Good intentions don’t always lead to good outcomes.

This woman learned that during a routine shopping trip with her partner, who has spent years working through serious mental health struggles and remains deeply self-conscious about the scars on his arms.

The outing had actually been going well, which was a big deal since he often struggles to be around other people for long periods of time.

However, things changed when the cashier began staring at his arms and eventually decided to comment on them.

What she meant as a compliment had a very different effect than she expected.

Read on to see exactly what she said.

Aita for making a cashier cry for “complimenting” my partner?

My (30f) partner (32m) of 10 years has bipolar disorder on top of a series of other mental problems. He’s struggled with this his entire life, he’s been hospitalized in the past and is so affected by his mental disorders that he’s on disability due to being unable to be around people most of the time.

He’s very nervous around people and usually can’t spend a lot of time with me in stores and has to leave to go outside multiple times even during a twenty minute trip. He has a dark past riddled with drug abuse and some not so healthy self-destructive tendencies.

To put it as nice as possible, even almost a decade later his arms look like he got mauled. He’s incredibly sensitive and ashamed of them despite the fact that I’ve told him repeatedly they just mean he is strong now and they’re healed just like he is trying to do. Nothing to be ashamed of.

Then, the cashier leaned over and said something.

We were in the store the other day and everything was going fine until we went through the check out. Something I can almost never get him to dobut he’s in a good place today. He’s smiling and laughing.

The cashier was a cute little goth girl. Anyway. She keeps staring at my partners arms. Really staring. He’s getting uncomfortable and finally she leans forward and says “I love…love your scars.”

He doesn’t say anything, but I’ve been with this guy for a decade. His smile falls. He looks down then doesn’t say anything, just hands me his card to pay and leaves the store silently before finishing his transaction.

In the moment, she was very angry.

I didn’t yell, but oh man, I wanted too. I told the cashier that was completely out of line. That you don’t point out other peoples scars like that. She rolls her eyes and says she wasn’t insulting him. She likes them! (Dear God)

I go onto say that doesn’t matter and thank her for ruining the one good day he’s had with the public this week and that her actions have done nothing but further deepen the of someone fighting desperately against their own mind. That she should be ashamed of herself. She has no idea why he has them, what he was going through or how he feels about them.

She started to cry and to be honest I’m kind of feeling bad for what I said.

AITA?

Yikes! That was not an appropriate thing to say.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a teacher who learns a lesson of his own from his student’s essays about personal responsibility.

Let’s check out what the people over at Reddit think.

This reader thinks the cashier’s behavior was rude.

For this person, there’s fault on both sides.

Yet another person who thinks she and the cashier were wrong.

Exactly! It was insensitive.

People need to stop treating certain things like conversation starters.

Not every scar is a source of pride, and not every person wants attention drawn to the most painful parts of their past.

So, even if the cashier meant well, that doesn’t mean the comment belonged in a checkout line.

Sometimes keeping a thought to yourself is the better choice.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a thrift store employee who refused to play “guess the price” without seeing the item in question.