Emily Duprie
Airports can either be a magical experience, or the most stressful time of your life. It all depends on how well you know to get through them, how early you arrive, and how much patience you have. Some seasoned travelers have got their airport routine down, and airline members generally have a smoother experience due to fast-pass boarding groups and VIP member lounges within the airports.
Traveling with someone else can be reassuring, and it’s nice to be boarded and seated simultaneously in a potentially high-stress scenario such as an airport. One Redditor (u/anchordwn) lost her cool when her boyfriend, who’s active duty military got to board their plane before she did.
Even though it was only five minutes before they were seated next to one another again, OP was triggered by the temporary abandonment and decided to ask the “Am I The A-hole?’ community if she had overreacted towards her boyfriend. Read the full story below, along with some of the top comments!
“He thinks I’m being an asshole for starting an argument…”
OP asks: “AITA for starting an argument because my boyfriend boarded a plane before me?”
My boyfriend (26M) and I (24F) travelled by plane to go to my parent’s house for Thanksgiving. We checked in together and had different boarding groups – he was group 1, since he is active duty military, I was group 3, for being a platinum card holder on the airline. This is significant since both groups are considered priority boarding.
After explaining her passion for priority boarding, OP goes on to explain the “significance” of each boarding group:
We are both under the impression that boarding groups do not necessarily matter – we are seasoned travelers, very efficient when boarding planes, and the only thing that does matter is that we are on the plane before the main groups, which are the people who do not travel often and are generally slower when boarding planes.
Here’s where OP’s attachment anxiety took a hold of her:
When the plane started boarding they obviously called group one first, the group for active duty military and unaccompanied minors – and my boyfriend gets up and boards without me. I was annoyed, since groups 1 and 2 are both super small, and group 3, my group, usually gets called super fast, if not combined with group two.
5 minutes later,
After my group gets called (literally less than 5 minutes later) and I get on the plane, I told him he could have waited for my group to get called and we could have boarded together. He told me that it wasn’t a big deal, and I said it was since we were traveling together, he had never done that before, why would he do it randomly now, and he didn’t have a reason besides “it’s for me, why wouldn’t I use that group” even though my group is still considered priority boarding?
We got into a mild argument about it on the plane, nothing huge since we were, well, on a plane. He thinks I’m being an asshole for starting an argument and being upset about him boarding before me but I think it’s justified since he had never done it before and he didn’t say anything prior.
She claimed that her BF had never done this before, and his behavior completely threw her off.
This isn’t a new thing, where he just joined the military, he’s been AD for 8 years. We have travelled together multiple times. I think I have seen him use his military ID for a discount ONE time in the entire time I have known him.
So she asks:
Anyway, AITA for being annoyed at him and starting an argument for boarding before me?
After receiving her judgment, OP added an edit to her post, pleading guilty to her “a-hole” behavior.
EDIT 2: i accept that i was being a huge asshole, and that i should have picked my battles and not started an argument over something so petty and small. i will be giving him a big apology this morning
Redditors agreed that OP was definitely the “A-hole” in this situation. A good reminder to pick your battles, and pick which battles you want to make public to Reddit’s jury.
