I am part of a friend group of women who all work in the same industry. This friend group has been going for about a year and we regularly get together (once or twice a month). We don't work for the same company or anything like that. We are all in our mid-late 20s. There are usually 8-12 of us depending on the situation, but for the sake of the story, the important two are Ally and Mia.

We have all sorts of religions and backgrounds in our group, with Mia and I being the only Jewish ones. Mia is completely secular, whereas while I'm not "observant", I do go to the Synagogue more often with my family and observe certain religious traditions, including food observations related to Passover, which starts next Saturday night. These restrictions go for a week and mean that I cannot eat out at a "normal" restaurant that does not cater to the holiday during that time.

Here's the dilemma: Ally's birthday is during Passover, and she wants to celebrate at a restaurant with a set course menu on the 18th. This place is expensive, charges per person (we would be paying for ourselves), and has a menu that I can't eat during the holiday. The restaurant has a stated policy that everyone must pay for the menu.

I don't want to pay $200+ for food I can't eat. If it were at another time when I could eat, I would pay that much, but I don't want to blow the money on nothing. So, I spoke directly with Ally and told her I couldn't go because of Passover, but I'd love to take her out to brunch (my treat!) the next weekend and give her her birthday gift then.

Ally was pissed, which caught me completely off guard. To sum it up, she accused me of "making up drama", insisted I go anyways because "it'll look awkward" if I'm not there, and I should just suck it up and enjoy the meal we've wanted for a while now. (we'd talked in vague terms about doing this at some point, Ally only just today dropped the bomb she got a reservation and wanted to pull the trigger for her party). She accused me of being a bad friend, said my observance of Passover was "unhealthy", and implied that I might have an eating disorder if I'm being so restrictive of what I eat. We have friends in our group who just got through with Ramadan and she was completely supportive of them so I was shocked. When I brought that up, she claimed that was different (due to "breaks" in Ramadan fasts?) and claimed that since Mia didn't have a problem with it, I shouldn't either.

Some of our friends have sided with Ally, saying that we've been all wanting to go, and I'm making a big deal out of nothing and should be able to just pick out what I can and can't eat in the tasting menu. Even Mia said that sometimes its best to let things go. Its making me wonder, am I the asshole?