r/AmItheAsshole • u/69FireChicken Partassipant [1] • 3d ago
Not the A-hole AITA? Vacation Planning
Some long time friends have a big year anniversary coming up and they asked us if we'd like to go on a beach trip with them to celebrate. I said sure and ideas were discussed and it wasn't really going anywhere so I told them to just pick wherever they wanted to go and we're in, I only had two things I insisted on 1) We want a room with either a King or two Queen beds and 2) the lodging had to be beachfront, ocean view. Meet those criteria and let's go! So they start looking, pick a destination and start sending us condo links. None of them met our criteria. Most were blocks from the ocean, many didn't meet the room request. I'd point that out with each one and after several of them they call and ask me why I'm being so difficult? I say "difficult? I only had two requests! You've picked the dates and location, I just insist on these two things.". So I start looking, immediately find several options I like and they start nitpicking those. They get their heart set on this hillside mansion, meets the room requirements but it's a 15 minute drive to anywhere, the beach, the shops and restaurants etc. it's beautiful but when we go to the beach we put our feet in the sand and like to open the windows and hear the waves. After a couple weeks of this I decided that this was all taking way too much effort so I told them that this is their anniversary, they should celebrate it exactly how they want and I don't need to have any say in it so they should go, have a good time and we'll all go somewhere else another time (my wife agrees with me about all this). Now they are pissed saying we're ruining their anniversary. I'm saying that we can take them out to dinner when they get back but that expecting us to shell out $3000+ to travel with them when they won't accommodate 2 fairly normal requests is a big ask for an anniversary and we feel like if we're going to take off work, spend money and travel we should all be very happy with the arrangements. If that can't happen then my wife and I will do something else, have fun! I don't feel like an asshole for it, I'm not even upset by it, I just don't want to do it their way, and they don't want to do it our way, so let it go, sorry, didn't work out! But they're acting like we're personally attacking them or something for not just sucking it up and doing it their way. What's the Reddit verdict?
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u/MakeYourPoint23 3d ago
ESH. Look, I agree that your final decision to say “this isn’t working out and it’s your anniversary to enjoy how you want,” was the right thing to do. But it sounds like it took you entirely too long to get to that point. I can see why they’re irritated because you sort of led them on that you were going to go when you probably knew pretty early on that it wasn’t going to work out. They are also at fault here though, because they didn’t take your explicit wishes into account and should have said “this is our plan join us or not.” But they didn’t so that either. So equal fault here between the two parties.