Man freaks when he finds out his friend bathes in his mom's dirty bathwater. AITA?
When this friend is weirded out by his friend's bathing behavior, he asks Reddit:
'AITA For saying that my friend washing himself in his mom's bath water is disgusting?'
So here's the situation. I (M) was talking on voice call to my two friends, Marcus and Lewis, both of which are brothers in their 20's who live with their mom.
Lewis went off to have a bath, I asked why (as it was in a pretty inpportune moment that he left), to which Marcus explained that their Mom just got done. I asked 'what does that have to do with it?' To which Marcus says 'it saves money on water.'
Now my initial reaction was verbally exclaiming 'ew, gross!' A slight chuckle in my voice as I thought Marcus was joking.
Now Marcus got very angry with me. He began shouting at me for being inconsiderate and that I was stuck up for thinking sharing the dirty bath water with your mom is gross. He explained that they didn't have much money so sharing bath water was how they saved each month.
Now this excuse is pretty poor, as they are always making unnecessary purchases every month with what seems like hundreds of pounds of disposable income each month.
If money was the issue, they wouldn't make so many purchases each month towards expensive hobbies. (Cameras, lenses, trips to the cinema, buying video games and video game cosmetics.)
Now if it were me, I would lay back on the recreational spending if it meant I didn't have to bathe in my mom's dead skin, dirt and pubic hair every week.
For reference, both myself, Marcus and Lewis are all on government benefits. We are given money each month, as well as extra money depending on personal costs for water, gas, electric, etc.
Am I the AH for saying that their bathing habits are gross? Are they the AH for calling me a 'd**k' because I reacted the way I did? I feel like we're all AHs because of how a simple difference in bathing standards could stem into an argument...
but I can't help but feel attacked and shamed just because I personally wouldn't do what they do. I didn't say they shouldn't, but they were not okay with me finding it gross and went to aggressive lengths to try and prove me wrong and change my mind.
Let's see what readers have to say.
equivalentsecret9 writes:
YTA. Keep your snobbery to yourself. Sharing bath water is pretty common for low/very low income households. We had to do it when I was growing up for a short time and I grew up with plenty of people that had to do the same.
peterfriend7 writes:
NTA. I get that communal bathing was a thing. We now know that it's unsanitary as compared with taking a two minute shower. It wasn't stupid in 1900, it is today.
infnagan writes:
YTA. I get how you feel, but tons of people share bathwater. It is actually pretty common and done for exactly the reason your friend stated. You're allowed to think it's gross, but calling him out for it is an asshole move. The fact is that it does save money and water.
Further, while it's not as common as it once was, it was very common in the past for families to bathe in the same water. And think back to your childhood. If you have siblings, I can almost guarantee you shared bathwater with a sibling or two.
Even though I find the idea to be gross, I certainly wouldn't harass a friend of mine about it if I found out they were doing that. It's really none of your business.