'My friend brought her dog to dinner – people say my reaction was over the top'
A man has divided opinions after sharing how he walked out on a meal with friends because they brought their dog along - but the owners had a good reason for bringing him
A man has sparked a debate after storming out on a dinner with his friend simply because they brought their dog along to sit beside them as they ate.
The 27-year-old explained how he and his fiancée, 28, booked a table at a "trendy restaurant" to catch up with some friends - but he was disgusted to see they'd brought their dog along to join them.
He said on Reddit: "We aren’t dog people. I’ve had girlfriends end relationships with me over the fact I don’t want a dog. In the topic of pets, my current spouse is very compatible. They just aren’t our thing and our friends know this about us. Like we aren’t the type to pet them all. A key part of this story, nearly every restaurant has patios that are dog friendly while indoors is not.
"It's nearly impossible to find non pet friendly patios. Our friends however are now pet people. They got a dog over Covid." He shared how he has been avoiding spending time with his friend at their house because of the dog - and thought inviting them out for food would get around this.
"They’ve become the people that take it every where with them. My fiancé and I do hang out with them less because of it. We showed up about 10 minutes early for our reservation. I intended to eat indoors. Turns out our friends beat us here. We were led to a patio table and see they brought their dog. I say no, I’m not doing this. What are you thinking bringing that?"
With that, his fiancée went inside to see whether there were any seats at the bar - but his friend chased her down to explain why they'd brought their dog along. He added: "He explains the dog sitter fell through and the dog will just lay there and not bother us. I don’t care, mentioned not sure why they need a sitter and we aren’t spending our meal with a dog. Told him it's messed up you spring your dog on us.
"There were no bar seats, so fiancé and I decided to leave. My buddy said I’m an a***hole. I told him I’m not spending time with your dog. We’ll figure somewhere else out to go. I got texts saying how messed up what we did was. Am I the a***hole here?"
Unfortunately for the Redditor, many thought he was in the wrong. Commenting on his post, one user said: "You don't need to pet the dog, they require less attention in public than children so your blind hatred is frankly weird and very melodramatic for a hang out session."
Another user added: "Why would a dog being near you inconvenience you at all? And see friends less because of it? Why are you so weird. You're the a***hole to cancel plans, throw a fit over something so small. Grow up."
A third user said: "They know you don't like dogs and should have called you to give you a chance to back out. But, you as well - once you got there, you don't say anything about the dog having poor behaviour. If the dog was going to just lay on the ground near its owners, then there's no reason not to just ignore its presence and eat dinner."