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“Am I The Jerk For Putting My Fiancé’s Food In A Child’s Bowl?”
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“Am I The Jerk For Putting My Fiancé’s Food In A Child’s Bowl?”

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When love and sickness collide, it can often lead to a delicate balancing act. While one partner finds themselves taking on the role of caretaker, the other tries to get as much rest as possible without becoming too much of a burden.

In the case of Reddit user Piggymills, that didn’t go too well. The woman’s fiancé, who she values very much in life, turns into a “pathetic baby” whenever he’s ill. This got particularly annoying at the height of the pandemic when the man contracted a simple cold but acted as if it was a terrible life-threatening disease.

The last straw was him asking for his food to be cut up. Piggymills couldn’t take it anymore and decided to respond by highlighting how ridiculous that request really was. Later, though, she started having doubts if she overreacted, so she told what happened to the ‘Am I the [Jerk]?‘ community, inviting them to share their two cents on the conflict.

RELATED:

    This woman was so annoyed by her fiancé “acting like a baby” whenever he’s sick, she decided to teach him a lesson

    Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)

    And started treating him like a child

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    Image credits: MART PRODUCTION (not the actual photo)

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    Credits: piggymills

    All of this sounds like a prime example of man flu. The term is so ubiquitous that it has been included in the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries. The prior defines it as “a cold or similar minor ailment as experienced by a man who is regarded as exaggerating the severity of the symptoms.”

    It’s a popular theory, but the scientific evidence for it is far from conclusive. Some research, however, has shown that male and female immune cells react differently to invading viruses.

    One study in mice added a lot of fuel to the fire, suggesting that the male sex really does get hit harder by certain illnesses—and that physiology, not psychology, may be at least partially to blame.

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    Published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, it found that adult male mice displayed more symptoms of sickness than females when they were exposed to bacteria that cause an illness with symptoms similar to the flu. The males also had more fluctuations in body temperature, fever, and signs of inflammation, and took longer to recover.

    Of course, studies done in lab animals do not necessarily apply to humans, so this research should be taken with a grain of salt. But experts who research gender and immunity say that it raises an intriguing scientific question for people, as well.

    According to Sabra Klein, associate professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, tests with human cells do, in fact, show that male immune cells have more active receptors for certain pathogens.

    “It isn’t always the presence of the microbe or the presence of the virus that makes us sick,” Klein told TIME. “It’s our immune response, and the research shows that males have a heightened response that summons cells to the site of infection, which contributes to the overall feeling of sickness.”

    The reason why isn’t yet understood, but one hypothesis holds that testosterone and estrogen affect these immune receptors in different ways. Klein’s own 2015 study on human cells, for instance, discovered that estrogen-based compounds made it harder for a flu virus to infect the samples.

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    So while men probably shouldn’t ask their partner to baby-feed them when they have a runny nose, their groans might be valid.

    People had a lot to say on the issue, and the original poster (OP) shared more information on the fight she’s had with her fiancé

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    Rokas Laurinavičius

    Rokas Laurinavičius

    Author, BoredPanda staff

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    Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

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    Rokas Laurinavičius

    Rokas Laurinavičius

    Author, BoredPanda staff

    Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

    Austėja Akavickaitė

    Austėja Akavickaitė

    Author, Community member

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    Austėja is a Photo Editor at Bored Panda with a BA in Photography.

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    Austėja Akavickaitė

    Austėja Akavickaitė

    Author, Community member

    Austėja is a Photo Editor at Bored Panda with a BA in Photography.

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    michael piscopo
    Community Member
    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That reminds me of the time I was at a friends house to watch a Sunday football game. He was visibly upset that his wife had washed but not folded/hung his clothes for the week (salesman). I couldn't stop laughing at him for being so helpless. My mom raised three boys and what we didn't learn from her we did at military boot camp. /she famously announced to our new wives during our separate wedding receptions that we were "fully trained for household duties, don't let him slack". You can bet there's not been any cutup food in our lives, quite the opposite, we're a fearless bunch - thanks mom.

    Gwen Sandau
    Community Member
    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    How much would we have loved hangers in boot camp instead of seabag shake outs and perfectly folded underwear?

    Load More Replies...
    Vix Spiderthrust
    Community Member
    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Personally I think there's a solid evolutionary reason for manflu. Picture the scene: it's 50,000 years ago. You're hunting a woolly mammoth through the frozen tundra of Doggerland. With you is Thag, who has a bit of a head cold but has manfully agreed to hunt regardless. You sneak up close to the mammoth. You're winding up for the fatal spear throw. This much meat could feed the tribe for a week! Suddenly, Thag sneezes. The mammoth's ears prick up. Before you can react, Thag's got a tusk through his eye and the mammoth has stepped on your pelvis so hard that your kidneys have come out your nose. Meanwhile Ug, who is pleading hay fever even though the world is frozen solid, is tucked up safe in bed with some leopard broth. Easy win for the whiner.

    Tamra
    Community Member
    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Five days in bed for a cold? Holy s**t. I mean, if it's the flu, I could understand that level of bed rest, but a cold? Nah hon, get your a*s out of bed, do your own damn googling, make yourself some soup, and stop being a damn baby.

    Load More Comments
    michael piscopo
    Community Member
    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That reminds me of the time I was at a friends house to watch a Sunday football game. He was visibly upset that his wife had washed but not folded/hung his clothes for the week (salesman). I couldn't stop laughing at him for being so helpless. My mom raised three boys and what we didn't learn from her we did at military boot camp. /she famously announced to our new wives during our separate wedding receptions that we were "fully trained for household duties, don't let him slack". You can bet there's not been any cutup food in our lives, quite the opposite, we're a fearless bunch - thanks mom.

    Gwen Sandau
    Community Member
    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    How much would we have loved hangers in boot camp instead of seabag shake outs and perfectly folded underwear?

    Load More Replies...
    Vix Spiderthrust
    Community Member
    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Personally I think there's a solid evolutionary reason for manflu. Picture the scene: it's 50,000 years ago. You're hunting a woolly mammoth through the frozen tundra of Doggerland. With you is Thag, who has a bit of a head cold but has manfully agreed to hunt regardless. You sneak up close to the mammoth. You're winding up for the fatal spear throw. This much meat could feed the tribe for a week! Suddenly, Thag sneezes. The mammoth's ears prick up. Before you can react, Thag's got a tusk through his eye and the mammoth has stepped on your pelvis so hard that your kidneys have come out your nose. Meanwhile Ug, who is pleading hay fever even though the world is frozen solid, is tucked up safe in bed with some leopard broth. Easy win for the whiner.

    Tamra
    Community Member
    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Five days in bed for a cold? Holy s**t. I mean, if it's the flu, I could understand that level of bed rest, but a cold? Nah hon, get your a*s out of bed, do your own damn googling, make yourself some soup, and stop being a damn baby.

    Load More Comments
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