Woman asks if she was wrong to leave after dinner because she was told to 'be quiet.'
Family traditions can be strange, especially when you're dealing with people from different cultures and different countries. That being said, there's also common courtesy and a certain amount of tolerance you should have for people who don't understand your expectations.
In a post on Reddit's 'Am I The A**hole' subreddit, a woman was having dinner at her boyfriend's parents for the first time. The parents seemed to expect dinner to be a reverential affair, which OP had never experienced.
OP didn't handle it the way they parents would have liked, and now her parents and boyfriend think she's the AH. Here's the story in her own words...
My (f21) boyfriend (m24) of almost a year, invited me to dinner with his family. (Mom, dad and his 16yr old brother.) Never met them prior to that. The only thing I knew about them is that they’re conservative and christians but lovely people.
And they were. I got along really well with them, before dinner. They were lovely and talkative. When it was time for dinner, my bfs dad wanted to pray. After praying he said, something alone the lines of “let us dig and let the food keep us quiet.”
This is a pretty popular saying in our country, mostly told to young children in school. My understanding of this has always been that you shouldn’t speak with food in your mouth or be extremely loud at the table. I wouldn't say its a cultural thing, though.
I dug in, took a bite. It was fish soup. Absolutely delicious. And y’know, like a good guest I wanted to compliment the cook. “This is delicious - is it saffron? A perfect autumn soup!” My bfs brother looked surprised. My bfs father hushed me. Big time. A really aggressive SHHH with a finger over his lips. And then he said, again, “Let the food keep us quiet.”
I aplogised because I thought I had accidentally spoken with food in my mouth or something. But a few minutes passed and nobody said a word. Super awkward and weird, especially since they had been so talkative before. My bf was also unusually quiet.
After a few minutes I was too weirded out and asked about their day, and how nice it was that they invited me there. And his mother did the hush thing? So awkward. I think this is when it clicked, no speaking at all at the table. Let the food keep us quiet. Really quiet. But this was a super awkward situation, and I couldn’t deal with that.
Imagine sitting at a table with 5 people, everybody eating soup looking dead serious. So I laughed, it just slipped out. Ended up being told off by bfs parents that I was being disrespectful etc. and if I didn’t respect how their household worked I could eat alone in the kitchen. (We were eating in like a separate dining room.) Sooo I thanked them for the food and left to the hotel me and bf stayed at.
My boyfriend later told me that was an asshole move, that I should’ve just kept quiet or eat alone in the kitchen. I understand their family traditions and rules, but it was so weird. I just couldn't take it anymore. Was I being an asshole though?
Here's what people are saying:
ContactNo7201 writes:
YTA because once you caught on, you laughed. That was disrespectful. Pretty sure you know that too. Walking out in a hissy fit was an ahole move too. You just escalated it to a whole other level.
Your boyfriend is also TA as he should have warned you.
Euphoric_Rabbit7706 OP writes:
Well, it's not like I wanted to laugh. It just slipped, a nervous really awkward laugh. Like when someone is telling you you're lying but you're not but you laugh anyways. And I didn't leave in a hissy fit. I just felt super awkward and uncomfortable.
His parents raised their voice at me without trying to explain things calmly, so I left after thanking them for the food and basically saying I'm not comfortable there. You think I pushed my chair over and broke plates before storming off? I'm an adult and I don't like conflict.
the_og_cakesniffer asks:
I'm curious, are you Swedish?
Euphoric_Rabbit7706 OP writes:
Yes, I'm Swedish and it happened in Sweden. His dad is polish and mom fully swedish I think. ANd yes, even the praying before dinner was like...okay who does this? But I try to be respectful about peoples religions so whatever. I have friends whose parents still do bordsbön, but I celebrated easter with them.
I've honestly not heard 'Låt maten tysta mun' since I was a CHILD. To calm down and have a calm dinner without speaking over each other etc. It's not the norm here to be dead quiet while eating...
Korlat_Eleint writes:
Just btw, please don't think it's anything to do with dad being Polish.
We talk at dinner, and I never even heard of anyone having such a weird rule.
Euphoric_Rabbit7706 OP writes:
I won't! If anything I feel like polish people are very loud and expressive? They were too before the dinner. I had a great time with them, we laughed a lot. But after the prayer (only silent for a sec or two while they did it, nothing too weird) they just shut up.
AryaIsWaif writes:
NTA. He could have warned you and given you the opportunity to skip dinner because you don't dine in monasteries. Also you are not a three year old to be sent to the kitchen to eat alone.
Do you think she should have stopped herself from laughing? As a guest, should she have done better? Or is this a house full of psychos and she was lucky to get out alive (because desert may have been human sacrifice, and she was going to be the human)?