Man won't support friend's 'crazy ketchup dream,' says 'you're an embarrassment.'

We all have that one friend with a kooky business dream. It's up to you as their buddy to decide whether or not to support their fantasy, no matter how 'dumb' it may be.

In this case, Zoltar, the offbeat friend with big ideas for...ketchup, may have the dumbest dream yet. His passionate obsession with ketchup is polarizing his friend group, so much so that one friend in particular took to the internet to ask:

'AITA for not participating in my friends 'scheme' to convince a restaurant to buy his ketchup?'

My friend, Zoltar (fake name), has been obsessed with ketchup ever since I met him. He is always trying out different recipes to make his own ketchup and getting me and all our friends to try them.

Recently he made 'his best ketchup yet'. I tried it. It wasn't bad. It was ketchup. Now he has decided he is 'finally going to break into the ketchup game.'

He is convinced he is going to launch his own ketchup company and grow it to be one of the top providers of ketchup in the US. He literally has a photo of Heinz ketchup on a dartboard. He throws darts at it and mutters things like 'I'm coming for YOU'.

Anyways he has a scheme he wants me and others to participate in. Essentially it involves us all going to a restaurant, sitting at different tables, and enacting lines from a scene he wrote that will culminate in all of us trying and loving his ketchup and convincing the manager to buy it. He wants us all to memorize lines.

The gist of it is one guy is supposed to call over a waitress and say he likes the french fries, but hates the ketchup.

I am supposed to lean over (from another table) and say 'Sorry to butt in, hah hah, but I have to agree. I'm tired of this old fashioned, factory produced ketchup. Where's the real tomato flavor?'

After a few other people do this, my friend is going to say 'You guys won't believe this, but I'm a ketchup chef, and I have a few samples. Would you want to give it a shot?'

At this point everyone is supposed to try the ketchup and act astounded by it and basically all exclaim it is the best ketchup they ever had. I am supposed to stand up on my table and 'make a trumpet sound effect' and then yell to the entire restaurant 'We have the best ketchup ever made over here! Everyone come on over!'

One of the other people is supposed to get the manager of the place over and we are all supposed to try to convince him or her to buy an order of my friends ketchup.

He is going to act 'surprised and embarrassed' and try to tell us to 'stop putting this poor guy on the spot' in regards to the manager. He then assumes he will make a 'huge sale'. Then he wants to do this same 'operation' at other places in town.

I told him no way am I doing this. I hate public speaking/acting and having attention focused on me, also the idea is just so fucking dumb and crazy to me. I told him that straight up. He acted offended and said I am 'ruining his dreams.'

I am astounded by this but some of my friends agree and think he is showing 'hustle' and that we should all help him launch his ketchup business.

Aside from his ketchup obsession Zoltar is one of my best friends but it seems our friendship is being ruined. A lot of people are telling me I am a jerk for going against his dream and not helping out. AITA?

Let's find out what internet users had to say about this crazy ketchup dream.

abase writes:

YTA. You know the worst case (and most likely) scenario of how this goes - it's this big awkward mess that creates a scene in a restaurant and results in your group being asked to leave. As far as worst cases go, that's a pretty good outcome.

This will be a wonderful story that you'll all tell for years and - hopefully - at the launch of Zoltar's ketchup brand.

Do this stupid thing for your friend.

iheartyoupsyche writes:

NTA .His idea is unlikely to work, and you were right to tell him your thoughts and feelings regarding the plan and your role.

However, I also think criticism without offering an alternative isn't always helpful. You obviously don't have to do that, but I think he needs all the help he can get.

If I were you, I would help him figure out what he actually could do to start this business. He's definitely way ahead of himself, and I'm 95% sure that he needs to take a lot more steps than just product formulation before shopping to businesses.

He probably needs to patent the product and trademark his brand. He probably needs to get it tested for safety.

And he definitely needs to figure out the minimum amount of product he'd need to produce for just 1 restaurant, and from there calculate production costs (i.e. amt of labor + amt of materials + other shit mentioned above = cost of production).

desperately_lonely writes:

NAH, its not your fault you can't comprehend this man's genius. Tis the burden of the lesser minds to try to ketchup to him.

Well, there you have it. It looks like some Redditors think OP is being unsupportive, and some understand how ridiculous Zoltar's vision is. Is Zoltar the worst, or should OP get over himself and memorize his ketchup lines? What do YOU think?