In a case that not even Jerry Springer might touch, a man on Reddit is at his wit’s end trying to convince his friend that he doesn’t need to force his girlfriend to get a maternity test. It’s understandable that he’s a little nervous to know if he’s the dad for sure, seeing as how the couple has been on-and-off for a while, but his girlfriend is visibly pregnant and there’s no way she’s faking her belly — but his friend just doesn’t want to hear it.
It all started with the Original Poster’s friend D— found out he might be a dad.
“I say might because the girl he's been having an off/on relationship with, K—, is pregnant, and he's not sure if he's the dad,” he wrote in Reddit's AITA forum.
K— swore she’d get a paternity test after the baby is born and won’t ask for any support if the baby isn’t his. As appreciative as D— is about K—’s promise, he still wants to make sure that there’s no confusion.
“The issue is that when he was talking to me about it, he also said he wants to get a ‘maternity’ test done to make sure the baby is hers,” the OP wrote.
A fake pregnancy seems pretty unlikely to the OP.
K— clearly has a baby bump.
“We know she's pregnant because she did a maternity photoshoot and posted it on social media, so it's obvious she's not faking being pregnant,” he explained. “We've both seen her in person too and she's most definitely pregnant.”
But D— is still unsure if the baby is really his.
“I tried to explain to him that that's not how biology works and unless she got an embryo implanted in her then she's definitely the mother,” he recalled.
K— is a waitress who doesn’t make a lot of money, so to the OP it seemed impossible that she’d be able to afford that kind of procedure.
“Plus it's ridiculous to think that she'd do all that just to baby trap a guy who is unemployed and living with his parents at 32. Plus he's never donated sperm,” the OP added.
The problem is that D— is not giving up.
D— told him that he thinks it’s ridiculous that the OP doesn’t understand biology.
“Despite me studying to be an autopsy pathologist which has required quite literally years of biology classes,” the OP explained. “I got fed up and called him a senseless idiot and told him to call me when he got his head screwed back on straight.”
Ever since their conversation, D— has been spamming the OP’s phone and getting his friends to spam the OP’s phone too, “telling me I'm being insensitive and he's just stressed about possibly being a dad.”
“So, AITA for calling my friend an idiot?” he asked.
The response was unanimous: Commenters agreed that D— needed to get real.
"Tell him that to help with his stress you found a free maternity test — stand in a delivery room and see if a baby shoots of out of a hooha," suggested one commenter. "Hope the baby inherits the mom's intelligence."
“[Not the A–hole]. I’m legit crying laughing right now, sorry you have to go through this," another commenter wrote.
"[Not the A–hole] but to be honest, I would pay to see a doctor's reaction to being asked to perform this test," a third commenter joked.
Some people thought he could've been more gentle.
"It is pretty insensitive of you … he either has cognitive impairment that you were unaware of or he is having a mental breakdown over the whole pregnancy issue. Best to just apologize and don’t discuss it with him anymore," wrote one commenter. "You might point out that it doesn’t matter if she is the mother the ONLY thing that matters is if he is the biological father. Then leave it at that."
"Some people can’t be convinced no matter how wrong they are or what you say and do. That doesn’t make it okay to be rude to them," another commenter wrote. “[You're the A–hole]."
Someone else put it like this: "[You're the A–hole]. D— needs you right now. He just wants to do literally everything in his power to make sure that he isn't liable to this baby."
The person continued, adding this:
"Instead of explaining to him that the financial burden is his even if the baby isn't hers — instead of helping him face this Jungian dragon lurking in the depths of his fretful mind, you gave him a biology lecture. And a pointless biology lecture at that, because even if she had somehow gathered the entire crew from Denny's to help her Oceans 11 his sperm into the in vitro fertilization clinic, then used all of her tips to bribe the technicians into using fertilizing another woman's eggs with said sperm, he'd still have to pay for that baby for the next eighteen years. There is no escape."
Unfortunately for the OP, it really does appear this is a losing battle.
"I've tried asking him his reasoning and he tried to explain to me something about how when women's menstrual cycles sync up its possible for them to share eggs???" the OP wrote later in the thread. "It makes sense to him because K— lives with three other women and their periods tend to happen around the same time. He thinks one of her roommates could be the 'true' mother…"
"I certainly hope for not only K—'s sake but also the world that it's not D—'s kid," he added, bcause "the world needs less idiots."
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