AIBU to think if you won't travel to see someone you can't complain you don't see them enough?
A friend and I live about 25 miles away, which on public transport takes about 2.5hrs and costs about £15-£20. For either of us it would involve bus - train - bus. She lives in a city and I live rurally. Her income is about double mine, but neither of us are especially hard up. There are no other extenuating circumstances such as travel phobias etc - she semi regularly goes to towns which are 40 miles from her home.
Once upon a time I used to travel to her house and see her about once a fortnight because it was a convenient journey for me at the time and I was happy to do it and enjoyed seeing her. In the 3 years I have known her she has never visited me at my house or in my nearest town (which would be a bus then a train) where I have always said I would be happy to meet instead. The closet to my home that she has ever agreed to meet me is 20 miles away from me! I'm pretty sure this is because she views visiting my house / town as being not especially interesting (average house, average town, much like hers in fact) and therefore not worthwhile when she could save herself the effort and expense by getting me to come to her house instead.
She frequently nags me about arranging a time to go and see her. More or less every time we chat she will mention booking a diary date for me to come over and often she will mention it several times within the same conversation. She uses what I feel are standard emotional blackmail lines such as "but it's so sad I don't get to see you much any more", "I really miss having a good chat", "it would be so nice to have you over for XYZ again", plus sometimes "I've got XYZ amazing thing I really want to show you / give you, but it's at my house so you'll have to come over". Sometimes I just respond by saying I'm too busy / making an excuse, but a few times I've "called her" on it and have responded with "Yes, I really miss seeing you too. It would be lovely to see you, how about you come over to [my nearest town] / my house and we can have a good chat". Strangely, whenever I have done that she falls very silent about how much she misses seeing me and changes the topic or doesn't reply to my message!
AIBU to think that in the absence of extenuating circumstances it should be the person willing to do the travelling who chooses how often to meet up, and that it's bloody unreasonable to complain to the other person that you don't get to see them often enough if you're unwilling to ever travel?
Also, AIBU to "call her" on this whenever she uses the emotional blackmail tactics by offering an invite to my town / house instead?
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
AIBU?
To think if you won't travel to see someone you can't complain you don't see them enough?
34 replies
NobodyInParticular · 25/07/2016 22:04
OP posts:
Arfarfanarf ·
25/07/2016 22:43
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.