The Matt Walsh Show - December 26, 2022


Am I The A＊＊hole？ Matt Walsh Decides - Christmas Edition


Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

203.23822

Word count

2,272

Sentence count

179

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Have you ever been in a situation where you're hosting a family party and you don't want to drink because it's just too much work and you just want to have a nice, quiet day at home with your family? Then this episode is for you!

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.360 Well, Christmas is a time for merriment and cheer and joy.
00:00:04.640 It's also a time when people act like a**holes.
00:00:07.960 And so we'll be going back to the Am I the Asshole forum on Reddit
00:00:11.740 for a little Christmas-themed edition, and we'll start here.
00:00:15.360 It says,
00:00:16.620 My husband's family likes to drink.
00:00:18.920 Every holiday includes multiple bottles of wines, of wine slash cocktails.
00:00:24.080 I hate drinking. I have never drank.
00:00:26.400 My father was an alcoholic.
00:00:27.560 I think it's childish if you can't have fun without drinking.
00:00:30.620 Ironically, it looks like she was drunk while she wrote this
00:00:32.560 because there's no punctuation at all here.
00:00:34.860 Here's where I'm hosting Christmas for a change.
00:00:36.740 I decided since it's at my house, no alcohol allowed.
00:00:39.960 We are all getting older, and it's time to grow up.
00:00:42.500 How have you gotten to the point of being an adult
00:00:44.820 and you've never even heard of a comma?
00:00:47.100 And this is so common these days.
00:00:48.540 Like, people that they don't even, they have no idea.
00:00:50.900 Like, they never heard of the concept.
00:00:52.260 So they just, they don't even bother.
00:00:53.880 There are no commas here.
00:00:55.600 Very few periods.
00:00:56.320 Anyway, my husband's sister called to ask what she could bring.
00:01:00.320 She saw a recipe for a Christmas martini that she wanted to bring.
00:01:04.340 I told her about my no alcohol rule.
00:01:06.660 She didn't say much, but must have told the rest of the family.
00:01:09.960 Some of them started texting me, asking me if I was serious
00:01:13.300 and saying that it is lame.
00:01:15.340 But I'm not budging.
00:01:16.700 Now it turns out my husband's sister is hosting an alternate gathering
00:01:21.040 that almost everyone is choosing to go to instead.
00:01:23.300 It's so disrespectful, all because they would have to spend one day sober.
00:01:28.520 My husband told me he talked to his sister, and we are invited to her gathering,
00:01:32.360 and he said that we should just go and stop causing issues.
00:01:35.300 But I won't.
00:01:36.320 It's so rude.
00:01:37.900 Now, husband is mad because I'm making him stay home and spend Christmas with me.
00:01:42.340 But it was my turn to host, and I chose to have a no alcohol.
00:01:46.280 They could have dealt with it for one year.
00:01:48.680 Okay.
00:01:49.600 You're the a-hole here without question.
00:01:51.640 First of all, how is drinking childish?
00:01:53.940 You can't even legally drink until you're three years into legal adulthood.
00:01:57.780 So I'm not sure how it's childish exactly.
00:01:59.660 Second, you intentionally made your Christmas gathering less fun
00:02:05.660 and then got mad when people chose not to come to it.
00:02:10.300 See, you can't.
00:02:10.800 It's not the way it works.
00:02:11.480 You can't do that.
00:02:12.460 You can have your lame teetotaler celebration,
00:02:16.080 but you can't force people to attend.
00:02:17.680 I'll have a bland and bland with nothing in it.
00:02:20.540 Alcohol is not necessary to have a good time.
00:02:22.760 It's not necessary.
00:02:23.520 But it is a social lubricant.
00:02:27.180 And it's not necessary, but your prohibition on it is not necessary.
00:02:31.360 This is just a power trip, and that's all this is.
00:02:35.220 Why would people want to go to your event if you have unnecessarily made it less fun?
00:02:39.600 That's what you have to ask yourself.
00:02:41.800 And also, one other point here, because this is important.
00:02:43.500 I think people, this idea, just like commas, this has fallen by the wayside.
00:02:47.860 When you have guests over to your house, your own comfort is actually not supposed to be the top priority.
00:02:54.820 Like, yeah, it's your house, and you can do what you want.
00:02:56.840 You can set whatever rules you want.
00:02:58.340 But the comfort of your guests is supposed to be the top priority.
00:03:02.720 And if you're bringing them over for a holiday celebration,
00:03:06.040 the most important thing to you in the world should be that they have a good time.
00:03:10.540 You should be more determined to see them have a good time than for you to have a good time.
00:03:14.640 There will be no more partying.
00:03:17.860 And that's the way it's going to work.
00:03:20.980 That's part of hosting.
00:03:22.160 It's like you're bringing on all of the responsibility, all the chores, and everything on to yourself.
00:03:27.220 And you're doing all this so that your family has a good time.
00:03:29.380 It's an act of love.
00:03:31.180 And if you're not ready to take that on, then it's probably better for someone else to host the event.
00:03:36.760 All right.
00:03:37.760 So you're the a-hole.
00:03:38.760 Good.
00:03:38.960 That was easy enough.
00:03:40.080 I am a happily child-free adult.
00:03:42.660 Well, you're already the a-hole.
00:03:43.740 I don't even need to read the rest of this.
00:03:45.340 Babies have always made me super uncomfortable.
00:03:48.220 I don't like looking at them.
00:03:50.360 What?
00:03:52.520 Yeah, I mean, we've already determined.
00:03:54.420 I don't think we need judge, jury, and executioner.
00:03:57.060 We've already decided your sentence.
00:03:59.500 I don't like looking at them, being in their presence, or really hearing about them.
00:04:03.720 I used to have panic attacks if I had to be near a baby or toddler, even for a minute or two.
00:04:09.040 If a baby or toddler touched me, I'd freak out and have to go wash off a few layers of skin. 0.98
00:04:13.920 Oh, so you're mentally ill. 0.73
00:04:15.100 This is a crazy person.
00:04:16.100 Okay.
00:04:17.240 Still the a-hole, but you know.
00:04:18.800 There's no insanity plea to get you out of the a-hole ruling.
00:04:21.580 I don't know what caused such an intense reaction, but it's always been like this.
00:04:27.200 I've been working on at least being more cordial and tolerant with babies and toddlers to the point that I no longer have panic attacks.
00:04:34.560 Well, I'm glad you've been working on that.
00:04:36.740 However, they still make me very uncomfortable, and I don't want anything to do with them.
00:04:40.620 I have a friend, we'll call her Sally, who knows that I do not like babies and how uncomfortable they make me.
00:04:45.660 Sally had a baby several months back.
00:04:47.800 How could she do that?
00:04:48.620 How could she do that to you, have a baby, when she knows how you feel about them? 1.00
00:04:52.180 I was polite and congratulated to her.
00:04:53.820 Ever since, every so often, she'll randomly message me about her baby.
00:04:57.000 She'll start with, I know you don't like babies, but, and then send pictures of her baby. 0.99
00:05:01.360 Tell me about toys or clothes she bought for her baby, et cetera.
00:05:03.880 I usually reply in brief messages like, nice or okay, and leave it at that.
00:05:07.920 I don't want to be mean, so I just give the minimal response.
00:05:10.360 I delete photos immediately, because I'm not interested.
00:05:15.820 Sally and I are not, nor have we ever been close friends.
00:05:18.320 Recently, Sally posted in a group that chat that we're both in asking for people's addresses
00:05:23.180 if they want to receive a Christmas card from her baby.
00:05:25.660 That's how she worded it.
00:05:26.940 I figured if I didn't fill out the document, that would be an easy, non-confrontational way
00:05:30.500 to ensure that I would not be receiving baby pictures in the mail.
00:05:33.060 Unfortunately, Sally messaged me privately today asking for my address so that she could
00:05:36.540 send a Christmas card, so my silent opt-out is no longer an option.
00:05:39.600 Will I be the asshole if I tell her I don't want a Christmas card from her baby, and to
00:05:44.120 please stop sending me photos and updates about said baby?
00:05:47.960 I guarantee, by the way, that this person has, of course, has a cat or a dog that she's
00:05:53.080 obsessed with.
00:05:54.480 Which, by the way, in both cases, cat and dog, much dirtier than babies are.
00:05:59.840 Babies aren't dirty at all, in fact, actually, if you are practicing basic hygiene with your
00:06:04.180 children.
00:06:05.020 And much more annoying, too, are animals than babies.
00:06:08.440 So, you're the a-hole by a mile.
00:06:10.440 I mean, you set like a new a-hole standard here.
00:06:12.740 You win gold in the a-hole Olympics, I think.
00:06:14.840 Just because you naturally feel a certain way, or have always felt that way, that doesn't
00:06:21.920 make it okay.
00:06:22.460 So, we have this idea these days that if you say, well, you know, I've always, this
00:06:26.600 is how I feel about this, I've always felt like this.
00:06:28.640 That automatically, all of a sudden, that makes it okay.
00:06:31.780 It doesn't.
00:06:32.740 It is not okay to be repulsed by children.
00:06:36.780 It is not okay to hate them.
00:06:38.700 Okay?
00:06:38.800 It's like actively not okay.
00:06:40.840 It's actually bigoted.
00:06:41.960 That's how we need to start looking at this.
00:06:44.160 People that say, I hate kids, I don't like kids.
00:06:46.320 That's a bigoted response, because think about it, you are confessing to this prejudice
00:06:54.120 and against an entire demographic of human beings, and it wouldn't be acceptable with
00:06:58.460 any other group you could think of, unless you were talking about white men.
00:07:00.940 Then, in our culture, that's okay.
00:07:02.700 So, white men and just all kids, those are the two groups you're allowed to despise. 0.95
00:07:07.140 Except that your anti-child bigotry is the least justified bigotry on earth, because
00:07:14.520 you're hating the most innocent people on the planet.
00:07:18.940 What has a baby ever done to hurt you?
00:07:22.060 So, this is not okay.
00:07:23.700 It's not okay to say no in this case.
00:07:26.000 And I like to think that your friend is fully aware of how this makes you feel, and is just
00:07:30.780 doing this to torment you, which I think makes me like your friend even more.
00:07:35.840 My mom died when I was seven.
00:07:37.260 My dad married a new woman about a year later.
00:07:39.200 My stepmom, who I'll call Dory, had a daughter much older than me, who I'll call Kylie.
00:07:43.520 My dad's explanation for why things move so quickly is because Dory and Kylie were being
00:07:49.760 evicted shortly after my dad started seeing her, and they needed a place to stay.
00:07:54.360 So, I didn't know them very well before they moved in.
00:07:56.800 Oh my gosh, this thing is long.
00:07:58.140 We're going all the way back to birth, or to when she was seven, and we're going to get
00:08:01.400 this entire story, get all the background details that we don't need.
00:08:05.640 On Christmas, when passing out gifts, I only received one from my parents.
00:08:09.200 This was not something that was common in my family, as my dad makes a decent amount of
00:08:12.400 money, and so Kylie and I would always get at least a few gifts each.
00:08:16.260 Kylie and her husband received multiple presents, and when I pointed that out, I was told that
00:08:20.760 it was because they needed them for their new house and marriage.
00:08:23.800 My present from my parents ended up being a hairbrush.
00:08:26.820 Dory then made a big deal about how she had forgotten the stockings and would have to go 0.95
00:08:30.180 get those set up and hand it out.
00:08:31.880 I assumed this meant that I was getting another gift in the stocking.
00:08:33.980 When I was handed mine, there was a jewelry box in it.
00:08:36.360 I was very excited.
00:08:37.340 When I opened it, it was a golden K necklace.
00:08:39.340 My name does not start with a K.
00:08:41.520 When I pointed this out, Dory said that the necklace was clearly meant for Kylie and put
00:08:45.860 it in the wrong stocking.
00:08:47.080 I agreed that made sense and then asked if Kylie got the one meant for me, and Dory said
00:08:51.280 that there was not one for me.
00:08:53.880 Tough break.
00:08:54.800 I asked her if there was anything else she had forgotten, and Dory said, if there's nothing
00:08:58.240 in your stocking, you clearly didn't get anything else.
00:09:00.060 At this point, I was frustrated and hurt.
00:09:01.800 I started to cry.
00:09:03.000 My dad ended up yelling at me and saying that I was being ungrateful and causing problems on Christmas
00:09:06.600 because some kids don't get anything at all on Christmas.
00:09:09.140 He was mad because he said that I caused a scene instead of talking to him after the
00:09:12.080 holiday, that I ruined Kylie and her husband's first Christmas together.
00:09:15.160 I ended up leaving and going to stay with my grandma for the rest of the break.
00:09:17.540 However, sometimes Dory will still mention how spoiled I am for ruining the holiday over
00:09:21.660 not getting what I wanted for Christmas, and it really makes me feel bad about myself.
00:09:25.880 So I have to ask, am I the a-hole for how I reacted?
00:09:28.280 Okay.
00:09:28.420 Yes, you are.
00:09:32.300 And so is your stepmom and your dad, and Kylie is too.
00:09:36.100 We'll just throw her in. 0.99
00:09:36.840 I assume she's probably a a-hole. 1.00
00:09:37.880 This seems to be a family-wide phenomenon.
00:09:40.680 It sounds like a miserable family.
00:09:42.100 My God, what a nightmare.
00:09:44.940 Now, it's clear that your evil Cinderella stepmother was probably trying to make a point here. 1.00
00:09:50.600 She was using Christmas as a passive-aggressive way to make a point about how much she hates
00:09:53.860 you and prefers the other one.
00:09:54.760 So that does seem pretty clear, but at the same time, you're an adult, and it's just
00:09:59.680 not under any circumstance acceptable to complain about not getting enough gifts or getting the
00:10:05.360 wrong gifts on Christmas.
00:10:07.280 There's nothing that can make that okay.
00:10:09.800 Maybe if you open the box and there was like anthrax in it or a bomb, then it would be okay
00:10:15.200 to complain.
00:10:16.740 But other than that, you take the gift, you give your phony thank you, and that's it.
00:10:22.080 And then you leave.
00:10:22.800 And the real response here is just you don't go back to their house for Christmas again
00:10:27.140 because you see how they treat you.
00:10:28.740 That's fine.
00:10:29.780 Your dad said that some kids don't get anything on Christmas, but you're not a kid, right?
00:10:33.480 You're at least in college, so you're an adult.
00:10:35.560 So this is just embarrassing for everyone all around.
00:10:39.360 Everyone is an a-hole.
00:10:41.080 All of you.
00:10:42.900 You disgust me.
00:10:45.060 But Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
00:10:52.800 All right.
00:11:04.240 All right.
00:11:08.840 All right.