AITA for asking a neighbor if she wanted to share food?

A Reddit user, a 31-year-old man living alone, asked his neighbor, Katie, if she would be willing to cook extra food for him in exchange for money. He was struggling with cooking and finances and had been enjoying the smells of her cooking for some time. However, when he made the offer, she was surprised and refused, calling his request rude and inappropriate. The user is now questioning if he was out of line or if his offer wasn’t as bad as she made it seem. Read the full story below to see how this interaction plays out.

‘ AITA for asking a neighbor if she wanted to share food?’

I’m a 31 year old single guy who lives alone in an apartment complex. I’ve lived there for 6 years. My neighbor across the hall, a woman around my age or a little younger (I actually don’t know her first name but I’ll call her Katie) lives across the hall from me diagonally and has for about 2 years. We exchange hellos but aren’t friendly, which is how it is with most of my neighbors.

So I don’t know how to cook, and due to losing one of my part time gigs, I don’t have as much money for takeout anymore. I’m getting really sick of eating cheap fast food or box mac and cheese. I’m gaining weight and I never feel great.

This is where Katie comes in. I can always smell her cooking in the hall and it always smells amazing (I know it isn’t the other person at our end of our hall cause it’s a single old man). I’ve even complimented it a few times. So I got the idea that I’d offer to give her some money each week to cook a little extra and bring it over to me (or I can pick it up from her!) at night. She’s cooking anyway and then I’d have varied presumably delicious food.

I asked her the next time I saw her and she looked surprised and said she couldn’t because she was too busy (which didn’t make sense cause she cooks almost every day but okay). The next time I saw her a few days later, I asked her if she was sure and upped the amount I was offering, and she said she was sure and that it was rude to ask me, and that she isn’t a housekeeper for hire and I should get a housekeeper if that’s what I want. She also called me ‘a stranger’ even though we have talked in the halls before.

Overall she made me feel like a big j**k and really embarrassed for even asking her, and a little mad because she was acting like I was being creepy (I wasn’t, trust me, she isn’t my type). I think asking her to split cooking wasn’t completely outlandish, since she cooks every day anyway and it wouldn’t be hard to make a little more.. So, AITA?

EDIT: People keep assuming I’m sexist because I didn’t think it was the old man who lives on our hall cooking. It’s not an assumption for me. He and I have lived across from each other for 6 years. The cooking smells didn’t start til she moved in, and I’ve talked to her about how good her cooking smells before.

EDIT: Okay. It is abundantly clear that I was the a**hole and asking her was inappropriate and, as much as I hate to admit it, creepy. My instinct is to apologize to her but since my instinct was to ask her in the first place, I’ll do the opposite and stay out of her hair. Thanks.

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

[Reddit User] −  **YTA**. Honestly, OP: Thank you. So many people on this sub are just struggling for self-awareness, wading through uncharted territory, or trying to figure out how to navigate a complex situation with many moving parts and lasting social repercussions. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to say, how to reach them, and especially how to reduce the situation down to a single three-letter acronym. But you, OP, are a 100% bonafide a**hole. Let’s count the ways.

1. You’re clearly making her extremely uncomfortable. You’ve caused her to feel like she has to walk on eggshells when leaving and entering her own home, because a strange man down the hall keeps insisting that she… cook for him? What the f**k? Hell, she might even feel like you’re monitoring her movement in and out of the apartment in order to a**ush her about cooking for you, which will **obviously c**ep her the f**k out** and **make her feel uncomfortable in her own home**.

2. Why **on earth** would you think that you’re entitled to this person’s cooking? Even if she were your spouse this would be a problem, and you don’t even know her! How did you hear her say ‘no’ and decide to keep pressing the issue? She’s calling you a stranger because *you are a stranger*, and she’s telling you no because *NO*.

3. “I know it isn’t the other person at our end of our hall cause it’s a single old man.” Damn, dude. F**k off with that nonsense. You ***are*** a j**k, you ***were*** being creepy, and you should be **way more embarrassed than you are**. Stop harassing your neighbor, learn to cook, and **leave her the f**k alone**.. Christ, OP. She said no.

k0ella −  INFO: what the f**k?

EndsWithJusSayin −  YTA – She said no, stop asking. Learn to cook, there’s plenty of videos and subreddits to help you along. Hell, get a slow cooker. It’s so hard to f**k s**t up with a slow cooker.

alexi_lupin −  YTA. For one thing, you are a human adult. Learn to cook. There are so many books and videos about this. You talk as though your only options are either takeout or Katie and they’re not. You assumed it wasn’t the other person cooking because he’s a single old man? Single old men eat too, there’s no reason he couldn’t be cooking? What a weird assumption.

When she said she was busy, that was a polite way of saying no. It doesn’t matter that she’s cooking for herself every day, the socially appropriate thing to do would be to gracefully back off with the offer. Instead, you doubled down. You weren’t asking her to split cooking though, you were asking her to do 100% of the cooking, including planning and buying ingredients.

It’s one thing to do this when it’s your job, because you are paid for your time and so on. You keep saying it’s not a big deal cos she’s cooking anyway, but I think you’re overlooking things. What if she doesn’t want to cook one night? What if she stays late at work? What if she’s sick? Speaking for myself I wouldn’t want that sense of being responsible in some way for your meals, particularly when I don’t know you well.

Also you can be creepy even if you’re not into someone, you know. Being creepy is about not respecting boundaries, which is exactly what you did when you pushed the issue after she’d already declined. Making sure you told us that she isn’t your type makes you sound like an a**hole.

1Tallboi −  There’s no excuse for a man your age to not know how to cook at least a few things. YTA

Asayyadina −  YTA – everyone else has laid out why really well but I also find it genuinely astonishing to ask someone whose first name you do not even know to cook for you??? Also you are clearly not thinking about all the extra labour that would go into this hypothetical arrangement besides the shopping, prep, cooking and packaging it up (Do you provide tupperware or containers? Does she use hers and do you factor in that cost).

Think about it, you two would have to be in constant communication now re. meals, if you expect food every time she cooks and assume that is every evening then she now has to let you know every time she doesn’t, so every time she goes on holiday, or is out for the evening, or is having friends round and they are getting pizza etc etc.

She also now needs to take into account your tastes and any dietry needs, if you don’t like what she cooks will you still pay her? Also, if you are not eating in then you need to tell her, what if you spontaneously go out to dinner one evening after work and forget to let her know? Do you still pay her for what she makes or is she now out the cost of that food? That is all actually a lot of planning, organisation and constant communication ie. work and emotional labour.

lilo_25 −  Um, yeah, YTA. Just because something ‘makes sense’ to you doesn’t mean she should just jump on your bandwagon. If I was vacuuming my apartment and my neighbor knocked on the door and asked if I could vacuum theirs for $5 I’d be weirded out. I’m vacuuming my apartment, not advertising a business.

You’re offering to pay her, but she’d have to buy extra, modify her recipes, spend more time making more food and then package it all up for you and then bring it to you?? It’s really pretentious of you just because \*you\* think someone has the time and energy to do something, that they should. Cooking is tiring, requires a lot of dishes and prep, and you

There are plenty of meal services and meal prep companies that advertise this service. You badgering your neighbor to make you dinner just because you offered to pay her is weird and ridiculous.

[Reddit User] −  YTA. It might have been OK to ask once, but it’s an a**hole move to ask twice. I think asking her to split cooking wasn’t completely outlandish, since she cooks every day anyway and it wouldn’t be hard to make a little more. Your request was very unusual. Since you don’t know how to cook, you are not in a position to tell someone else how hard cooking is!!

caity2706 −  YTA. You; “She called me a stranger even though we’ve talked in the halls” Also you: “we’ll cal her Katie because I don’t know her first name”

ASereneDeath −  YTA learn to cook, don’t expect women to provide for you when they don’t even know you. Women aren’t sitting around hoping strange men offer them money in order to help themselves to whatever they want.

Do you think the user’s offer was a reasonable request, or was it inappropriate and overstepping boundaries? How would you have reacted if you were in Katie’s shoes? Share your thoughts in the comments below!