It’s time for Mr. Jain to suck it up. It’s his bad, in more ways than one. I don’t know a thing about his religion, but is it hierarchical? Is there a minister/priest/rabbi/imam-type person to appeal to for guidance on this situation? A council of his fellow religionists? Seems there has to be some way for him to acquire absolution[if that is possible according to his faith] Somebody who is of the same faith could have the answer, or conflicting ones that could be debated until eventual resolution. As it stands, the OP’s hubby is blame free.
In order to mend fences and keep the very important relationship with your friend, could you not invite the couple to dinner at a vegetarian resturant (making sure the friends hubby knows it is a veg resturant).
It may not forgive the “sin” that was commited but it would show a willingness to move on.
I know several Jains, and none has ever acted like this jerk. To the best of my knowledge, his views do not reflect those of what he claims is his religion.
Yeah, it could be that Mr. Veg is a jerk. But Shade has a point here - in my experience, Indians (I assume he is Indian) will VERY rarely tell you if you’ve made a social faux pas, out of politeness, and that holds especially true if they are acting as hosts. Maybe SBS and her husband just happened to hit a real hot button for him, hence the coolness.
I suspect there is some simple miscommunication going on here, and rather than just going off on Mr. Veg’s purported character, IMHO it would be best to chalk it up to a cultural/religious misunderstanding. If I were SBS, I would say to my friend, “look, we had no idea this would pose a problem for him - any way we can make amends?” It doesn’t hurt too much to take the high road here when a long-term friendship is at stake.
Mr. Veggie is in the wrong for even having a problem with his guest ordering meat on his bill, let alone not mentioning he has a problem with it and being a prick later about it.
If I invite someone out to dinner, they can order whatever they want. And I expect the same if someone takes me out to dinner. It’s wrong to expect people to adhere to a dietary restrictions simply because you are paying for their meal.
One question for StarvingButStrong.
Does your friend’s husband have any reason to believe that your husband knows that it is considered bad Karma for him to pay for a meat meal?
The fact that he used the word “maneuvered” shows that he thinks it was done with malicious intent. The fact that your friend told you this part, makes her a bit of a jerk herself.
I’m sorry, I don’t have the time to respond to everyone fully, but I really think that Shade is probably the closest to what happened. That is, this is mostly a big misunderstanding: PHtJ thought that Polly had explained more to me than she had, he was shocked when my Hubby ordered the lamb but out of politeness he didn’t say anything to us, but talked about his upset with Polly later on, just a husband/wife thing.
Meanwhile, I’d picked up on something being off, and naturally asked my best friend what was up, and naturally she told me. I think guys fail to realize women, especially long term friends, will discuss things that guys consider so ‘personal’ that they’d never tell their best friends about. 'Course, guys generally don’t tell each other anything more intimate than which is their favorite beer and which team they’re betting on t his week… Okay, exageration again. But I THINK PHtJ never expected us to learn of his upset, but was done in by the old girl’s grapevine. IOW, he wasn’t tried to manipulate us out of guilt or anything like that, he was just upset and blowing off steam to his wife.
As for why Polly in fact hadn’t told us more, well, Polly I think is currently shellshocked with just how vast the cultural differences between them are. They fell in love and married very quickly – they obviously knew they came from different backgrounds, but ‘love conquers all’ and Polly was willing to convert and mixed marriages work out sometimes, so… PHtJ is of Indian descent but his family actually immigrated from Pakistan when he was something like 4. (Or maybe it was from an area of India that later became Pakistan? I’m really week on world history, sorry.) So he’s lived here pretty much all his life and speaks English without any accent, but apparently there was a whole cluster of families of similar background that lived close together and tended to keep to themselves and follow their old traditions…I guess you’d have to call it a ghetto in the older sense, not the ‘run down neighborhood’ usage.
Polly’s in laws were dead set against the marriage and there has been significant friction because of that already. Polly’s trying to learn their ways and fit in, but A) it’s a lot to learn, a whole new culture and B) some of the rules strike her as silly or wrong (from her perspective as a modern day American women) so she accidentally or sometimes semi-deliberately flouts some of them, leading to more hassles when its discovered…
Anyway, I spoke with Polly again, and she’s going to pass along to her husband ‘our’ apologies for the misunderstanding, that we hadn’t understood…, that we didn’t mean to cause him religious difficulties, etc. etc. I expect things will be forgiven, and eventually forgotten. I mean, he’s lived in American most of his life, he’s probably had to deal with having his religious sensibilities tromped on many times in the past.
Polly and I have set up a tentative date for the four of us to attend a play being put on by the local theater group next week, assuming we can get our respective hubbies to agree this would be okay. Okay, they do offer refreshments during the intervals, but if each couple buys there own we should be all right.
And besides, it’s mostly popcorn/pretzels/ice cream type offerings – I think that’s all safe.
What view has he expressed that is out of step with Jainism?
I think a lot of people are being too harsh on the Jain guy now (including me in my first post). I agree with Shade now. What has he really done? He paid for the meal, he tried to be polite during dinner. he complained to his wife, but he did not expect her to tell SBS and he himself has not demanded an apology. If you read the OP again, you’ll see that the only suggestion for an apology came from SBS to her husband, not from her friend or her friend’s hubby.
I can’t see how the Jain has been a jerk. He has said nothing to SBS, nor has he asked for anything. It sounds like (as I suggested earlier) he just thought his wife had explained things more clearly than she had. If anything, he might have been more upset with his wife for not explaining better than at the OP’s husband for not knowing better.
Huh? I agree it’s simple, but your explanation is exactly incorrect.
Restaurants pay attention to which dishes sell well, and which dishes don’t. They purchase more of the ingredients for dishes that sell well, and fewer of the ingredients for dishes that don’t.
If you don’t purchase meat, they won’t sell meat.
It’s all fine and dandy to say what moral rules YOU would have if YOU were theoretically vegan, but it’s absurd to suggest that this guy is a hypocrite for not following the rules YOU would follow. Should he therefore not shop at any store that also sells meat or leather? Should he not drive on roads whose asphalt includes animal byproducts? Should he not do business with any meat-eaters, knowing that his dollars will go to buy meat?
You don’t get to set his moral rules: he does. And if his moral rules involve not spending his money on meat, that’s a perfectly respectable and defensible moral position.
I do agree that he erred in not making this rule clear, and in setting up a situation in which the rule could be easily violated. But this is not a case of him trying to set up a theocracy in which other people are forced to follow his rules: it’s a case of his finding himself violating his own moral rules through someone else’s ignorant actions.
As for the apology, again, you don’t lose anything by making a social apology. Why should SBS’s husband apologize? Because he inadvertantly gave this guy pain, through no fault of his own, and an apology will make this guy feel better and smooth out the social situation without causing anyone any harm. Why shouldn’t he apologize? What harm will an apology possibly do?
Daniel
You make some good points Left Hand, but I still don’t agree with your overall conclusion. I don’t think Starving’s husband brought this guy pain; I think he caused his own pain. Should Starving’s husband spend the rest of his life making apologies where he doesn’t think he did anything wrong, to smooth out social situations, or just this one time?
Diogenes the Cynic wrote
The view that one shouldn’t pay for a meal of a friend if it contains meat, and that if said friend puts you in the position where you do, that you turn a cold shoulder to them. to a point where (according to the OP), the friend is worried about “losing the friendship over it”.
But the guy hasn’t turned a cold shoulder on them. He just expressed a private complaint to his wife.
As for paying for meat, that’s not a black and white issue. There are different schools and different degrees of ahimsa within Jainism. Some Jains follow more strict guidelines than others. The really hardcore Jains won’t wear clothes, for instance (you really only see the “sky-clad” Jains in India, though). It’s also my understanding that there is some degree of debate within Jainism about what kinds of professions are acceptable since a Jain’s livelihood must theoretically not cause suffering to other living things.
What does or doesn’t cause bad karma is not necessarily clear cut or universal. The Jain in the OP apparently feels that he did incur bad karma, but he has not made an issue of to anyone but his wife in a conversation he expected to go no further.
Yeah, I agree that if the guy was just blowing off steam to his wife, he hasn’t done anything wrong. But SBS said there also was a noticable “coolness” to the evening, which is unfortunate.
My feeling is, if you’re hanging around with people whom you can’t reasonably expect to understand the nuances of your obscure (at least in the U.S.) religion or culture, you have to be aware that they might out of ignorance do something to offend your beliefs – because they don’t share those beliefs and they don’t understand them. So it seems to me that you either (a) learn to accept those minor offenses as unintentional and done out of ignorance or (b) limit your socializing to situations where the opportunity to offend is minimized or eliminated. So, if you’re a Jain, you don’t vacation at a dude ranch where you likely will be expected to ride horses; you don’t accept someone’s invitation to meet for shopping at Leathers’R’Us; and you don’t invite non-veggies to dinner at a non-veggie restaurant – your treat – and then be surprised that, hey, you might have to pay for some meat.
But since he’s grown up in an insular community, maybe it just never crossed his mind that meat would be ordered. That’s his problem. Maybe his cross-cultural marriage will teach him that a lot of people do not understand the details of his religion, and, if he really expects them to, that expectation is not reasonable.
And, again, IMO SBS’s husband should not apologize because he did nothing wrong, and he does not feel an apology is appropriate. IMO, an apology is more than a social convention, it is an expression of regret. And I mean “an apology,” not the mere social convention of “sorry!” when you bump into someone. An apology is devalued when it is offered grudgingly or insincerely, and a resentful apology is worse than no apology at all. The fact that someone else would feel better if you apologized, does not IMO put some onus on you to do so, when you haven’t done anything wrong.
Put me in the camp that sides with your husband. You respected their customs. Why would they not respect yours? Why should they impose thier beliefs and customs onto you?
If I were your husband I would probably tell you to enjoy yourself when you are with them - and to do so without me.
While your husband did nothing wrong, there was obviously a miscommunication. Instead of apologizing for doing something out of line–which he didn’t–perhaps he should apologize for the miscommunication, and maybe tell your friends that had he known they would object to paying for meat plates he would not have ordered one. As much as I dislike the idea of people forcing their views on other people, your friends were treating you, and if they had stated that they did not want to monetarily support the consumption of meat it would have been perfectly reasonable to expect you and your husband not to eat meat on that night. As they didn’t state such, your husband wasn’t out of line. Still, you should probably apologize for the miscommunication.
Vegetarian checking in.
The OP’s husband did absolutely nothing wrong, IMO.
If i invite people around to my house to eat, they will be served vegetarian food. If someone invites me over for dinner, i make it clear that i cannot and will not eat meat, and give them an opportunity to rescind the invitation if it is likely to be a hassle for them. I also sometimes go to vegetarian restaurants with my friends.
But if i go to a regular, non-vegetarian restaurant, i don’t expect anyone to refrain from eating meat in deference to my own vegetarianism. If a vegetarian is so offended by meat that the mere presence of it causes offence, then he or she shouldn’t be eating at a restaurant that serves meat.
Interesting thread. One thing I hope SBS can influence is maybe getting Polly in touch with some kind of counseling that specializes in cross-cultural marriages. I don’t even know if this exists, but they are clearly no walk in the park. Especially, I would think, if both parties don’t go into it with a lot of cross-cultural experience to begin with. They can succeed, but this is probably only one of thousands of difficult situations they’ll face on the way. And it sounds like they need to start facing them with a little more good humor.
Another sort of random thought. My mom is a vegan, for moral reasons. If she were ever to take me and my husband out to eat, I have to say it would be fully understood she would not pay for meat. I don’t care if we went to McDonalds, we’d find something w/o meat. And I would prep my husband beforehand. She has lived her principles faithfully for many years, and while I don’t share them, I would feel totally out of line putting pressure on her to bend them. No doubt this is the result of some mother-daughter baggage, but still.
I think SBS has the right idea, with a “we regret the misunderstanding.” Americans sometimes get really hung up on the concept of apology, like it is the equivalent of accepting fault in a lawsuit. In business, I use apology to strictly mean “I made a mistake and take responsibility for it” but in personal life there is more flexibility simply express regret that things didn’t turn out as well as possible.
Hopefully her husband doesn’t spend his life causing inadvertant pain to people, so no :). However, I think that yes, he (and the rest of us) are well served by apologizing when we cause inadvertant pain: it costs us nothing and comforts other people.
If you disagree, surely it’s because you think there’s some downside to making such an apology; can you explain what that downside could be?
Let me ask y’all something else: imagine you went to another country, and you and your spouse took a local company out to dinner. In this other country, it’s the custom to treat the service people like chattel: peremptory orders toward them, yelling at them for any mistake, even raising your hand to them is the custom. You, of course, consider such behavior immoral; but your guests do not, and they treat the servicepeople like shit.
Do you feel uncomfortable? Or do you think that you shouldn’t try to force your morals on other people?
I suspect that a lot of people blaming Polly’s husband do so because, at heart, they don’t take his philosophy seriously: they think it’s the equivalent of not liking veggies or something. Perhaps if you try to imagine how you’d act if someone you dined with behaved in a manner you considered cruel and unethical, you’ll have an easier time understanding why he behaved the way he did.
Daniel
Frankly, I don’t buy for a second that this guy thought SBS and hubby knew. He knows and has pointed out to them on multiple occasions how little Americans generally know about his religion. He never bothered to tell them himself, and afaict he never bothered to find out if Polly had told them either. Being a bit upset at the time and afterward saying, “Hey, Pol, I thought you told them about the not-paying-for-meat thing,” would have been reasonable. Being upset after finding that yes, they knew and ordered meat anyway or that no, she forgot all about telling them and felt awkward saying something at dinner would have been reasonable. Automatically assuming that Hubby is disrespectful and manipulative, however, is decidedly NOT reasonable.
[hijack] Out of curiosity, what does ascribing malice where none exists do for your karma? It seems like a pretty shitty way to treat people, so I can’t imagine it would build you any good karma. [/hijack]
And while we’re on the subject of being reasonable, it would have been reasonable for Polly to listen to her husband’s venting, then point out that SBS and hubby didn’t know. It would have been reasonable for her to say that he was a bit upset because he’d been under the impression that they did know. It is NOT, however, reasonable to let your friends offend your husband out of ignorance, keep quiet while your husband then ascribes the offense to malice rather than ignorance, and then to tell said friends that your husband thinks they manipulated and disrespected him. That’s just shitty.
I understand your point DtC but I still side with the guys that he shouldn’t have to apologize. Unless he wants to, after he’s been explained the Jainist perspective. But if he doesn’t, that’s perfectly understandable to me, too.
I think it’s unfortunate, that best friend’s hubby chose that sort of establishment in the first place. I think it was thoughtless to take them to a meat-serving establishment, then get pissed off because he ordered meat, and then STILL not say anything about it then and there. Of course it would be hard to say it without sounding pushy, but I sure hubby would have acquiesed to keep waters calm at the momemt. Now that the moment has passed it’s a little too late.
Maybe she can just apologize for her husband and say he didn’t realize it, but yeah, keep it girl-girl for awhile.