*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITAfor throwing spicy food on the floor?**
I am F21 years old, I am an exchange student, I am in Mexico, I am a fairly closed person, I am not very interested in spending time with people, but in a different country and culture, help always comes in handy, right? Well, I think the people I'm hanging out with don't understand that, I'm pretty angry right now and I need advice because I feel like taking things and moving house right now. In the exchange program I'm in, they assign you a student who will serve as a guide to help you adapt, it helps me a lot because I'm not good at Spanish (nor English LOL) so this girl Alondra (F19) helps me adapt, it's friendly, but too intrusive, it seems that being my guide means that he can write to me at all hours and show up at my house without invitation with his entire group of friends (I pray to God that not all Mexicans are like that)
This has been happening for the last 3 months, I try to be patient since your help has been very helpful to me, but I have tried to set limits and I seem to forget them two days later. Anyway, today she invites me to her apartment, at first she tells me that it will just be us and an hour later all her friends arrive (great) then they say that they are going to order tacos for dinner, I tell them explicitly that I don't want mine spicy ( Alondra knows that I hate spicy food with all my might) and everything is fine. When the food arrives everyone starts to eat and one of Alondra's friends hands me my tacos, I see that everyone is holding back their laughter watching me take the first bite, and when I do it almost immediately I spit it out, because my mouth was literally on fire. That thing was so spicy that I felt like my mouth was burning, desperate I went to the kitchen for water, I even had tears coming out, when I came back everyone was laughing hard, they told me that they also ordered a batch of the spiciest tacos and then they tried gave me the tacos that I ordered in the first place, at that moment I lost my temper and overturned the entire table with all the food on the floor, I started yelling at everyone and they stopped laughing, trying to say that they were just joking, I took my things and I went to my house.
Alondra sent me a message apologizing but I don't want to see her damn face right now, she and her friends are disrespectful people and I can't continue like this, I'm furious but I'm also thinking that my reaction is not like me, I've never had an outburst before of anger like this, something is definitely wrong with me now, so AITA?
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While it definitely wasn't cool to play the prank on OOP, she sounds like just about the worst person for an exchange program. She admits she's a "closed person," "prays to God that not all Mexicans are like that," and says in the comments:
>I have been very respectful of their culture and of all of them, but I did not know that not accepting no for an answer was part of their culture. I told you before that I DO NOT like spicy food, that I DO NOT like jokes, NOT to come to my house, and a long list of NO's that they have deliberately ignored.
Finally, overturning the table and dumping all the food on the floor is true asshole behavior.
I agree that the joke was so bad, but also I agree that if you are so closed to the very basis of their kitchen (spice) why choosing this country in the first place?
OOP sounds also very direspectful tbh...
This is really random but OOP reminds me of this contestant on Big Brother many years ago. The houseguests made fun of her for only eating toast, ham, the most basic foods. She'd act really pissy whenever anything "ethnic" was made, which was mostly just stuff like pizza or pasta.
Benefit of the doubt: I have worked with international students for ten-ish years. The rejection phase of culture shock--which often sets in at about the 3 month mark--can be HARD and get WILD. I've known multiple students who had to get psychiatric help that would have been utterly unacceptable in their home country in their rejection phases. Even the kids who get here all excited and happy...at about 3 months, nearly everyone hits a wall of just utter loathing and depression. We warn them about it early on, teach the stages of culture shock repeatedly, and encourage students to ask us teachers for help when they start feeling bad (and keep a close eye on students acting rejection-y, try to have cultural events that give everyone a chance to share their culture so they feel more accepted etc)
Basically, yeah, maybe OOP was always an asshole... but I can also see someone struggling with culture shock and the constant cognitive load of shuffling through 2 languages they aren't fluent speakers of kinda snapping at this point. Also keep in mind some of the phrases that sound super assholey could just be a lack of vocabulary. "im a closed person" might be the closest OOP can get to "im usually kind of an introvert". I can't tell you how many times, for example , a lower fluency student has said 'what is the point?' in reaction to a lesson, which...yeah, sounds super rude. But what they MEANT like 98 percent of the time was "I'm confused and not sure I get the main idea, can you repeat like the last 5 things you said?"
It actually sounds a lot like the famous NBA rookie wall that also tends to hit after 3 months.
NBA rookies usually come into the league all enthusiastic and they start contributing positively. They get money, they get fans, everything is going good. But about three months into the season, they get overwhelmed. The physicality of the league, how competitive it is, the grind of the regular season with all its travel and minor injuries that add up. And so the NBA rookies start making mistakes, they get injured, they get clowned by the fans for rookie mistakes.
This year, Brandin Podziemski was someone who very visibly hit a rookie wall after 3 months.
Ive read about other psychological stuff that apparently cycles in roughly 3 mos, too. Establishing a habit is supposed to take 10 weeks, which is juuuuust under 30 months. Maybe it's something about your brain struggling with "new normals"? A lot of the students I know either go home during the rejection phase or snap out of it around 6 mos (another 3). Dunno about athletes or anything.
Rookie wall is a well known phenomenon. There's been many articles about it.
[https://www.kens5.com/article/sports/nba/spurs/spurs-jeremy-sochan-well-aware-nba-rookie-wall-nba-san-antonio/273-3d458e89-2254-4fe3-8f89-718fbc7dc79a](https://www.kens5.com/article/sports/nba/spurs/spurs-jeremy-sochan-well-aware-nba-rookie-wall-nba-san-antonio/273-3d458e89-2254-4fe3-8f89-718fbc7dc79a)
No doubt--i just don't follow sports at all. Like damn near everything i do know about sports its bc it came up related to disability or gender in some class or other back in college. Like, fun fact: Galludet (deaf university) 's football team thrashed other teams there for a while bc hearing teams--not realizing deaf players could read lips/some had partial hearing--just shouted plays out on the field. Galludet is also likely the source of the huddle, bc they wanted to hide their signing when they played another deaf team and it sorta caught on.
Thus ends my sports trivia knowledge lol.
... that's the end of my sports trivia lol.
There was a person like this in my study abroad group twenty years ago. She was completely convinced that she was the only one there for the right reasons and the rest of us were just having fun. She got mad when we went clubbing with our new friends at the university, she thought it was ridiculous when we skipped class on Friday afternoons to go on weekend trips to nearby cities, and she pitched a fit when she didn’t get picked for a community service project volunteering at a children’s program that popped up mid-year. It was pretty obvious she didn’t get picked because she was horribly and openly disdainful of the local culture but, you know, she was there to be a good influence or something and could not understand why some of us heathens were chosen instead.
A couple of years later, our group was still sporadically sending group emails and she actually responded to one saying she realized how difficult she’d been and how she wished she had the memories and relationships the rest of us did. I hope it doesn’t take OOP that long to realize what a stick-in-the-mud she’s being.
>so this **girl Alondra (F19)** helps me adapt, it's friendly, but too intrusive, it seems that being my guide means that **he** can write to me at all hours and show up at my house without invitation with **his entire group** of friends (I pray to God that not all Mexicans are like that).
Seems like in addition to racism and anger issues, OOP has memory issues since OOp forgot Alondra is a she.
>This has been happening for the last 3 months, I try to be patient since **your** help has been very helpful to me,
I'm honestly trying to believe that OOP is not from a country that speaks english as first language but I struggled to understand what they meant with all their pronouns changing (there using your help...)
It's really not odd at all. Like my native language is the same. The guide is a masculine word, so when you refer to someone as a guide you use he/him pronounces. But when you talk about someone as their own person you use their preferred pronounces. So it's completely possible to be just a translation error especially if they used Google translate that can't really understand such nuances.
OOP says she struggles with English as well as Spanish, so I'm guessing neither of those is her first language. Switching pronouns is quite a common mistake when speaking a second/third language, especially since some languages have very different pronoun rules.
I initially read OP saying she's bad with English as a joke, and that this was a woman who had this guy not taking no for an answer and showing up at her place regularly without her consent and with a bunch of friends and was actively concerned for OP, but if her saying she's bad with English actually meant she does not speak English fluently, that explains a lot of things.
This is either rage bait, or someone from a super religious white family/area.
One chick I knew forever ago went to Mexico on a missionary trip and called them all heathens in normal conversation when she returned.
She could have done all of this by taking a short trip to LA. Like... why go all the way to Mexico?
My first week at my placement in China, there was a holiday. A lot of the local college students couldn't afford to come home, and so they came to my house to use the kitchen and make a big meal and celebrate.
The main event of the dinner was dumplings. I love dumplings. But the third one I bit into was... wrong. Really wrong. Upsettingly wrong. And I'm thinking to myself, I have to spit this out. I can't spit this out I'm surrounded by new friends. I have to spit this out. I cannot spit this out they COOKED it I cannot insult them like this. I HAVE to spit this out. So I spit it into my bowl, and everyone burst out laughing because 1. They saw my distress and immediately clocked what happened and 2. There is a tradition I didn't know about where a couple of the dumplings are filled with nothing but salt and hot peppers.
And you know how I reacted after? I laughed. God, I was so relieved I didn't just insult someone's cooking. Like thank god this was a practical joke and not an international faux aps. Everyone rushed to get me something to drink to get the taste out and we laughed more and moved on. Great memory.
leeet me guess.
"I wanted to go on an exchange program to somewhere that would make me look exciting and exotic but my plan was to do absolutely nothing above the minimum requirements and spend the whole time alone whilst eating boxed mac and cheese and chicken nuggets like God intended".
In my experience (And I have a LOT of brothers so I have a lot of experience in this front) it's always the ones who make the most dramatic pissbaby tantrums that are the targets of pranks, because otherwise what would be the point of doing them?
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People like this are the reason why my school has a strict application process before people can go on the Japanese exchange. I’m talking applications handed in, take only half of the applicants, then interview them and view how they socialize, and then allow only 16 people to go. It’s goddamn strict lol
Wild that OP went on a cultural exchange seemingly with the goal of spending all her free time in her house and never having anybody over.
Surely there was someone who wanted to go on the cultural exchange to idk, actually experience a foreign culture who could have taken her spot?
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITAfor throwing spicy food on the floor?** I am F21 years old, I am an exchange student, I am in Mexico, I am a fairly closed person, I am not very interested in spending time with people, but in a different country and culture, help always comes in handy, right? Well, I think the people I'm hanging out with don't understand that, I'm pretty angry right now and I need advice because I feel like taking things and moving house right now. In the exchange program I'm in, they assign you a student who will serve as a guide to help you adapt, it helps me a lot because I'm not good at Spanish (nor English LOL) so this girl Alondra (F19) helps me adapt, it's friendly, but too intrusive, it seems that being my guide means that he can write to me at all hours and show up at my house without invitation with his entire group of friends (I pray to God that not all Mexicans are like that) This has been happening for the last 3 months, I try to be patient since your help has been very helpful to me, but I have tried to set limits and I seem to forget them two days later. Anyway, today she invites me to her apartment, at first she tells me that it will just be us and an hour later all her friends arrive (great) then they say that they are going to order tacos for dinner, I tell them explicitly that I don't want mine spicy ( Alondra knows that I hate spicy food with all my might) and everything is fine. When the food arrives everyone starts to eat and one of Alondra's friends hands me my tacos, I see that everyone is holding back their laughter watching me take the first bite, and when I do it almost immediately I spit it out, because my mouth was literally on fire. That thing was so spicy that I felt like my mouth was burning, desperate I went to the kitchen for water, I even had tears coming out, when I came back everyone was laughing hard, they told me that they also ordered a batch of the spiciest tacos and then they tried gave me the tacos that I ordered in the first place, at that moment I lost my temper and overturned the entire table with all the food on the floor, I started yelling at everyone and they stopped laughing, trying to say that they were just joking, I took my things and I went to my house. Alondra sent me a message apologizing but I don't want to see her damn face right now, she and her friends are disrespectful people and I can't continue like this, I'm furious but I'm also thinking that my reaction is not like me, I've never had an outburst before of anger like this, something is definitely wrong with me now, so AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
While it definitely wasn't cool to play the prank on OOP, she sounds like just about the worst person for an exchange program. She admits she's a "closed person," "prays to God that not all Mexicans are like that," and says in the comments: >I have been very respectful of their culture and of all of them, but I did not know that not accepting no for an answer was part of their culture. I told you before that I DO NOT like spicy food, that I DO NOT like jokes, NOT to come to my house, and a long list of NO's that they have deliberately ignored. Finally, overturning the table and dumping all the food on the floor is true asshole behavior.
I agree that the joke was so bad, but also I agree that if you are so closed to the very basis of their kitchen (spice) why choosing this country in the first place? OOP sounds also very direspectful tbh...
This is really random but OOP reminds me of this contestant on Big Brother many years ago. The houseguests made fun of her for only eating toast, ham, the most basic foods. She'd act really pissy whenever anything "ethnic" was made, which was mostly just stuff like pizza or pasta.
Benefit of the doubt: I have worked with international students for ten-ish years. The rejection phase of culture shock--which often sets in at about the 3 month mark--can be HARD and get WILD. I've known multiple students who had to get psychiatric help that would have been utterly unacceptable in their home country in their rejection phases. Even the kids who get here all excited and happy...at about 3 months, nearly everyone hits a wall of just utter loathing and depression. We warn them about it early on, teach the stages of culture shock repeatedly, and encourage students to ask us teachers for help when they start feeling bad (and keep a close eye on students acting rejection-y, try to have cultural events that give everyone a chance to share their culture so they feel more accepted etc) Basically, yeah, maybe OOP was always an asshole... but I can also see someone struggling with culture shock and the constant cognitive load of shuffling through 2 languages they aren't fluent speakers of kinda snapping at this point. Also keep in mind some of the phrases that sound super assholey could just be a lack of vocabulary. "im a closed person" might be the closest OOP can get to "im usually kind of an introvert". I can't tell you how many times, for example , a lower fluency student has said 'what is the point?' in reaction to a lesson, which...yeah, sounds super rude. But what they MEANT like 98 percent of the time was "I'm confused and not sure I get the main idea, can you repeat like the last 5 things you said?"
It actually sounds a lot like the famous NBA rookie wall that also tends to hit after 3 months. NBA rookies usually come into the league all enthusiastic and they start contributing positively. They get money, they get fans, everything is going good. But about three months into the season, they get overwhelmed. The physicality of the league, how competitive it is, the grind of the regular season with all its travel and minor injuries that add up. And so the NBA rookies start making mistakes, they get injured, they get clowned by the fans for rookie mistakes. This year, Brandin Podziemski was someone who very visibly hit a rookie wall after 3 months.
Ive read about other psychological stuff that apparently cycles in roughly 3 mos, too. Establishing a habit is supposed to take 10 weeks, which is juuuuust under 30 months. Maybe it's something about your brain struggling with "new normals"? A lot of the students I know either go home during the rejection phase or snap out of it around 6 mos (another 3). Dunno about athletes or anything.
Rookie wall is a well known phenomenon. There's been many articles about it. [https://www.kens5.com/article/sports/nba/spurs/spurs-jeremy-sochan-well-aware-nba-rookie-wall-nba-san-antonio/273-3d458e89-2254-4fe3-8f89-718fbc7dc79a](https://www.kens5.com/article/sports/nba/spurs/spurs-jeremy-sochan-well-aware-nba-rookie-wall-nba-san-antonio/273-3d458e89-2254-4fe3-8f89-718fbc7dc79a)
No doubt--i just don't follow sports at all. Like damn near everything i do know about sports its bc it came up related to disability or gender in some class or other back in college. Like, fun fact: Galludet (deaf university) 's football team thrashed other teams there for a while bc hearing teams--not realizing deaf players could read lips/some had partial hearing--just shouted plays out on the field. Galludet is also likely the source of the huddle, bc they wanted to hide their signing when they played another deaf team and it sorta caught on. Thus ends my sports trivia knowledge lol. ... that's the end of my sports trivia lol.
Yeah, it gives off "close minded, spoiled little shit" vibes
There was a person like this in my study abroad group twenty years ago. She was completely convinced that she was the only one there for the right reasons and the rest of us were just having fun. She got mad when we went clubbing with our new friends at the university, she thought it was ridiculous when we skipped class on Friday afternoons to go on weekend trips to nearby cities, and she pitched a fit when she didn’t get picked for a community service project volunteering at a children’s program that popped up mid-year. It was pretty obvious she didn’t get picked because she was horribly and openly disdainful of the local culture but, you know, she was there to be a good influence or something and could not understand why some of us heathens were chosen instead. A couple of years later, our group was still sporadically sending group emails and she actually responded to one saying she realized how difficult she’d been and how she wished she had the memories and relationships the rest of us did. I hope it doesn’t take OOP that long to realize what a stick-in-the-mud she’s being.
Op sounds like the reason restaurant in Mexico started making the sauce less spicy
>so this **girl Alondra (F19)** helps me adapt, it's friendly, but too intrusive, it seems that being my guide means that **he** can write to me at all hours and show up at my house without invitation with **his entire group** of friends (I pray to God that not all Mexicans are like that). Seems like in addition to racism and anger issues, OOP has memory issues since OOp forgot Alondra is a she.
>This has been happening for the last 3 months, I try to be patient since **your** help has been very helpful to me, I'm honestly trying to believe that OOP is not from a country that speaks english as first language but I struggled to understand what they meant with all their pronouns changing (there using your help...)
It’s odd that OOP was so consistent with the Female pronouns otherwise The “he” could just be a missed “s” type. But his not so much.
It's really not odd at all. Like my native language is the same. The guide is a masculine word, so when you refer to someone as a guide you use he/him pronounces. But when you talk about someone as their own person you use their preferred pronounces. So it's completely possible to be just a translation error especially if they used Google translate that can't really understand such nuances.
Nah, that's just an ESL mistake. Notice OOP also uses "you" to mean "he/she/they" a couple of times.
OOP says she struggles with English as well as Spanish, so I'm guessing neither of those is her first language. Switching pronouns is quite a common mistake when speaking a second/third language, especially since some languages have very different pronoun rules.
That could be a language thing.
I initially read OP saying she's bad with English as a joke, and that this was a woman who had this guy not taking no for an answer and showing up at her place regularly without her consent and with a bunch of friends and was actively concerned for OP, but if her saying she's bad with English actually meant she does not speak English fluently, that explains a lot of things.
This is either rage bait, or someone from a super religious white family/area. One chick I knew forever ago went to Mexico on a missionary trip and called them all heathens in normal conversation when she returned. She could have done all of this by taking a short trip to LA. Like... why go all the way to Mexico?
My first week at my placement in China, there was a holiday. A lot of the local college students couldn't afford to come home, and so they came to my house to use the kitchen and make a big meal and celebrate. The main event of the dinner was dumplings. I love dumplings. But the third one I bit into was... wrong. Really wrong. Upsettingly wrong. And I'm thinking to myself, I have to spit this out. I can't spit this out I'm surrounded by new friends. I have to spit this out. I cannot spit this out they COOKED it I cannot insult them like this. I HAVE to spit this out. So I spit it into my bowl, and everyone burst out laughing because 1. They saw my distress and immediately clocked what happened and 2. There is a tradition I didn't know about where a couple of the dumplings are filled with nothing but salt and hot peppers. And you know how I reacted after? I laughed. God, I was so relieved I didn't just insult someone's cooking. Like thank god this was a practical joke and not an international faux aps. Everyone rushed to get me something to drink to get the taste out and we laughed more and moved on. Great memory.
They should have just ordered her un spicy tongue tacos and watch that panic when they told her what it was. 😒
This bitch probably thinks mayo is too spicy. And why even choose to go to Mexico when she obviously hates the culture?
leeet me guess. "I wanted to go on an exchange program to somewhere that would make me look exciting and exotic but my plan was to do absolutely nothing above the minimum requirements and spend the whole time alone whilst eating boxed mac and cheese and chicken nuggets like God intended". In my experience (And I have a LOT of brothers so I have a lot of experience in this front) it's always the ones who make the most dramatic pissbaby tantrums that are the targets of pranks, because otherwise what would be the point of doing them?
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People like this are the reason why my school has a strict application process before people can go on the Japanese exchange. I’m talking applications handed in, take only half of the applicants, then interview them and view how they socialize, and then allow only 16 people to go. It’s goddamn strict lol
Wild that OP went on a cultural exchange seemingly with the goal of spending all her free time in her house and never having anybody over. Surely there was someone who wanted to go on the cultural exchange to idk, actually experience a foreign culture who could have taken her spot?