Man vents about how GF gained weight and it 'makes him look bad,' friend shuts him down.

A good vent session is the cornerstone of a healthy friendship.

Everyone has to release a mental load here and there, and knowing you can trust a friend to hear you out can mean the world.

However, as the listener, it can be difficult to know when to simply listen and when to call out a friend's unreliable narration. It's one thing to let them occasionally paint themselves as the good guy in a situation, but it's another thing to allow them to talk badly about someone who doesn't deserve it.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, the OP asked if they were wrong for cutting their friend's vent session short after he fatshamed his GF.

They wrote:

AITA for calling my friend disgusting during a time I was supposed to be supporting him?

My friend James 24 is struggling with his girlfriend. They’ve been together for almost 3 years but he has gotten increasingly unhappy. He asked me to get coffee yesterday so he can do some venting. It’s okay I vent to him too. It’s a cool perk of our friendship. We were drinking our coffee and I was letting him talk and he brought up her weight pretty quickly.

I admit she has gained significant weight since they began dating. I believe James said she’s gone up 3 or so pants sizes. James was saying how he does love her, he finds her plenty attractive still, and enjoys bedroom time very much. But then he started saying the problem is how it makes him look.

He said he “doesn’t want to be the guy with the heavy girlfriend” and he hates when he goes out with groups of people and “girlfriend is the biggest girl there all the time.” He says he’s not really sure there’s a good way for him to bring any of this up too. I got mad at what he was saying. His GF is one of the sweetest humans I’ve ever met.

I know she deals with some mental health irregularities as well that probably contribute to her inability to lose weight. I told James that he’s a total a**hole d**kface and I didn’t meet him to listen to him fat shame a wonderful woman. I thought the problems were deeper. I told him we were done and went home.

He’s blown up my phone half apologizing and half saying that I agreed to hear him vent so I can’t get mad at what he’s venting about. I’m torn on if I was in the right to cut our vent sesh short.

People on Reddit were eager to respond to this one.

purple_peeple_eeter wrote:

NTA. 'Venting' means getting something off your chest, it doesn't mean you're absolved from being an a**hole.

Logical-Wasabi7402 wrote:

NTA.

'I agreed to listen to you vent. I didn't agree to listen to you fat shame your girlfriend because your ego is too fragile to be with anyone who doesn't look like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model.'

Demanda_22 wrote:

NTA. If your friend said, “my girlfriend’s body is different now than it was when we started dating and I’m not sure I’m physically attracted to her new body” I would totally sympathize. That’s a tough situation to be in.

What he said instead was, “I see my partner’s physical appearance as a reflection on me and I’m upset because I think her weight gain is affecting my social status.” He’s telling you he believes a woman’s value as a partner is dependent on her physical appearance and that’s just gross.

Narcoid wrote:

If you value your friendship you could've probably taken time to hear him out and talk more. Sometimes getting those feelings out helps you compose your thoughts. Sometimes our friends say things that seem out of pocket until we actually have a conversation with them and help them develop their thoughts.

As much as we all (Reddit) want to pretend that weight doesn't matter and everyone is in love despite whatever changes our partner experiences, that's not life. The way our partner portrays themselves matters.

'My partner has gained a significant amount of weight and I feel some type of way about it' is an incredibly valid feeling. Hell, his problems also may have gone deeper, but to pretend there's no amount of vanity in any human is insane. Being a 'wonderful person' isn't enough for a lot of people.

lightbulb1782 wrote:

YTA! I just think there were better ways of going around this then blowing up at him like that. Clearly her weight is playing on his mind. Whilst it’s not right to body shame by any means he was coming to your for advice and essentially reassurance about everything.

A simple “she’s a wonderful, beautiful girl regardless + who cares what other people think” would have put his mind at ease and not have caused such a problem between the pair of you.

TheOneGecko wrote:

YTA. You don't need to be so judgmental, would it kill you just listen without bringing down the hammer of righteous judgement? Get off your high horse.

Fair-Ad-1364 wrote:

ESH.

This is your friend. You certainly had every right to let him know that his attitude was highly inappropriate. That didn’t mean you had to storm off and leave him there.