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Oct. 29, 2021 - The Matt Walsh Show

11:46

Am I the A**hole? Matt Walsh Decides Who's To Blame

Matt Walsh digs through stories from Reddit's Am I the A88hole forum and determines who is right and who is the a**hole. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	So one of my primary roles, as far as I'm concerned, is to give advice.
	But the problem is that nobody ever asks for my advice, which means that I have to give it unsolicited.
	So today, um, we're going to go to Reddit's Am I the Asshole Forum, heretofore known as the Am I the A-hole Forum, where people post their, uh, their personal dilemmas and, uh, they wanting to know if they or someone else in the dilemma is, uh, the A-hole.
	I can identify an a-hole from a mile away, so this should be easy, and we'll start here.
	Am I the a-hole for leaving a family gathering because my family made me sit at the kid table?
	For context, I haven't seen my full family together in quite some time, so they set up a get-together at a park today.
	The family gathering includes me, my brother, my sister, her husband, and their two kids, my dad, my stepmom, and her kids, aunt, uncle, my two cousins, grandma, and grandpa.
	Uh, and he's a 22-year-old male.
	I get there with, uh, not, the grandpa's not a 22-year-old male, but, but, uh, the person running the system.
	I get there with some picnic items.
	I brought a quiche and the cups.
	And I see a few members setting up.
	I say hi and help set up the tables and set the food out.
	One problem I'm running into already with the am I the a**hole thing is it's like way too much information.
	Just get right to the point.
	I don't need to know what you all had for your picnic.
	What does that have to do with anything?
	Anyway, so I sit next to my dad and I get a weird look from my aunt as she says to me, this is the adults table.
	To which I reply, I'm an adult.
	She says that the first and second generations are considered adults.
	And the third and fourth generation should sit at the kids' table.
	I tell her that I can drink, that I drove here, and that I pay rent and have a job, so how am I still considered a child?
	She says that until I have kids of my own, I'll have to sit at the kids' table.
	According to my aunt, there are eight children, ages 6 to 22, and eight adults, ages 25 to 75.
	So I should just sit at the kids' table.
	And then he proceeds to storm out, and he takes his quiche with him, and he leaves.
	And he wants to know if he's the asshole.
	Yes, you are.
	Number one because you brought a quiche, okay?
	You're going to a picnic.
	What kind of man brings a quiche to a picnic in the first place?
	I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.
	You bring chips, you bring beer, okay?
	Or something along those lines.
	And also you're childish and ridiculous for storming out.
	Proving by your behavior, ironically, that you are worthy of the children's table at best.
	In fact, you should be a step down.
	There should be like a third table just for you, because my kids are at the kids' table, and I would not allow them to act like this.
	And besides, here's the thing that you need to understand as a man.
	And your aunt, who brought this up, I think is correct.
	You aren't going to be fully accepted as a grown man until you get married and have kids.
	That's just the way it is.
	I'm not saying it should be that way.
	Well, I mean, I am saying it should be that way, but that's not the main point.
	That is how people see it.
	And so if you want to graduate to the adult table, then you have to have kids of your own.
	You supply your own replacement for the kids' table.
	Once you have your own kid, they sit there, you get to graduate to the adult table.
	Alright, um, am I the a**hole for assigning my family homework and not visiting until it's done?
	I recently quit my PhD program to get a job because I realized academia was not what I wanted and I was better off just using my master's to get a job.
	Everyone I know from school or has experience with grad school agreed I'm doing the right thing because I've only done one year of PhD classes, so it's a good time to quit.
	I've had to tell people that this and that and so on and so forth.
	My family were not understanding.
	None of them have ever been to grad school, but they believe that I was very far along and quitting at the last minute.
	I've told them one year of classes is nothing, but they don't realize how hard the exam and dissertation are.
	Okay, where does the homework come in?
	I figured if they wouldn't listen to me, they might listen to someone else.
	I found an article by a college professor that describes what it's like to get a PhD in my field.
	I told them I would not visit until they read the article and wrote a few paragraphs summarizing the article and discussing why someone may choose not to get a PhD.
	It's not meant to be a long and difficult project.
	I just want them to understand my point of view.
	My boyfriend and my siblings did their essays and apologized.
	And my boyfriend went above and beyond by including other sources besides the article.
	So I think her boyfriend is the guy that brought the quiche to the picnic.
	So this is all the same universe where this is happening.
	My parents still haven't done their essays and haven't apologized.
	And still complain that I'm throwing away all the work I did.
	Okay.
	You're the a**hole.
	You're like double, triple, a-hole material here.
	You're just an a**hole.
	First, you enrolled in a PhD program for no reason at all, and then you quit.
	You're the one who didn't do your homework.
	Maybe you should have read that article before you signed up for the PhD program and sunk all this money into it for a year.
	Here's the thing about PhD programs, like master's degrees also, in like 98% of cases are giant scams.
	And that's where you find this weird kind of disconnect, because you think of people that have all these letters next to their names as a sign of intelligence.
	No, oftentimes it's a sign of stupidity, that you were too dumb to realize what a waste of time this was, and you did it anyway.
	So, you're the a-hole for that reason.
	And then you try to give a homework assignment to your family members, and your boyfriend is also an a-hole for actually completing the assignment.
	And so are your siblings.
	I have five siblings.
	If I were to tell them, here's the assignment, and I need you all to write me a three-paragraph essay and apologize, they would laugh in my face.
	So, everyone in your family, including you, they're all a-holes, except for your parents.
	They're the only ones who come out looking okay here, except that they raised you, which makes them a-holes too.
	So, this is just an a-hole bonanza.
	What else we got here?
	Am I the a-hole for not wanting the clock in the car to be five minutes fast?
	My wife has always kept the clock in her car five minutes fast ahead of the actual time.
	I tried this technique in the past but found it wouldn't work for me.
	We each have our own car along with a shared car that the whole family uses.
	It was driving me nuts that I'd look at the clock, remember it's not right, then I have to check my watch to see the actual time, and then it goes on for another 50 paragraphs, but that's basically the thing.
	Should they have the clock set ahead in their car?
	No, you're not the a-hole for not wanting the clock set ahead.
	The setting the clocks ahead thing is absurd because when you do that, you just end up doing the math in your head anyway.
	So, I don't understand the strategy.
	You're not actually fooling yourself into thinking the time is different than it actually is.
	So, you're giving yourself a math assignment every time you get in the car.
	So, no, you're not the a-hole for that.
	Am I the a-hole for forcing my son to call me mom?
	Oh, here's a good one.
	Okay.
	This is a meaty one.
	When my husband and I wanted a child, we decided to pursue surrogacy instead of a traditional pregnancy.
	It was a hard decision that took a lot of late night talks and fighting because he wanted to be involved in the pregnancy and everything, but I was terrified of PPD, postpartum depression, the postpartum body, and all the morning sickness that came with it.
	Finally, we went through an agency to find a suitable gestational carrier, otherwise known as a human being.
	I'd like to think we were pretty involved throughout the pregnancy process and we somewhat befriended the carrier.
	Befriended the carrier.
	Nowadays, we're not close by any means, but we send each other birthday and holiday wishes and such.
	Tuesday, my son found out about the surrogacy.
	It wasn't really a secret by any means, but the topic just never came up.
	He was talking about how he learned about it in biology and how he thought it was weird.
	I told him, no, it's completely normal, and that he came from a surrogate.
	I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but for the next few days he started pestering me about the details of who the surrogate was and why I went through with it.
	Well, I told him my reasons and he took from the conversation that I was too lazy to have him myself.
	Yes.
	He's now insisting that I'm not his mom.
	My husband told me that it's just a phase, it's probably because our son's a little raw from an unrelated argument we had earlier this month.
	However, I'm honestly really hurt and disrespected that he doesn't think of me as his mom.
	When I tried to have a discussion about it, he escalated after, and now only calls me by my real name instead of mom.
	His argument is that it's his choice to decide who he wants to call his parents.
	I kinda like this kid, I gotta be honest with you.
	No, I mean, you're not an a-hole for forcing your son to call you mom.
	But you are the a-hole for choosing surrogacy in the first place, so that's where you went wrong.
	But you're an a**hole!
	You rented out a womb like you're renting a room.
	You know, you treated another person's body like an Airbnb.
	And yeah, they volunteered for it.
	I mean, they like sold their body to you, literally.
	I mean, they sold their womb to you because you didn't want to deal with the physical changes that come with motherhood.
	You're right.
	Your son was exactly correct, in fact.
	He shouldn't talk to his mom that way.
	But he's right that you were just too lazy to carry the child yourself.
	Now you're reaping some of the consequences of that.
	Your child doesn't feel connected to you in the same way because he's not.
	Now this is different from something like adoption, where you're giving up comfort for the sake of the child.
	You're bringing the child into your family.
	But surrogacy is the opposite.
	Because rather than being born from sacrifice, it comes from an unwillingness to make a sacrifice.
	So I think it's a horrific practice, honestly.
	And dehumanizing.
	Even the way you refer to this person.
	The carrier.
	We befriended the carrier.
	It's terrible and you're they-hole.
	Okay.
	Let's see.
	We'll do one more.
	I was in a higher-end apartment store today.
	Rhymes with looming tales and happened to end up next to two teenage girls while shopping.
	One of the girls had picked out a pair of very expensive boots.
	They were both fawning over them.
	The second girl must have looked at the price tag and asked the girl if she was really going to spend that much of the boots.
	The girl with the boots says something along the lines of, it's fine.
	I have my dad's credit card.
	I'm not paying, which instantly caught my attention because that's not her card.
	I've told my son multiple times he's never allowed to use my card.
	So I'm interested to see how this girl thinks she's going to get away with fraud.
	But I'd split up from the girls at this point because they had found something else.
	We end up at the same register, me behind, and I see her total hit well over four digits.
	The girl's about to swipe her card when I decide that I can't let her get away with something like that, and someone has to parent this child if no one else will.
	I tell the cashier that isn't her card, but her father's, and I'm not sure if she has permission.
	The girl and the friend turn and glare and give me the dirtiest look I've ever seen.
	I swear this girl was going to throw a temper tantrum right there.
	The girl tells the cashier her father gave her the card to shop with, but the cashier says you can't use it.
	And then they storm away, and they're very, very mad.
	And then she tells her husband what happened, and the husband takes the side of the girls and says that she was in the wrong.
	Okay.
	I can see where your husband is coming from.
	This is like something my wife might do.
	And, um...
	And I would probably be in your house, especially if I was with her and she was planning on it.
	I would be in your husband's shoes saying, no, just stay out of it.
	You know, that's her dad's problem.
	It's not our problem.
	We got enough problems.
	OK, we don't need to add more to the plate.
	Just whatever.
	It's not our problem.
	So I would be with with with your husband, except that what would propel me to not want to get involved is is really indifference.
	It's not actually any sort of ethical position.
	So ultimately, while you're moderately an asshole for this, it's a justified I think so.
	That's a nuance that's missing from the am I the a-hole dilemma.

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