The Matt Walsh Show - October 29, 2021


Am I the A＊＊hole？ Matt Walsh Decides Who's To Blame

Topics
surrogacy
Hosted by
Matt Walsh
Ep. 828 - High School Boys In Lingerie Give Their Principal A Lap Dance Ep. 829 - Kaepernick Says NFL Players Are Slaves But He Still Wants To Be One

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

218.48

Word count

2,599

Sentence count

192

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Toxicity

36

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Reddit's "Am I the A-hole?" is a forum where people post their personal dilemmas and ask if they, or someone else in the dilemma, is the "A-hole." In this case, a 22-year-old man whose family made him sit at the "kids' table" at a family picnic.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.120 So one of my primary roles, as far as I'm concerned, is to give advice.
00:00:04.200 But the problem is that nobody ever asks for my advice, which means that I have to give it unsolicited.
00:00:08.740 So today, we're going to go to Reddit's Am I the Asshole Forum, heretofore known as the Am I the A-hole Forum,
00:00:16.560 where people post their personal dilemmas, and they're wanting to know if they or someone else in the dilemma is the A-hole. 0.99
00:00:24.100 Who the f*** is this a**hole? 0.93
00:00:25.840 I can identify an A-hole from a mile away, so this should be easy, and we'll start here. 0.99
00:00:31.240 Am I the A-hole for leaving a family gathering because my family made me sit at the kid table?
00:00:36.400 For context, I haven't seen my full family together in quite some time, so they set up a get-together at a park today.
00:00:42.580 The family gathering includes me, my brother, my sister, her husband, and their two kids,
00:00:47.120 my dad, my stepmom, and her kids, aunt, uncle, my two cousins, grandma, and grandpa.
00:00:52.300 And he's a 22-year-old male.
00:00:53.740 I get there with, uh, not, the grandpa's not a 22-year-old male, but, but, uh, the person running this is.
00:00:58.560 I get there with some picnic items, I brought a quiche and the cups, and I see a few members setting up.
00:01:05.460 I say hi and help set up the tables and set the food out.
00:01:08.280 One problem I'm running into already with the Am I the A-hole things, it's, like, way too much information.
00:01:13.040 Just get, get right to the point.
00:01:14.240 I don't need to know what you all had for your picnic.
00:01:16.600 What does that have to do with anything?
00:01:17.340 Anyway, so I sit next to my dad, and I get a weird look from my aunt as she says to me,
00:01:22.660 this is the adults table, to which I reply, I'm an adult.
00:01:26.340 She says that the first and second generations are considered adults,
00:01:30.020 and the third and fourth generations should sit at the kids' table.
00:01:33.240 I tell her that I can drink, that I drove here, and that I pay rent and have a job,
00:01:36.560 so how am I still considered a child?
00:01:37.960 She says that until I have kids of my own, I'll have to sit at the kids' table.
00:01:41.140 According to my aunt, there are eight children, ages 6 to 22, and eight adults, ages 25 to 75.
00:01:46.220 So I should just sit at the kids' table.
00:01:48.060 And then he proceeds to storm out, and he takes his quiche with him, and he leaves, 0.97
00:01:53.080 and he wants to know if he's the a**hole. 0.98
00:01:55.140 Yes, you are. 0.99
00:01:56.280 I knew it. I'm surrounded by a**holes. 1.00
00:01:58.320 Number one, because you brought a quiche, okay? 0.79
00:02:00.660 You're going to a picnic.
00:02:02.300 What kind of man brings a quiche to a picnic in the first place?
00:02:06.840 I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.
00:02:08.300 You bring chips. You bring beer, okay?
00:02:12.740 Or something along those lines. 1.00
00:02:14.800 And also, you're childish and ridiculous for storming out. 0.99
00:02:18.160 Proving by your behavior, ironically, that you are worthy of the children's table at best. 1.00
00:02:23.140 In fact, you should be a stepdad.
00:02:25.220 There should be like a third table just for you,
00:02:27.620 because my kids are at the kids' table, and I would not allow them to act like this.
00:02:33.740 And besides, here's the thing that you need to understand as a man.
00:02:35.900 And your aunt, who brought this up, I think is correct.
00:02:39.100 You aren't going to be fully accepted as a grown man until you get married and have kids.
00:02:43.920 That's just the way it is.
00:02:45.180 I'm not saying it should be that way.
00:02:47.900 Well, I mean, I am saying it should be that way.
00:02:49.840 But that's not the main point.
00:02:51.040 That is how people see it.
00:02:52.760 And so, if you want to graduate to the adult table, then you have to have kids of your own.
00:02:59.120 You know, you basically, look at it this way.
00:03:01.680 This way.
00:03:02.040 You supply your own replacement for the kids' table.
00:03:04.680 Once you have your own kid, they sit there.
00:03:06.360 You get to graduate to the adult table.
00:03:07.820 All right, so, am I the a**hole for assigning my family homework and not visiting until it's done?
00:03:14.880 I recently quit my PhD program to get a job because I realized academia was not what I wanted,
00:03:19.500 and I was better off just using my master's to get a job.
00:03:21.780 Everyone I know from school or has experience with grad school agreed I'm doing the right thing
00:03:25.560 because I've only done one-year PhD classes, so it's a good time to quit.
00:03:28.480 I've had to tell people this and that and so on and so forth.
00:03:32.600 My family were not understanding.
00:03:34.160 None of them have ever been to grad school, but they believe that I was very far along
00:03:38.020 and quitting at the last minute.
00:03:39.400 I've told them one year of classes is nothing, but they don't realize how hard the exam and dissertation are.
00:03:44.500 Okay, where does the homework come in?
00:03:46.060 I figured if they wouldn't listen to me, they might listen to someone else.
00:03:49.200 I found an article by a college professor that describes what it's like to get a PhD in my field.
00:03:54.700 I told them I would not visit until they read the article and wrote a few paragraphs
00:03:58.320 summarizing the article and discussing why someone may choose not to get a PhD.
00:04:04.160 It's not meant to be a long and difficult project.
00:04:06.480 I just want them to understand my point of view.
00:04:08.620 My boyfriend and my siblings did their essays and apologized.
00:04:12.060 What?
00:04:13.060 And my boyfriend went above and beyond by including other sources besides the article.
00:04:17.920 So I think her boyfriend is the guy that brought the quiche to the picnic.
00:04:21.200 So this is all the same universe where this is happening.
00:04:24.520 My parents still haven't done their essays and haven't apologized
00:04:28.320 and still complain that I'm throwing away all the work I did. 1.00
00:04:31.420 Okay, you're the a**hole. 0.99
00:04:33.780 You're like double, triple, a-hole material here. 1.00
00:04:36.340 You're just an a**hole. 0.99
00:04:37.580 First, you enrolled in a PhD program for no reason at all, and then you quit. 1.00
00:04:42.100 You're the one who didn't do your homework.
00:04:44.200 Maybe you should have read that article before you signed up for the PhD program
00:04:47.680 and sunk all this money into it for a year.
00:04:52.280 Here's the thing about PhD programs.
00:04:53.680 Like, master's degrees also.
00:04:56.520 In like 98% of cases are giant scams.
00:05:00.140 And that's where you find this weird kind of like disconnect
00:05:02.800 because you think of people that have all these letters next to their names.
00:05:05.620 It's a sign of intelligence. 1.00
00:05:07.060 No, oftentimes it's a sign of stupidity that you were too dumb 1.00
00:05:09.860 to realize what a waste of time this was, and you did it anyway. 1.00
00:05:14.140 So, you're the a**hole for that reason. 0.96
00:05:17.200 And then you try to give a homework assignment to your family members, 0.99
00:05:20.960 and your boyfriend is also an a**hole for actually completing the assignment. 0.96
00:05:25.620 And so are your siblings. 0.98
00:05:26.840 I can't, I have five siblings.
00:05:28.780 If I were to tell them, here's the assignment,
00:05:30.900 and I need you all to write me a three-paragraph essay and apologize,
00:05:34.600 they would laugh in my face. 1.00
00:05:36.680 So, everyone in your family, including you, they're all a**holes, 1.00
00:05:40.380 except for your parents. 1.00
00:05:41.360 They're the only ones who come out looking okay here,
00:05:43.260 except that they raised you, which makes them a-holes too. 0.86
00:05:47.200 So, this is just an a-hole bonanza.
00:05:50.000 What else we got here?
00:05:50.980 Am I the a-hole for not wanting the clock in the car to be five minutes fast?
00:05:55.780 My wife has always kept the clock in her car five minutes fast ahead of the actual time. 1.00
00:05:59.260 I tried this technique in the past, but found it wouldn't work for me.
00:06:01.920 We each have our own car along with a shared car that the whole family uses.
00:06:05.480 It was driving me nuts that I'd look at the clock, remember it's not right,
00:06:08.360 then I have to check my watch to see the actual time,
00:06:10.240 and then it goes on for another 50 paragraphs, but that's basically the thing.
00:06:14.500 Should they have the clock set ahead in their car?
00:06:17.300 No, you're not the a-hole for not wanting the clock set ahead. 0.97
00:06:19.640 The setting the clocks ahead thing is absurd because when you do that,
00:06:24.300 you just end up doing the math in your head anyway.
00:06:27.260 So, I don't understand the strategy.
00:06:29.220 You're not actually fooling yourself into thinking the time is different than it actually is.
00:06:32.880 So, you're giving yourself a math assignment every time you get in the car.
00:06:36.540 So, no, you're not the a-hole for that.
00:06:38.360 Am I the a-hole for forcing my son to call me mom?
00:06:43.040 Oh, here's a good one.
00:06:43.820 Okay.
00:06:44.920 This is a meaty one.
00:06:46.260 When my husband and I wanted a child, we decided to pursue surrogacy instead of a traditional pregnancy.
00:06:50.820 It was a hard decision that took a lot of late-night talks and fighting because he wanted to be involved in the pregnancy and everything,
00:06:57.200 but I was terrified of PPD, postpartum depression, the postpartum body, and all the morning sickness that came with it.
00:07:03.460 Finally, we went through an agency to find a suitable gestational carrier, otherwise known as a human being.
00:07:09.000 I'd like to think we were pretty involved throughout the pregnancy process, and we somewhat befriended the carrier.
00:07:14.720 Befriended the carrier.
00:07:15.640 Nowadays, we're not close by any means, but we send each other birthday and holiday wishes and such.
00:07:22.040 Tuesday, my son found out about the surrogacy.
00:07:24.360 It wasn't really a secret by any means, but the topic just never came up.
00:07:27.640 He was talking about how he learned about it in biology and how he thought it was weird.
00:07:31.820 I told him, no, it's completely normal, and that he came from a surrogate.
00:07:35.260 I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but for the next few days, he started pestering me about the details of who the surrogate was and why I went through with it.
00:07:41.340 Well, I told him my reasons, and he took from the conversation that I was too lazy to have him myself.
00:07:47.360 Yes.
00:07:48.300 He's now insisting that I'm not his mom.
00:07:50.800 My husband told me that it's just a phase that's probably because our son's a little raw from an unrelated argument we had earlier this month.
00:07:56.480 However, I'm honestly really hurt and disrespected that he doesn't think of me as his mom.
00:08:00.780 When I tried to have a discussion about it, he escalated after and now only calls me by my real name instead of mom.
00:08:06.280 And his argument is that it's his choice to decide who he wants to call his parents.
00:08:11.900 I kind of like this kid.
00:08:12.780 I got to be honest with you.
00:08:14.480 No, I mean, you're not an a-hole for forcing your son to call you mom, but you are the a-hole for choosing surrogacy in the first place. 0.97
00:08:23.240 So that's where you went wrong. 0.99
00:08:24.340 But you're an a-hole. 0.95
00:08:25.280 You rented out a womb like you're renting a room. 1.00
00:08:29.340 You treated another person's body like an Airbnb.
00:08:34.040 And yeah, they volunteered for it.
00:08:36.200 I mean, they like sold their body to you, literally.
00:08:40.100 I mean, they sold their womb to you because you didn't want to deal with the physical changes that come with motherhood. 0.98
00:08:46.480 You're right.
00:08:47.120 Your son was exactly correct, in fact.
00:08:48.960 You shouldn't talk to his mom that way.
00:08:50.920 But he's right that you were just too lazy to carry the child yourself.
00:08:54.880 Now you're reaping some of the consequences.
00:08:56.680 Your child doesn't feel connected to you in the same way because he's not.
00:09:01.460 Now, this is different from something like adoption where you're giving up comfort for the sake of the child.
00:09:06.120 You're bringing the child into your family. 0.67
00:09:07.800 But surrogacy is the opposite.
00:09:10.240 Because rather than being born from sacrifice, it comes from an unwillingness to make a sacrifice.
00:09:16.760 So I think it's a horrific practice, honestly.
00:09:21.220 And dehumanizing.
00:09:22.720 Even the way you refer to this person.
00:09:24.060 The carrier.
00:09:25.080 We befriended the carrier.
00:09:27.440 Um, it's terrible. 0.99
00:09:28.980 And you're the a-hole. 0.95
00:09:29.740 Okay. 0.73
00:09:30.720 Let's see.
00:09:31.160 We'll do one more.
00:09:32.600 I was in a higher-end apartment store today.
00:09:35.140 Rhymes with looming tails.
00:09:37.120 And, uh, happened to end up next to two teenage girls while shopping.
00:09:40.940 One of the girls had picked out a pair of very expensive boots. 0.98
00:09:44.200 They were both fawning over them.
00:09:46.020 The second girl must have looked at the price tag and asked the girl if she was really going to spend that much of the boots. 0.98
00:09:50.780 The girl with the boots says something along the lines of, it's fine, I have my dad's credit card, I'm not paying.
00:09:55.060 Which instantly caught my attention because that's not her card. 0.91
00:09:57.860 I've told my son multiple times he's never allowed to use my card, so I'm interested to see how this girl thinks she's going to get away with fraud. 0.62
00:10:04.080 But I had split up from the girls at this point because they had found something else.
00:10:07.880 We end up at the same register, me behind, and I see her total hit well over four digits.
00:10:12.380 The girl's about to swipe her card. 1.00
00:10:14.100 When I decide that I can't let her get away with something like that, and someone has to parent this child if no one else will,
00:10:19.180 I tell the cashier that it isn't her card, but her father's, and I'm not sure if she has permission.
00:10:23.240 The girl and the friend turn in glare and give me the dirtiest look I've ever seen.
00:10:27.040 I swear this girl was going to throw a temper tantrum right there. 1.00
00:10:30.320 The girl tells the cashier her father gave her the card to shop with, but the cashier says you can't use it.
00:10:35.800 And then they storm away and they're very, very mad.
00:10:37.860 And then she tells her husband what happened and the husband takes the side of the girls and says that she was in the wrong.
00:10:42.520 Okay, I can see where your husband is coming from.
00:10:45.520 This is like something my wife might do. 1.00
00:10:47.380 And, um, and I would probably be in your house, especially if I was with her and she was planning on the, I would be in your husband's shoes saying, no, just stay out of it.
00:10:56.660 You know, that's her dad's problem.
00:10:57.960 It's not our problem.
00:10:58.540 We got enough problems.
00:10:59.620 Okay.
00:10:59.820 We don't need to add more to the plate.
00:11:01.380 Just whatever.
00:11:01.980 It's not our problem.
00:11:02.640 Um, so I would be with, with, with your husband, except that what would propel me to not want to get involved is, is really indifference.
00:11:11.920 It's not actually any sort of ethical position. 0.99
00:11:13.900 So ultimately, while you're moderately an asshole for this, it's a justified asshole situation. 1.00
00:11:21.000 Like to narc on the kid that way. 1.00
00:11:22.920 Like, yeah, you're kind of an a-hole, but it's also justified. 0.99
00:11:25.580 And I, and I really admire it.
00:11:27.680 So that's one of the problems I have, I guess, with sorting through some of these is that I sort of admire people who are sometimes, depending on the situation, who are willing to be a-holes in public. 0.85
00:11:36.160 Uh, so there's a third category of justified a-hole-ishness that I think is, that's a nuance that's missing from the A, am I the a-hole dilemma?
00:11:46.440 So I guess the final message is, that we should take from this is, um, it's okay to be an a-hole, but, but only in the right situation.