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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/New_Annual9218 on 2023-09-10 22:13:08.

I’m at college in the US as an international student. One girl I know at said college happens to be really into my country of origin— the culture, the music, the TV shows, etc— and wants to study abroad there. She does ask me a lot of questions about my country and sort of sees me as ‘the guy from x country’ with the stereotypes associated, which is annoying, but otherwise she’s okay.

One issue is that she’s a bit on the chubby side, by US standards, and is extremely sensitive about people pointing it out for shaming her. My country tends to have much skinnier people than the US, and the standards tend to be stringent, so if she’s considered chubby in the US, you can imagine what people in my home country would think.

Said country can be incredibly shallow with physical appearances as well as blunt when talking about them, so it’s almost a guarantee that she will be seen as overweight and comments will be made about it. I’ve seen it happen to girls way skinnier than her, who’d be considered stick thin in the US.

So, when she asked me about my country and what her experience would be like in said country, I explained the pros and cons, and one of the cons was that there’s extreme weight watching and it’s considered perfectly socially acceptable to comment on and make jokes at the expense of peoples weight.

I said this because I wanted her to have this info before deciding to study abroad there, so she doesn’t potentially put herself in an upsetting or traumatic experience. But she instead got offended and said I’m an AH for implying she’s fat.

I replied that it’s just standards are different so even though she’s not fat she could be perceived that way because the standards in my country are off the charts insane.

She was still angry and walked away. Am I in the wrong here? I feel like I could’ve gone about this better, but I do think my intention was good.