There’s no shame in not knowing everything about everything, but being uninformed – or just plain wrong – can be tough for some people to accept.
For people who live outside the United States, it can be very hard for them to grasp the huge size of the country.
This woman’s new neighbor was originally from Ireland, but she didn’t take kindly to being told her proposed road trip would take way too long to complete.
Check it out!
AITA for using a map to show my neighbor how big our state is?
I (34 F) live in southern Arizona.
I have a new neighbor, an Irish woman (30s F) who recently moved here with her American husband.
They moved into the apartment next door about a month ago.
Before that they lived in New England where the states are much, much smaller.
Comparison for anyone who has never thought about it: The state of Massachusetts from north to south is the same as the distance from Tucson to Phoenix
She wanted them to take a not-so-little trip.
I am single and my neighbors husband is out of town for a couple weeks for work so she thought it would be fun to take a day trip to show her around the area.
Great!
She wanted to start at the Grand Canyon.
Not great.
Then she thought it would be nice to pop over to Las Vegas for lunch.
Oh.. Oh no..
So, she pulled up the trip on Google Maps to illustrate.
I tried to tell her that she had picked places that are much farther apart than she thinks but she insisted it couldn’t be that bad.
So I pulled up Google maps and showed her just how far we were talking about.
That if we drove from here to the Grand Canyon it would be 7 hours if we never stopped for food or gas, then 4 hours from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, and that’s not even counting the drive home.
It’s not an easy fun day trip.
Her neighbor, though, took things the wrong way.
After seeing the times she now believes me about the distance but she says it was rude to pull up a map to show her.
She says that if she wasn’t getting what I was saying its my fault for explaining badly and that using Google to show her was just an AH move to treat her like shes stupid or a child.
I suggested a few places closer to us, but she yelled that “You better look up a map to make sure its not too far first!” and went back in her apartment.
I really didn’t mean to upset her and I definitely don’t think she is stupid or a child.
I just didn’t know how else to get her to believe me that the trip she wanted to take wasn’t possible.
AITA?
She’s worried she was somehow rude or wrong.
You know Reddit will let her know!
It’s really just common sense.
They feel the other woman’s reaction was a little childish.
Oh, well.
Just a skip hope and a jump.
It’s not her fault she felt silly.
I feel for the woman.
That said, you have to be open to learning new things!
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.