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When you move far away from home, you do so knowing and understanding that it means that you’ll see your friends and family significantly less. It’s a sacrifice that you knowingly make (or, perhaps, are glad to make in certain family situations) in order to live your dreams. Because flights and travel are expensive – both monetarily and in terms of time and vacation days. It’s unreasonable to expect that your loved ones will always fly to see you, no matter how exciting the city or country you’re living in, so you will find yourself spending a lot of your vacation time and holidays flying back home to see them.

But when they do want to come visit you? Well that is often very exciting – because those sights that you see every day, the incredible food that you’ve found and love to eat? That’s new and thrilling to the people you love, and of course you want to immerse them in the culture of the place you’ve chosen as your home. So often, to cut costs and give them an authentic experience, you’ll offer to host them in your home – because they’re your friends and family, after all.

The guy in this story lives in New York City, and has often offered to host his childhood friend when she eventually comes to visit the city. And finally she’d booked her flights – but he suddenly rescinded his offer of a place to stay.

Read on to find out why.

AITA for taking back my offer to let my childhood friend stay at my apartment?

I (33, male) have a childhood friend (33, female) who I’ve known since the first day of 7th grade. We grew up in a small town outside Dallas and have stayed close despite living in different cities. She’s in Atlanta and I’m in Brooklyn.

Every year around her birthday, she talks about coming to NYC, but it never ends up happening. This year, I reached out and asked if she was considering coming.

She said yes and asked if she could stay with me, presumably with a friend. I said of course.

I have a large two-bedroom apartment, an air mattress, and I’ve hosted plenty of our mutual friends over the years. I genuinely enjoy having people visit.

But it turned out that her plans were different to what he expected.

A few days later, she asked how I could show her and her friend how to use the subway “from their hotel.” I was confused because I thought they were staying with me.

She explained that her best friend was coming, and apparently the friend’s husband is extremely uncomfortable with her being around any men, regardless of who they are. For context, I am very openly gay, and my friend has known this for more than twenty years.

I said, “You know I’m gay, right?” She said she knows, but apparently her friend’s husband “doesn’t care.” She also mentioned that he has caused issues on previous trips when his wife has been around male friends.

I told her I understood, but since NYC hotels are expensive and I had already offered my place, I didn’t really see the point of them getting one. I told her they were welcome to stay with me, and she said she’d think about it.

And then, things changed again – but this time on his part.

A week goes by, and she messages me asking, “So where are we gonna sleep? Do you have the air mattress?” At this point, I had thought about the situation more and realised I’m actually not comfortable hosting them.

I don’t want someone staying in my home who may not feel comfortable being there, and I really don’t want a situation where her husband is calling or texting constantly or there’s drama about where his wife is sleeping. I’ve dealt with situations like that before, and I don’t want that dynamic in my home.

So I told her that, actually, the offer was off the table. I explained that I don’t want anyone staying with me if they don’t genuinely feel comfortable doing so, and I don’t want the potential drama.

I also told her that if they still come to NYC, I’ll absolutely make time for them, show them how to use the subway, take them to brunch, give them recommendations, etc. I just don’t want to host them.

Read on to find out how his friend reacted.

She seemed annoyed, which I understand. I do feel a little bad because I originally offered my place and NYC hotels are expensive. At the same time, I feel like the circumstances changed enough that I’m allowed to reconsider.

I’m also not judging them for getting a hotel or whatever their situation is. I just don’t want to inconvenience myself to accommodate a situation that already sounds like it could bring unnecessary drama into my home.

Am I in the wrong for reneging on my offer?

AITA?

While it’s understandable that he doesn’t want to invite extra drama in his life, this guy repeatedly offered to host this woman and her friend.

To keep offering and pushing them toward staying with him only to rescind that offer when they finally agree is extremely weird behaviour.

And though he has clear reasons for not wanting them to stay any more, it’s very understandable that his childhood friend is now confused and upset.

Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.

This person clarified how weird and confusing this situation was.

While others thought he should have just let them stay in a hotel from the beginning.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who deliberately kisses his newborn nephew while sick with a cold, going directly against the parents’ explicit wishes.

Meanwhile, this Redditor pointed out that the friend’s husband was in the wrong here too.

If he had just accepted that they were going to stay in a hotel from the outset, all this confusion and hurt could have been avoided. Because yes, hotels in New York are expensive. But his friend and her friend were going to pay for that, and were clearly in a position to do so – regardless of his opinions, this wasn’t something that he needed to get involved in. And yet, he still did, even though his friend was quite clear that their reason for staying in a hotel wasn’t personal, it was just that her friend’s husband was an untrusting, controlling kind of guy (and no, that is never okay).

So it’s quite understandable that when they caved to the pressure he was putting on them to stay with him, that his friend was hurt and confused when he immediately rescinded the offer. Because it was only on his insistence that she’d decided not to book a hotel in the first place, so to pull that offer from under her feels really destabilising and unkind. Sure he might not want the drama in his house, but he should have thought about that before he insisted.