Friend Says I’m Discriminating Against Them For Their Disability Over Event Tickets - AITA?

Friendship often asks people to balance compassion with practicality. When someone in a group faces challenges beyond their control, the natural instinct is to be patient, supportive and accommodating.

But even the most understanding friendships can run into difficult questions when kindness begins to carry a cost—especially a financial one. In many social circles, there is always one person who ends up becoming the organizer and the planner.

The one who actually turns casual “we should do something sometime” conversations into real events with tickets, reservationsmand confirmed dates. In the OP's group of friends, that role had quietly fallen on him.

At 28, he had grown used to being the one who booked everything in advance. Concerts, shows, festivals—if it required tickets, he bought them first and trusted the group to pay him back later.

For the most part, it worked. Everyone appreciated having someone willing to handle the logistics but planning ahead became complicated when unpredictability entered the picture.

One member of the friend group, a 24-year-old living with a disability, often dealt with sudden health issues that made it impossible to follow through on plans. Some days they felt fine and other days, they didn’t.

When those difficult days appeared, plans could fall apart at the last minute. And when that happened, the empty seat at the event wasn’t the only thing left behind.

Read the full story below to find out all that transpired

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The OP has now lost his job

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The OP shouldn't have taken the financial hit initially

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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the AH:

I told my friend that either they have to pay even if they cannot make it to an event because of their disability or sit the pre-ticketed events out. This may make me the AH because I'm excluding them from these events because they're disabled

Here are a bunch of the most upvoted comments from other Redditors...

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The OP should stop buying tickets

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Pay for your tickets

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The OP shouldn’t have the money to pay

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The OP also left this comment behind saying...

Like, I work in tech so when I have a job I can easily absorb that hit. Happily do so even if it gives them even a chance to attend a concert or a west end show. I sometimes will even buy them a ticket (not their boyfriend, I don't know him that well but they have been my mate since forever)Right now I'm just not in a position to do so until I get a new job.

And the comments continues...

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Reselling the ticket

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Absorbing the cost

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Sending a link over

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Friendship is rarely tested during the easy moments. It’s in situations like these—where empathy, fairness and personal limits collide—that relationships are truly challenged.

Everyone in the group sees the situation through a different lens: compassion for a friend’s disability, frustration over repeated cancellations and the reality of financial boundaries that can’t be ignored forever. What began as simple plans among friends has quietly turned into a complicated question about responsibility, understanding and inclusion—one that doesn’t have an answer everyone can easily agree on.