To get irritated when people are interfering but think they're being helpful?

[cheeseandfickle]

I probably am being unreasonable and a miserable cow to boot but I just hate it when people do something that they perceive as being helpful but they're not really helpful at all.

Each week I pick DD up from brownies in the car. I park outside the brownie hut car park on the side of the road as the car park gets absolutely packed, it's hard to get a space, I don't feel it's safe to over-park in there with so many children running around at collection, and by parking on the road I can get DD and literally drive off straight away.

One of DD's friends' mums is very nosey, and repeatedly asks week after week why I park on the road. I just say "Because I like to park there". Anyway last week at brownie pick up I parked on the road. This mum then walked out of the car park to the entrance and looked at me, making a beckoning movement with her hand. I got out of the car and asked why she wanted me to go there and she said she'd "reserved" me a space to park in the car park! I said that no, I was fine where I was thanks, and she stomped off as if I'd asked her to do that and as if I was ungrateful!

Then yesterday I had a woman delivery a homeware catalogue to my house. Tuesday is our rubbish collection day and our bin was full and right at the end of the driveway waiting for collection. During the morning I'd had a few bits of rubbish to get rid of so I'd put them in a supermarket carrier bag, knotted the top and popped them outside the front door ready for putting in the bin once I brought it in once emptied.

Catalogue delivery woman knocked on the door and said "You've left a bag of shopping outside". I said "No it's not shopping, it's rubbish", and she said "No, it must be shopping, it's in a carrier" and picked it up and tried to hand it to me. I said "Put it back on the floor please, it's rubbish", and again she was very huffy as if I was being unreasonable in not accepting what she said. and was even more fucking huffy when I said I didn't want her catalogue

I probably am being unreasonable and intolerant, but I just hate it when people are pushy and do an un-asked for thing that you really don't want them to do but then act all put out when you won't go along with it.

[Hakluyt]

I think, with the greatest of respect, you should just be grateful you have!5 got anything mor serious to worry about.........

[cheeseandfickle]

I have got plenty more serious things to worry about, thanks Hakluyt. The same could be said for many other threads on here really. It doesn't mean I cannot post about something trivial.

[Nancy66]

strange men taking it upon themselves to 'guide' me into a parking space when I try and reverse park really pisses me off.

I am actually really good at parking.

yeah it's trivial but I get it's annoying. I think these people have good intentions though

[Blueteas]

I get you, but I think I'd be more mystified by, for instance, the other Brownie mother giving why you don't park in the car park so much headspace - that seems to me utterly bizarre. (Assuming, that is, the road where you park isn't miles away and you have to hike miles in the dark and mud, which makes her feel bad.)

Is this a village setting, OP? I'm a Londoner who moved to the sticks, and while there are lots of things I like about my village, I do find people astonishingly nosy, whereas I remain a Londoner in terms of my lack of curiosity (and lack of time to have such curiosity) about my neighbours...

[Bonsoir]

I agree OP. People being bossy about trivial stuff that is none of their business is really irritating.

[Davsmum]

No point in getting irritated. You can't change how people are, so just keep doing what you are doing and hopefully one day, if enough people react the same - the daft sods will stop being busy bodies! ( don't hold your breath though)

[cheeseandfickle]

Yes, it's a village setting, Blueteas. There is a lot of nosiness and curiosity here. I too am originally a Londoner and am used to people having that lack of curiosity that you have mentioned.

The Brownie mother is exceptionally nosey.

[SomeSunnySunday]

People sitting in parked cars behind the space I'm reversing into, beeping their horn at me to tell me to stop, drive me (irrationally) nuts. I have parking sensors (don't most newish family cars?)! And they are telling me that I'm still nowhere near your car! (I've had this 3 times in the last fortnight...).

[hellsbellsmelons]

I can get DD and literally drive off straight away
I'm not sure why you didn't say that when the woman asked why you park on the street.

I know I'd be mega pissed off if some 'bloke' decided to guide me into a parking space.
I am good at parking (living in W London with no off street parking for 10+ years saw to that) but no-one has ever tried to and I've been driving for the past 28 years!

[YeGodsAndLittleFishes]

Actually, there is someone who parks their ruddy great big people carrier/van just outside the entrance to the scout hut car park every week. It obstructs the view of drivers trying to get out of the car park, it is right by a really busy junction where most cars have been held up and trying to accelerate away. Where they park is actually for 2 lines of traffic approaching the junction and it is tight on space and slows down both lanes when all the vehicles have to negotiate the obscacle they create. Yes I can see how they think they are oh so clever to have bagged their special parking spot every week. Shame they cannot think a bit further and consider other drivers and road users.

In terms of your basic question, if it is people interferring with your parenting choices or how you cope with a personal hidden disability or illness or bereavement then it is not unreasonable to not want interference.

What you are talking about is not nosiness, it is local knowledge and boils down to safety and consideration.

[CyclopsBee]

I get you OP!
My nosey neighbour came and rang my doorbell the other day to tell me my front door was open!
I said 'yes I know thanks, I'm letting the smoke out" I had burnt some toast and the smoke alarm was going off
She said ooh ooh are you on fire, shall I phone 999,whilst trying to get herself over my threshold
Some people can't help themselves I guess

[YeGodsAndLittleFishes]

Catalogue people are in a rudeness league of their own though. YANBU about that one!

[MehsMum]

If you are planning on staying in a village, take a deep breath and get used to the nosiness. People regard it as being politely interested and watching out for your well-being, not as being nosey and interfering. I am probably interfering. I saw my new neighbour struggling to clean her windows and mentioned that I could give her the window cleaner's contact details.

Jut tell the Brownie mother why you park on the road. Smile sweetly at the catalogue lady about her concern. Bear in mind that the whole web of connections that the nosiness curiosity builds up means that, should you need them, you will be able to find babysitters, dog walkers, roofers and chimney sweeps by word of mouth rather than having to rely on adverts.

[cheeseandfickle]

YeGods, I think it's a bit unfair to make assumptions that I park unsafely and that I think I'm oh so clever.

I don't obstruct the entrance or views. where I park is safer than parking in the car park IMO. It's a quiet road. I don't have a ruddy great people carrier either.

[nilbyname]

You sound snippy, and I would have said to the other brownie parent as to why I parked where I parked. Why not?

The rubbish thing, well that is annoying, but with a little more grace or humour from you it could have been dealt with in a less prickly manner.

[BarbarianMum]

What a cow. Last week I noticed that my neighbour front door was ajar. I put on my shoes and headed across just in time to catch hold of her toddler daughter as she was headed off up the street.

Personally I'd rather live in community where people tried to help each other and accept that sometimes they (and I) will get it wrong, than in a place where people will , for example, mount their car onto the pavement to avoid an injured woman lying in the road than stop and help her (this happened down south where I used to live).

[areyoutheregoditsmemargaret]

Hmm. Since my dds' response to my every helpful utterance - "Don't pick up that pan dd2, it is boiling and you will burn yourself seriously", "please brush your teeth dd1, or you will have serious tooth decay", "please bathe dd2, so you don't smell" etc - is irritation, I am obviously a busy body interferer. Yabu.

[BamBam21]

Brownie mum sounds a bit odd, but in general I think people are just trying to be nice. I know what you mean though. I still live in the tiny village that I grew up in, and it can be pretty claustrophobic with the nosiness of some neighbours.

My biggest bugbear is when I am getting on or off the train with DS2 in his pushchair, and somebody swoops in to grab the front of the pushchair to help me lift it. I am very well practised in getting on and off trains (only way out of the village without a car) and it just really rattles me.

[limitedperiodonly]

DH interferes because he has a need to be needed, loves to be the only person in-the-know and therefore in control and is a junkie for praise.

It involves him in lots of extra work and has gone horribly wrong a few times. Then he whinges about people expecting him to do things when he's so busy. Not true. He not only offers, he insists.

Just one of many things: someone asked him for a recommendation for cleaner for his very expensive leather jacket - Burberry Prorsum, about £1,000.

DH knows these things. Instead of saying: 'Yes, I always use Leather-U-Like Ltd, here's the address, ask for Tariq...' he offered to take the jacket and put it on his next cleaning run to his special people.



The person said there was no need and asked for the name of the firm. DH stubbornly wouldn't give the name no matter how many times the person asked. DH was behaving like those people who were captured by the Gestapo and wouldn't give up the names of their fellow Resistance workers even under torture.

In the end the person gave in and said if DH insisted and didn't mind he'd give him the jacket, but to be sure to charge him because it was so kind of DH to put himself out like that. The person was very grateful and DH was beside himself with joy at the praise.

Anyway, the fucking jacket went fucking missing didn't it? I've no idea of its fate. I don't think they stole it, they may have damaged it but I think it's more likely that they accidentally gave it to the wrong person and that person thought: 'Ooh lucky me!' and hotfooted it out of the shop.

DH was spitting and swearing about this and blaming the jacket owner for imposing on him and involving him in the recovery of the precious jacket or its cost. I had to say: 'I witnessed it and it was you, not him. For the millionth time, why can't you stay out of things?'

DH said nothing but glowered. I have no idea how it was resolved and I do not care. Because I don't get involved in things that aren't my business.

DH, though, continues to meddle.

[ClawHandsIfYouBelieveInFreaks]

I hate this OP. I really hate it. I get a bus home from school quite often....it's a 2 mile journey out of a rural area to my less rural area and the people at school...Mums in the yard are all "Oooh have you REALLY got to get the bus in this weather!!!" and I KNOW they're probably genuinely concerned, sympathizing or whatever but FUCK OFF!

Most of them live close to school.

Yes I DO have the get the bus. It's a FOUR minute journey and the DC aren't made of sugar and won't melt!

Some of them kindly offer me a lift but even that rankles as I feel like an object of pity.

[Hakluyt]

God, what cows people are. How dare they try to be kind and helpful.

[Hakluyt]

"Some of them kindly offer me a lift but even that rankles as I feel like an object of pity."

Evil witches....

[Hatespiders]

Our little village is full of kindly folk who take an interest in what's going on. It's quite normal in villages, I've found. They can be 'nosy' but it's far better than not caring a pin and turning a blind eye to possible problems. I'd be very grateful if someone told me my front door was open, or I'd left my shopping on the doorstep, even if they'd misjudged the situation.

I do agree however that it can get a bit much. The Brownie mum was rather too determined you'd park where she wanted you to. But you only have to say 'no thanks'; she didn't have a gun pointed at you.

There's a quite 'bossy' woman in our village who runs all sorts of clubs and activities, She's marvellous, but she does like to call the tune. At her house the other day she kept wanting to take my coat, whereas I preferred to keep it on (her cottage is a bit chilly) My word, she tried everything to get me to remove it. Very irritating. But she would help anyone at any time and is a real pillar of the community. I find her very funny actually, she reminds me of a big, fat, bossy, clucky hen!!

[areyoutheregoditsmemargaret]

limitedperiodonly that's a nightmare!

My biggest bugbear is when I am getting on or off the train with DS2 in his pushchair, and somebody swoops in to grab the front of the pushchair to help me lift it.

Shocking

[SauvignonBlanche]

My biggest bugbear is when I am getting on or off the train with DS2 in his pushchair, and somebody swoops in to grab the front of the pushchair to help me lift it. I am very well practised in getting on and off trains (only way out of the village without a car) and it just really rattles me.

Fuck! I didn't know the rules had changed and I wasn't supposed to help people with pushchairs. Why didn't anyone tell me?