Ageism, Racism, Or Just Petty? Woman Overhears Non-White Friends’ Brutal Conversation About Her

Truly shaken, she posted to an anonymous forum on Reddit seeking a third party to weigh-in on the drama. Things got just as brutal on the AITA (am I the a–hole) forum as they did within her friend group.

Read on to see how this whole thing played out.

The original poster (a.k.a. “OP”) kicked off her post by giving some background information.

“I have a black friend and I’d always tell her how young she looks,” she explained. “I thought she would take it as a compliment on her appearance, we all want to look young after all. And she does look a lot younger for her age, which is impressive. I asked her for her skin care routine, and she gave it to me.”

OP went on to say, “I liked this friend and thought nothing of it. I would make comments every once in awhile about how young she looks.”

“I wasn’t trying to make her look stupid, but I’d just point out she doesn’t look her age, she looks much younger. I wasn’t trying to humble her either. It’s a good thing to look young,” she continued.

But then came the moment she discovered how her friend truly felt about her endless compliments — via some eavesdropping.

“I hear her tell our friend about me and listened in on the conversation because I heard my name,” OP wrote. “She said it’s annoying that she’s always telling me how young I look. Like why does she keep telling me that? The girl she was with was brown woman and said ‘that’s because we age so much better than them, they gotta try to humble us, insecure white people shit.'”

“My mouth dropped. I felt horrible,” the woman recalled. “I feel so insecure about aging and looking older and to hear them say that about me. It was horrible. I’m constantly always looking in the mirror and I obsess over any sign of aging.”

“AITA here? I just left. I was suppose to go talk to her but I went home,” OP wrote, concluding her post. “It seems like they read what I was doing in the worst light. Was I wrong or them?”

While no one slammed OP completely, many a Redditor gently chastised her for lacking awareness. However, she definitely received kudos for asking to be given objective feedback.

“Slight YTA [you’re the a–hole],” the highest rated comment read, on the insanely popular post. “Saying somebody looks ‘young’ is not necessarily a complement. And focusing on it is a little strange. You look great would be much more appropriate.”

Another said in reply: “Yep. I am not a person of color but I get told this semi frequently and it makes me uncomfortable. A check out dude at the grocery store IDed me and mentioned how young I look and when I said my age before pulling out my ID, he was 5 years younger than me. It’s just awkward. Add the racial component to it, and it’s worse.”

Some came to OP’s defense, claiming it all had to do with her obsession over aging and not race.

All of which promptly got the reply: “Why is it okay for you to disregard the lived experience of two women of color and claim this has nothing to do with race?”

Another highly rated comment noted: “Slight yta. It’s also slightly steeped in misogyny in a society that tells women that they are not allowed to age … you’ve even said it yourself! ‘It’s good to look young’ … no it’s not. women are allowed to age, we are allowed to go grey and get wrinkles etc. You also said yourself, you obsess over signs of aging. Again, because society tells us its bad to age as women. Stop putting your insecurities around aging on other women and accept that we allowed to look our age.”

“The word that came to mind was ‘othering,'” observed yet another commenter. “Combine the discomfort of someone harping on a way in which you are ‘different’ or anomalous, especially with the specific racial coding of this particular ‘compliment’; the awkwardness of someone telegraphing their own massive insecurities so transparently; and the basic irritation of someone who obsessively directs conversation back to their own preferred theme at the slightest excuse … yeah, I can imagine how that would really start to grate after the third or tenth or hundredth mention.”

While another, after gently chastising OP, offered some advice going forward: “YTA…complimenting once? Ok. Repeatedly, nope. No matter the skin color. As you said, you have insecurities. This is about you, not your friend. I would talk to her and explain that you are sorry for making her uncomfortable and you did not know you were doing so, and you will try hard not to do so in the future. As for aging, we all age, unfortunately. Things on our bodies change. Take care of your body the best you can by drinking water, exercising, eating healthy, wearing sunscreen or less sun time. Learn to love you. No one is perfect and we each all have our own insecurities.”

But all commenting came to a swift end … after Reddit suspended (or “shadow banned”) OP’s account for an undisclosed violation of their policies.

That being said, the post had already made quite the impact with thousands upon thousands of interactions in the comments section.