t know what to do with after I said we couldn’t take it.

It was also strange, because although I understand the sentiment of giving away food to her daughter and her boyfriend, it was an absurd amount of food to expect us to take with us. I didn’t want to start an argument so I just took it, and had to throw a good amount of it away. AITA?

Here's what people had to say to OP:

disgraceful_hag wrote:

When this happens, I take the food and share it with someone else. My aunt made my cousin too many egg rolls? He gave me some. My mom made too many dumplings? I divide them and give a portion to my friends. My closest friends do the same whenever we have a gathering. It might be a cultural thing to bring too much food, or maybe that's just how her family operates and shows care?

It's kinda wild that you assume they're doing an evil thing here, hoisting food they don't know what to do with. that's a leap. YTA for that weird assumption. Some fights aren't worth it. If you don't want to bother sharing the gift with friends, neighbors, or hungry strangers, just say thank you and toss it at home.

Edit: It's a gift, yall. The notion that she wanted to offload trash to them because she didn't want to deal with it is just plain nasty.

Imagine receiving a gift you didn't like or couldn't use, assuming the giver is purposefully trying to burden you with said gift, and demanding they take it back and deal with the disposal because they were the one that bought it. If you all acted like this about any gift you didn't like in front of the person giving, well, that's your prerogative.

Edit edit: Some of you missed the part where she said she bought extra so they can have food to take home. It was intentional. Personally, it's a cultural difference and to tell me that it is trash is rude. there is already a final judgment and he's an AH. Accept it.

LostWhisper16 wrote:

NTA - you were so polite in refusing the food knowing that it would just go to waste, but you still took some. You said no. No means no in any situation, and it was rude of the parents to be so pushy about it after the number of times you said no.

Aggravating_Water_39 wrote:

NTA. I have a similar situation with my parents in law so I completely relate. I have the feeling they do not understand the meaning of the word ‘no’ and my husband is now the same.

But I want to set a precedent that I will not just accept anything from them because they don’t understand the word ‘no’ - which is what you are doing here and I think it is the right thing to do in the long run. In my experience you have to consistently and patiently keep saying ‘no Thankyou, no Thankyou, no Thankyou….’

SnooBooks007 wrote:

You ended up arguing about it and throwing it out later, when you had the option of not arguing about it, and throwing it out later. 🤷‍♂️

I agree she was pushy and presumptuous, but...

I think taking home a bit of extra food and throwing it out is such a trivial burden that it wasn't worth making everyone else in the room uncomfortable by "sternly" refusing it. Listen to your dad. YTA.

redwilier wrote:

Soft YTA. Young people and very old people tend to drift towards a similar behaviour pattern of stubbornly focusing on being right.

Learn to take other people’s feelings into consideration and just take the food. Bin it if you can’t eat all of it.

Schezzi wrote:

Ick. I abhor the insistence that enforced social contracts ("I want to give a gift - I insist you accept and be grateful because it's what I want) should outweight consent. "No, thank you" should ALWAYS be enough - anyone persisting against no meaning no deserves to be shamed. Consent matters in big things and little things - respect and normalise people being allowed to say no.