Woman asks creepy waiter for sealed beverage; he's 'offended' by her 'insinuation'.

Going out with the girls often means getting unwanted attention, comments, jokes, and sometimes... much worse. So how are women expected to toe the line between 'drawing boundaries' and 'being a buzzkill'?

A wary young lady was made to feel very uncomfortable, and when she tried her best to resolve it quickly and quietly, she regrettably became the center of attention. So, she came to Reddit to ask if she was the one who messed up.

'AITA (Am I the a-hole) for making a fuss over a can of soda?'

000-Hotaru_Tomoe writes:

The other night I went to a pub with a group of friends (all female). A new place, none had ever been there.

As we walked in and asked for a table, the waiter made jokes like, 'Wow, did your boyfriends let you go out alone? I'd always keep you locked up, you're too cute!', 'No? Don't you have a boyfriend? Better for me!'

You could see that he said it jokingly - The pub is located in an area of the city where there are only pubs, bars, nightclubs: the staff tries to attract customers in every way, even with that kind of jokes - but for some reason it rubbed me the wrong way.

I might be able to think of the reason...

I said nothing, but pulled a face. The waiter saw me and told me that he was just joking, there was no need to be offended.

I rolled my eyes and said 'whatever', just to not start a sterile argument that I wasn't offended, just annoyed.

We sat down at the table and ordered drinks. I ordered a can of soda, as did another friend (others ordered beers or cocktails). When the orders arrived at the table, I saw that my can of soda had already been opened, while my friend's was still sealed.

That doesn't seem right...

I told the waiter that I wanted an unopened can, and he (the same one who had made us sit at the table) was defensive, saying that I offended him very much with my insinuations. I didn't insinuate anything, I just asked for an unopened can.

He said that for him opening bottles and cans are automatic gestures. When I pointed out that my other friend's was sealed, he replied that the orders for the table were many, he hadn't seen it.

By then, other patrons of the pub were watching the scene.

I stood my ground, demanding an unopened can, and the waiter replied that it was absurd to waste a can of perfectly good soda and insisted that I drink that, but I said no.

Insisted? Wow.

I finally got the unopened can, but we were pretty much ignored by the waiter for the rest of the evening, and when we asked for a second round of drinks we waited a lot.

My friends got pissed at me, saying that I spoiled the mood and made the waiter boycott our table (and that's why they think I was an a-hole).

In my opinion I wasn't: my request was reasonable and the way the waiter reacted set off alarm bells for me. Nothing happened, but better be safe than sorry. But now I'm wondering if I overreacted?

She added after several questions:

- my friends say I overreacted because we came as a group and left as a group. Even if my soda was tampered, they'd always be with me. I understand their point of view, but I will reflect on whether to go out with them again, because they still don't understand mine (why should I risk drinking?)

- I paid for all my drinks, even for the soda I didn't drink, to avoid further exacerbating the situation.

So, what do you think? Was OP overreacting? Or was her request extremely reasonable and the waiter was taking it way too personally?

Reddit was team OP all. the. damn. way.

ceterisparibas says:

NTA, you're within your rights to ask for a different drink if you have reason to believe yours is spiked (and sounds like you had good enough reason unless something is missing).

OP replies:

The waiter certainly didn't like how I reacted to his jokes when he welcomed us, and that's what made me wary when I saw the open can. Maybe he spat in it or put a laxative, maybe it wasn't spiked at all. But the interaction didn't sit right with me.

morgaine125 comments:

The first rule of personal safety is to trust your gut when something doesn’t seem right. The assault/r*pe accounts that start out with “I felt really uncomfortable but didn’t want to be rude” are legion.

Which is in no way victim blaming, just confirmation that we often have an instinct that we are in danger even before we can put together intellectually what is off about a situation, so we should trust ourselves instead of bowing to misogynistic social pressures.

Miserable-Mango-7366 responds:

This is something I wished I had known when I was younger. It took more than one bad encounter for me to stop being nice when I was uncomfortable.

Leizwel writes:

Alarm bells were blaring in my head while I was reading your post. Like you said, better safe than sorry. You reacted very reasonably, he’s the one who made a fuss. He could’ve just apologized when he saw his “““jokes””” landed wrong and simply gotten you a new can when you asked. But no, he chose to get all defensive and confrontational.

From ChronicNightmare95:

NTA. The fact he was so defensive AFTER joking like that is a massive red flag. Your safety is more important than some guy being but-hurt.

Sleepy_Child_321 adds:

Not to mention how the friends reacted afterwards, she didn't ruin the mood for acting the right way to be safe, it's the waiter who ruined the mood for acting inappropriately and potentially dangerous. We shouldn't shame girls to feel like they're 'not fun' when thinking about their safety, we should be shaming the creeps acting inappropriately who require us to be cautious.

CarefreeTraveller agrees:

It baffles me that they said it wouldnt matter if she got drugged because they were in a group?? Like f*ck no id rather not be drugged up or straight up unconcious. I prefer spending my nights doing fun things and not with a trip to the ER. And if they reacted like that I wouldnt trust them to help me out anyway.

OP says:

Yeah, that's their reasoning, more or less. I've been reevaluating many things since last night.

And finally, she adds:

I've been over the fence all night long about reporting what happened to the manager. For all I know, nothing happened to my drink, plus my friends said I overreacted. That's why I came here, to have an indepedent and external perspective on it.

After reading this, I think I'll write a mail to the pub. I won't throw allegations around - because I've no proof - but I'll say that the waiter was strangely pushy and made me uncomfortable.

Well, there you have it!

That waiter needs new jokes and sexual harrassment training, while OP just needs some new friends. Stay safe out there, everyone!