I am NOT the Original Poster. That is VisibleAd4210. They posted in r/AmItheAsshole

Thanks to u/BakingGiraffeBakes for the rec

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Mood Spoiler: >!happy ending!<

Original Post: May 25, 2025

This happened a few days ago and I wanted to get some opinions. My friend who I'll call Marcus' gf, Sarah invited me and a couple more friends to dinner as a way of getting to know one another. Marcus had told us before that Sarah has been interested in ceramics since she was a kid and there were a lot of them displayed in her home. Now here I want to just say that I had no malicious intent when I asked this question and I just wanted to show that I was interested in getting to know her as she seemed like a genuinely nice person.

So, I saw a little ceramic pot in the living room and asked her how old she was when she made that one as I also participated in the ceramics club when I was a kid and it reminded me of a similar one I made which I still keep in my house. When I asked the question I could see on her face that she got upset and she told me that she made it a couple of weeks ago. I immediately tried to explain myself saying that I didn't mean it was bad or anything and told her about my own little pot I made but I could see that it wasn't really helping. Marcus gave me a look and then changed the subject but I could sense that she was a bit more distant towards me throughout the day.

After we left Marcus called me to berate me while I tried to explain everything again. He is still angry with me for everything and though I feel bad about my comment, I didn't mean anything bad by it. So what do you think? AITA?

Top Comments:

Ender_Fear: soft YTA, only because of the way you phrased it. You could have asked "when did you make this?". Asking her how old she was makes it seem like you thought it looked like a child's work

Unable_Ad_1470: This is the right response. OP definitely put their foot in their mouth with the phrasing lol.
A simple, “oh when did you make this piece?” Maybe even followed by something like, “I used to be into ceramics when I was younger so I can appreciate the time and effort put into something like this.”
My $0.02

One-Low1033: NTA I"m not, by any means, an artist and it's very apparent. I went to Color Me Mine years ago and painted a ceramic container. I painted a flower on the lid. It was godawful. I gave it to my mom. Being a mom, she proudly displayed her adult daughter's work of art. I was over one day, and my mom had a visitor. He commented on the container. My mom proudly told him I painted it. He smiled and asked me how old I was when I painted it. I said, "This old." And I just couldn't stop laughing. I mean, I knew it was awful. He apologized and I said, "No need to apologize, it does look like a child painted it." My mom never stopped displaying it.

I understand where you were coming from. I'm sure the GF was embarrassed, but you did not intentionally set out to embarrass her. It was just an unfortunate case of foot in mouth. You'll know better next time.

OOP is voted NTA though the comments are heavily mixed (top comment was YTA actually)

Update Post: May 27, 2025 (2 days later)

I don't know if anyone gives a shit but just because I can I thought I would make an update. My judgement was NTA but the real judgement was that I was an idiot which I agree with.

So today I talked with Marcus and asked him if he could ask Sarah if she was available today and if she would be open to having a chat as I wanted to apologize and talk to her about everything. She ended up agreeing to meet with me and so I went to her place.

I apologized profusely for what happened and told her that I didn't mean to compare her talent or art to that of a child because she was in fact very talented. Thankfully she accepted my apology. I also told her that I liked the pot she made a lot and showed her the one I made.

She said that while it was very cute it also looked like absolute dogshit which is giving it more credit than it deserves. After that, I also showed her my ceramic bowls which hold no competition to their prehistoric counterparts, and my ceramic swan which never really grew out of its ugly duckling phase.

We laughed and talked for a while and she offered to show me some more of her artwork which I was very happy about. After everything she even took me to the basement which also doubled as her ceramics studio to show me around there as well.

Seeing the opportunity we decided to get our hands dirty and made a friendship bowl type thing together which was very fun.

Overall I would say it was a very good day and a successful apology.

EDIT: The image quality is as dogshit as the pot itself but here is the pot I made if you can decipher what it looks like. https://imgur.com/a/QqmwHvo

Top Comment:

TiberiusTheFish: Well done! Shocking to see two people behaving like rational adults.