Friendship Fallouts·
THE LOST TICKET FEE
A 28-year-old organizer confronts a disabled friend's upfront ticket costs, testing loyalty as a group divides over fairness, responsibility, and whether to cover future cancellations.
Should he keep covering, or set the line?
Be one of the first to vote.
When one friend canceled, the ticket money for both them and their boyfriend vanished with the plan.
That was the problem the poster, a 28-year-old man, says he kept absorbing in his friend group, until he lost his job and could not do it anymore.
The friend at the center of it is 24 and nonbinary, and has a disability that often leaves them too unwell to show up at the last minute. When they cancel, their boyfriend usually cancels too, because he stays home to care for them. The poster says this has happened multiple times, and each time he was the one left holding the cost of advance-booked tickets.
"The thing is, I'm the only one in our friend group who has any ability to plan something," he said, explaining that he usually organizes outings and pays first, with everyone reimbursing him later. In the past, he says, he covered the loss when the disabled friend and their boyfriend dropped out. But after losing his job, he says he can't keep taking that hit.
So he told the friend, "maybe a bit harshly," that if they can't guarantee they'll make an event, he needs them to either pay for their own and their boyfriend's tickets anyway or sit out events that require booking in advance.
The reaction was immediate. The friend said this was shutting them out "because they're disabled." The poster pushed back, saying they could still come to free hangouts or events where payment happens at the venue, just not gatherings that have to be locked in ahead of time.
That did not settle it. The friend argued that this was "It's still excluding them from things they enjoy" and that it was happening "just because of something they cannot control." They also said they do not have the money to pay for events they may not be able to attend.
Now the friend group is split. Some say the poster is the asshole for making a disabled person pay for plans they might miss, and worry that "we don't want to exclude someone just because they're disabled." Others say he should never have been eating the loss in the first place, and that if he can't afford to keep covering cancellations, he is right to draw a line. One version of that compromise came up in the discussion too: "we could all just pay a little extra in case they don't come."
The poster's own view is blunt: "I should never have taken that financial hit for them in the first place," and now he wants to know whether he is "right for setting that boundary in place."