“Uninviting” Her Boyfriend from Vacation Seems Right to This Woman, But Reddit Users Think Otherwise

Medical conditions can strongly affect a person’s life. Their health issues may hinder people from enjoying things other people do on the regular, which can be very frustrating. Narcolepsy is one of those conditions, as it is a chronic illness that affects a person in the following ways:

• Excessive daytime sleepiness
• Loss of muscle tone
• Sleep paralysis
• REM changes
• Hallucinations

Although there is no cure for narcolepsy, experts prescribe medications and recommend certain lifestyle changes. If applied, those recommendations can help make narcolepsy bearable. A strong support system is also vital — being validated and included can uplift anyone struggling with a chronic condition.

On Reddit, a woman with the username RobynLuxB shared her story as a girlfriend of a narcoleptic man. She and Charlie have been dating for eleven months, and she is very well informed about his condition. However, a conflicting situation has led her to ask the people of Reddit if what she did was wrong. According to her post, they planned a vacation trip to Spain with their friends and her mother, who’s a travel agent. Everything was settled — the group had already booked everything for the trip.

Sadly, one of Charlie’s friends had to cancel due to personal circumstances. It made Charlie feel down, making him take a “force nap” — a term that, according to RobynLuxB, describes a sleeping episode one has against one’s will. She was reminded of Charlie’s chronic condition, and it made her think twice about what it would be like to be on vacation with him.

“Now, hear me out. Charlie’s narcolepsy is the type where his muscles can suddenly go completely limp or weaken without warning under stressful or high emotional conditions, so it’s not that he gets ‘sleepy’ during the day, but sometimes he will go fully DOWN. Also, Charlie is quite tall, 6’3, slim but muscular,” RobynLuxB explained in her post. She analyzed the situation and concluded that all the females would be left helpless to handle the problem without Charlie’s friend.

RobynLuxB did not want to have a stressful trip since her friends and mother would be joining them. She thought that with Charlie around, they would encounter traveling inconveniences. So she asked Charlie if they could go on the trip without him. RobynLuxB’s reason was that they changed plans and turned it into a girl’s trip. She even used the excuse of Charlie’s dog being left alone to make it hard for him to go. Her boyfriend went with it and gave her the okay.

The Reddit user was firm on her decision to uninvite her boyfriend until her sister showed disappointment with how she treated Charlie. The sister called her “ableist,” but RobynLuxB disagreed with her. However, when she posted this story on Reddit, many people had the same sentiment as her sister. The post received 1.4k comments, most of which did not support her actions. A lot of them believe that uninviting Charlie wasn’t for him but for the girlfriend’s sake. IHaveSaidMyPiece commented that, and the reply got 11.4k upvotes.

Her post became a hot topic on Reddit — the thread was filled with support for Charlie from people who believe he deserves better than someone who uninvites and excludes him because of his illness. Out of disappointment for the girl’s action, some Reddit users couldn’t help but use sarcasm and reply with long hateful paragraphs. Due to the thousands of comments she received, RobynLuxB updated the post and wrote a lengthy statement.

The conflict was soon resolved when RobynLuxB maturely accepted her faults and took responsibility for it. She even thanked her sister and the Reddit users for pointing out her wrongs. The lengthy statement also included an apology and a clarification that she really does care about her boyfriend. In the last part of her edited post, she stated that she would talk to Charlie and apologize for uninviting him for selfish reasons.

The comments on the Reddit post were not for nothing, as the woman learned her lesson. People with serious health conditions shouldn’t be excluded just because they might be a potential inconvenience. They are not a liability and don’t deserve to be lied to. All they need is genuine support, especially from their friends and family — to help them feel loved and not alone.