Woman tells BF he would technically be a 'gold digger' based on his own standards.

No one likes to have their own hypocrisy pointed out. It's a supremely humbling experience, and can cause a temporary crisis as your self-perception comes crashing down around you.

But a healthy partner, one who truly loves you and wants you to live a good life, they will tell you what you don't want to hear in order to help you be a more understanding and mature person in the world.

The challenge of that is to not take a loving call-out as a personal attack.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for telling her BF he is technically a 'gold digger' based on his own standards.

She wrote:

AITA for telling my boyfriend he is a gold-digger by his own standards?

I have a boyfriend, Aiden. For some reason, he really dislikes his best friend's (Daniel's) girlfriend, Lila.

I don't exactly get the reason for his dislike, my guess is that Aiden and Daniel were kind of outcasts in high school and Aiden adopted this 'us against the world' view with his only friend.

Lila on the other hand is a very lively, outgoing, bubbly girl with tons of friends. Aiden's newest reason to dislike Lila is that Daniel plans to take her on an all-expenses paid trip abroad.

He was ranting to me about Lila being a gold-digger and using Daniel for his money. I tried to tell him that Daniel taking his girlfriend on a vacation doesn't make said girlfriend a gold-digger, but Aiden couldn't be reasoned with.

It bothered me so much, especially since my family took Aiden on countless vacations free of charge back when we were still in university. I mean 15+ vacations, mostly to different countries.

I pointed out to Aiden that he came on plenty of vacations with me and my family, but he said that was different, because he only came for me, so that I have more fun with him there with me and we build shared memories.

I asked him why what Daniel and Lila are doing is any different. Daniel can afford to take Lila with him, he will have more fun with her there and they will make wonderful shared memories.

If that makes Lila a gold-digger, he must be a gold-digger too, by his own standards. Aiden got mad at me and said that he is extremely disappointed and hurt that I look at him like that.

He got really offended and now seems to think that I actually accused him of being a gold-digger instead of just trying to show him the error in his reasoning. Was I wrong for trying to draw a parallel between him and Lila?

I didn't want to make him feel bad for coming with us on those vacations, I loved having him there. Do I owe him an apology? AITA?

Reddit jumped on the thread with thoughts and theories about the conversation.

lettersjk wrote:

NTA. People don't like being cast correctly as hypocrites. Some people grow and learn to expand their viewpoints. others dig in even further. Hopefully, Aiden is the former. If not...

Hoistedonyrownpetard wrote:

It sounds like there’s massive sexism at play. TBH Aidan gives off big incel energy in this story. Hating a woman for being likeable and calling her a gold-digger is 🚩🚩🚩

aurora-leigh wrote:

NTA your argument is sound and Aiden is turning it around on you because he’s embarrassed he got caught out with his faulty and misogynistic logic.

This antipathy towards Lila is quite worrying though. Either there’s something about her that you don’t know, or, and I hate to be one of those redditors but do you think he’s possibly overcompensating?

There’s something more to this than meets the eye in my opinion.

bonzaibuzz wrote:

NTA. He is being very hypocritical. You didn't accuse him of being a gold digger. You said if she is a gold digger for this reason that that means YOU are calling YOURSELF a gold digger.

He has a very unhealthy attachment to his friend if he is not happy for him for finding love and living his best life with that person. He gets to have love (with you) but is against his friend having the same thing?

WhimsicalKoala wrote:

NTA I can't get over your boyfriend claiming that he only went on free international vacations for you. I mean first of all, the audacity to assume you can only have fun with him there.

Yes, I'm sure you have fun with him, but am also pretty sure you can have fun on a vacation with your family without him and there are memories the two of you can build that don't require free vacations.

Unfortunately, I don't think he'll realize his hypocrisy but I also don't think you need to apologize.

I would keep an eye out for more pink flags though, his actions to isolate his friend and him turning himself into the victim after you tried pointing out his hypocrisy are setting off my manipulation warning sirens.

Full_Prune7491 wrote:

NTA. OP’s bf thinks gold diggers can only be female. He’s a male so he was sacrificing to go on vacations. My other theory is he always pitied that friend was an outcast and depended on bf being his only friend.

He is jealous that the friend has someone else now.

ToothFairy1942 wrote:

NTA. Aiden is extremely jealous of Lila and likely is attracted to her. Younger guys can sometimes take on this bully mentality against girls that they like but can never actually have.

She could be the most perfect girlfriend in the world and he would still find something bad to say about her. He should come to terms with his behavior before he starts obsessing over Lila and her relationship.

It's pretty unanimously agreed that OP is NTA, and Aiden's reasoning is a potential red flag.