The Empty Chair, the Stripper, and the £500 Pokémon Cards
It is a Friday night, the table is booked, the food is ordered, and one person is standing at the door explaining why they should still get a chair.
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The Empty Chair, the Stripper, and the £500 Pokémon Cards
Episode guide
Four stories this morning, and all four are built on the same move: somebody made a decision that was about somebody else, and nobody asked them first.
A dinner was booked and a deadline was set, and one guest turned up at the door expecting a chair. A bachelorette party booked a stripper after the couple had already agreed not to. A man spent five hundred pounds he had saved for himself, and found out afterwards what his girlfriend thought that money had been for. And a graduation party went ahead with one sister left off the guest list.
These are anonymous posters' accounts, paraphrased to protect identifying details. A Reddit post is one person's version of events rather than independent proof of every claim, and a comment section is a crowd of readers reacting, not a verdict. All four posts went up on 22 September 2026 — two on r/AmItheAsshole and two on r/relationship_advice.
The dinner with no chair
The poster organised a small dinner out for a group of friends. Because it was a restaurant they needed a real number, so everyone was asked to confirm by Friday, and the post says plainly that anyone who did not confirm by then would not have a guaranteed seat. 1
One person never replied. Not a no — nothing at all. On the night, that person turned up anyway and expected a chair. There was no chair; the booking was full.
The complaint was not about the restaurant. In the poster's telling, the friend said the poster should have included them because they were probably coming, then said the poster had embarrassed them in front of everyone and could have asked the restaurant to squeeze them in. The poster feels bad that the friend was embarrassed but will not make the whole group's evening harder over a missed deadline.
The post drew 3,250 upvotes and 378 comments, and the thread is almost entirely on the poster's side. One reader asked what would have happened if it had been a plane ticket. One dissenting reader argued that the poster did not merely leave the friend out but made sure the friend could not come, which is a different thing from a warning. Worth noting: the friend did not ask for a chair during the week, when there was still time to fix it. They asked for it at the door.
The bachelorette party
He is twenty-five, she is twenty-six, and they have been together two years. One of her best friends is getting married, and she is going to the bachelorette party. The subject of strippers came up because the maid of honour wanted to book one, and the two of them talked about where they each stood. She said she did not want some girl dancing up on him. He said the same thing back to her about some random guy. 2
A month later she told him they had booked the stripper. He says he told her honestly how it made him feel, and that the conversation did not go well.
Then he added an edit, and it is the funniest thing in this morning's batch. He is not worried about her cheating — his reasoning is that if she wanted to cheat she would not pay a stranger and risk a criminal charge. What he wants is a briefing on what actually happens at these parties. His own words are that he wants to know whether the guy is going to throw her in the air or motorboat her.
The post drew 441 upvotes and 534 comments. One reader answered the question straight: it is the same thing men do — they watch the dancer get naked, they touch if it is allowed, and they get touched if it is allowed. Another said not to fret unless she is the type of person who would cross a line with a stripper just because the opportunity presented itself, because if she is, there is a bigger problem than a bachelorette party. And one reader asked the question he did not: she told him no girl on him and then booked a man for herself anyway.
The five hundred pounds
He is twenty-five, his girlfriend is twenty-five, and they have been together nearly two years. They met over video games and still play together most days. He is careful with money in a very boring way: he saves between thirty and forty percent of his salary and caps what he spends on his own hobbies at about five percent a month. 3
Two purchases had been planned for months. Pokémon announced a thirtieth anniversary set this year, so he opened a separate account for it. And GTA 6 releases in November, which he told his girlfriend about in advance, along with his plan to take leave on launch day and the Friday after to avoid spoilers. He also pre-ordered one of each colour of the exclusive PlayStation controllers, because his current one needs replacing and because he has dogs that would trip over a charging cable. The total was £240 on the game and £220 on the cards.
His girlfriend was furious — in her words he had wasted £500 on video games and Pokémon cards. Her first reason, in his account, was that it was money he could have spent on an engagement ring for her. The fuller reason came out later: she finished her master's degree and cannot find work, her family does not have much money, and watching him buy things makes her feel poor. He had supported her before, sending her money for groceries when she moved away for her degree.
The post drew 446 upvotes and 156 comments, and they are nearly unanimous that his money is his own until they are married. One reader wrote that he should be prepared to have every purchase policed by his future wife. Another, from a woman whose partner supports her while she is unemployed, said he saved up for the Pokémon anniversary set and she is psyched for him.
The graduation party
The poster has two daughters. The younger one just graduated from college, and the younger one's fiancé threw her a graduation party at his house. He invited the whole family except the older daughter and her husband. The poster asked her future son-in-law if the older daughter and her husband could be invited, and he said no — his house did not have enough room. 4
The party happened without them. A couple of weeks later, the older daughter found out.
She is not mainly angry at the fiancé. She is angry at her mother, and the words in the post are that her mother is weirdly okay with one of her kids being excluded and that the family lied by omission. The older daughter also called the no-room excuse nonsense, on the grounds that a fiancé who wanted everyone there would have found a way.
The mother's question to the internet is whether that is fair. Her position is that it was his house and his party and his guest list, so why is she the asshole? The post drew 527 upvotes and 883 comments. Not taking sides is taking sides, said one reader. Another said it flatly: you clearly have a favourite, and do not be surprised when the oldest one stops talking to you. A calmer part of the thread argued that the poster has no right to dictate another man's guest list, and that the person the older daughter should be asking is the fiancé.
The morning's group-chat verdict
The dinner guest did not ask for a chair all week and then asked at the door. The bachelorette party agreed a rule between two people and then let the group decide it did not apply. One man bought the thing he had been saving for and only afterwards found out what his partner thought the money was for. And one man drew up a guest list, while the one family member who knew about it decided that telling her own daughter was not her job either.
Four stories, and the fight in every one of them is not about what happened. It is about who was supposed to ask.
So here is the question for your group chat this morning. Who decided something about you this week without asking you, and how did you find out?
References
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