Meeting up with friends when you're an adult can be really difficult - trying to coordinate schedules and conflicting commitments is tough. These difficulties became worse for one woman who was trying to arrange a meet-up with friends, but one of the women has an allergy.
As a result she chose to exclude the friend because the allergy is 'serious' and can cause her to potentially 'break out in hives' She took to Reddit's 'Am I the a**hole' forum to ask whether she was in the wrong for organising a separate meet up for those who wanted to go to a new sushi restaurant - but of course, word got out about the fact they'd gone out separately to the whole group, causing a commotion.
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She wrote: "I (31F) am part of a friend group that meets up for dinner about twice a month. There's six to eight of us that go together, depending on schedules, and we take turns picking restaurants we want to try and for the most part we seem to have similar tastes.
"Last year, one of my friends (Jen) asked if we could include a friend of hers (Kate) that just moved to our city. Jen knew Kate from college and since Kate was new in town, Jen thought this would be a nice way for her to develop social connections without too much hassle or pressure. Turns out, Kate is really nice and funny and is now good friends with all of us.
"However, Kate has a pretty serious seafood allergy. Like, not just shellfish or just fish, all seafood. She's not deathly allergic, more like break out in hives type allergic. This hasn't really been an issue since we live in the Midwest and there's not a lot of seafood speciality restaurants near us. There are a few that we tried before Kate moved here, but none of them were worth risking Kate's allergy to go back to.
"That was until a new sushi restaurant opened up about four months ago. My husband and I went and it was amazing. We then went on a double date with another friend and her husband and they loved it too. So, when it was my turn to pick the next restaurant, I suggested that we go to this sushi place. A few other women spoke up that they've been wanting to try that place too.
"But then Jen spoke up and reminded us of Kate's food allergy and asked if I could pick a different restaurant. Unfortunately, the sushi place doesn't really sell much of anything that isn't seafood. Yes, they have some dumplings and edamame-type stuff for appetizers, but that's pretty much it. Not exactly a full meal. But, I did the nice friend thing and picked a different restaurant that we could all eat at.
"The next week though, I asked the other girls who wanted to try the sushi place if they wanted to go with me and they accepted. It wasn't part of our normal scheduled dinners, just a few of us. But, word got around that a smaller group of us had gone to the sushi place and didn't include everyone. Jen, Kate, and another friend were upset that the rest of us had gone somewhere without them. They felt that we were purposely excluding people.
"But, to me, this isn't middle school. We are allowed to do things as friends outside of the full group. And since Kate has a food allergy, it makes sense that she doesn't attend a meal like this. We still have our normal scheduled dinners, just this time a smaller group went to a restaurant that another friend could not eat at.
"Like, if I wanted to exclude Kate I could have just stood firm on eating at the sushi place to begin with. But I didn't. But Jen and Kate specifically think I crossed a line by going behind their backs to eat with a just a few of us and that I'm trying to create division in our group. Now people are taking sides and pointing fingers and it's a whole mess."
People were quick to defend the original poster and were confused as to why it had caused such an issue.
One wrote: "They can't expect you to never eat seafood just because one person in the group can't."
Another said: "As someone who is highly allergic to all seafood I personally would have been ENCOURAGING my fish-loving friends to go eat the Sushi without me!!"
Someone else agreed, writing: "I have an anaphylactic fish allergy and wouldn't be upset if my friends wanted to go for sushi without me, as long as I'm still invited other times! I developed my allergy as an adult so I know how good sushi is and I'm not going to keep anyone else from it."
"You nailed it when you said that this isn’t middle school and that you’re allowed to do things outside of the group", one Redditor commented.
Do you think the woman did the right thing? Let us know in the comments.
