AIBU to wonder if my surfing instructor should offer me a lift?

Have you read the OP’s post properly?

Can you ask him?

' "hey Pete, should we travel together and go halves on fuel? I don't mind driving. Let me know. Otherwise if you want/need to go up separately that's fine too, just checking what people normally do since it's a bit of a way away.'"

By mutual attraction and energy, do you mean you fancy him and thinks he fancies you?

If so, that would make lift sharing so inappropriate.

You are his student, there is a power imbalance. I think its totally normal for student and instructor not to share a lift, wouldn't ever expect it. He obviously has that boundary and thats good.

I also wouldn't want to be in a car with someone who wasn't a close friend/family for 5 hours and would also want the freedom to be able to be spontaneous with timings/stopping off random places if I wanted

You're being very cheeky and entitled

I think you are reading far more into this than is actually happening. Most people just want to drive long distances on their own rather than with a someone they are not close to.

Surely, as he’s there already, he would take the opportunity to surf just for himself rather than while he’s instructing.

My dh drives two to three hours for surfing so I agree with you that it’s not unusual at all.

Environmentally better?
Saving money?

A plethora of reasons a male instructor would not want to offer a lift to his female student. He may be in a relationship and out of respect for his partner he wouldn’t engage in this, he may think you’d receive it the wrong way, he may have been stung in the past.

Oh here we go. Massive drip feed there.

Maybe he doesnt want to put himself in a situation where he could be accused of inappropriate conduct. Maybe he doesnt want to spend 5 hours in a car with you.
Did you suggest the change of location or did he? Are you paying him for the 5 hours travel time he now has to do?

You say you found out he lives 5 minutes away. Did he tell you or did you discover it in another way?

If you live in a seaside town already, then that explains why he lives 5 mins away. I thought it a bit of an odd coincidence that you were both 2.5 hours from the sea, but only lived 5 mins apart.

So when you said this in your OP" I’m a relatively new surfing student, doing a one-to-one course with an instructor at a place about 2.5 hours’ drive from where we live. I’ve discovered that my instructor lives literally 5 minutes from my house."

What you mean is you are doing local lessons with a local instructor on your local beach, and you want to try a different place 2.5 hours away ?

Was it you that said you want to try a new location?

Because if yes, I can understand why he wants to travel alone. Esp if he is married etc.

edit -change a word.

Should he? No.
Would it be nice (if he even knows) yes.
You have to consider what commitments he has. Maybe his starting point isn't from his home.

Well there’s quite a drip feed 🙄

But he may have another person before or after you meeting him?

I don’t think you can ask him to do this regularly; he would then have the awkward position of having to make an excuse if he just doesn’t want to.

I would agree that your gender is, as you suspected, an added factor. As unfair as it seems, it’s not the same for him as sharing a lift with a male student. It gives extra reasons not to want to share lifts at all (safeguarding concerns, unfairness on spouse/girlfriend, optics). On the other hand, if he would be happy to share for purely practical reasons, he may not feel he can suggest it (ie in case he is misconstrued).

I think the most you could say would be to somehow bring the conversation round to cars or driving and say something that sounds temporary and non-committal like “Well if you ever get stuck for a lift just let me know. I’d be happy to share lifts every now and then - especially with petrol prices being so high at the moment !”

I think you need to include the ‘every now and then’ bit so that he doesn’t feel tied to it, and also the bit about petrol so he doesn’t think it’s a freebie and that he either has to return the favour or contribute to costs.

And then move the conversation on. He knows your POV. If he doesn’t bring the subject back up again you can presume that he would prefer not to.

PS, at the risk of sounding like your mum, if he agreed, are you 100% sure you’d be safe with this man for so many hours every week? I know you’re alone with him during the lesson itself but the shared car ride somehow feels different to me. Sorry if that’s being OTT; I don’t know the dynamics of your relationship with him.

If he’s self employed it will part of his business expenses and he can claim this as part of self assessment. I would hope he has factored travel time and mileage into his instructor fees.

I can’t imagine he’s doing this drive for one lesson, he either has other students lined up or wants some time to surf himself.

A 5 hour drive is a lot of petrol money. It would seem odd if he’s just doing it for your one lesson. He might like to save some money though and so I don’t think it would be wrong to say -let me know if you ever want to save petrol and go together.

He may also like to get there before you or stay later to surf alone. If it’s good surf and a two hour trip away seems logical as a surfer that he may want to maximise his time for his own enjoyment to.

I wouldn’t expect or want to lift share unless I knew someone well and got on with them very well.

He may have different professional boundaries to other instructors and unless you know for certain that he lift shares with his male students it is impossible to say if it’s because you’re a woman. But I think it is sensible of him at this stage.

Either way he is entitled to set whatever professional boundaries he likes even if they are not the same for everyone.

Tricky because I can see that it makes no sense to take two cars. But it’s a long journey and you don’t know each other well. Many safeguarding policies won’t allow staff to do this anyway.

Yes it might be if you say it’s normal for male students and teachers to share lifts. He doesn’t know you and may want to minimise the risk of an uncomfortable situation or false allegation. Not saying that either of those things would arise but you are a complete stranger to him.

Or maybe, and probably more likely is that he just doesn’t want to car share with a stranger. If you’re having more than one lesson and you get on well he might feel differently.

A surfing instructor that lives 2.5 hours from the sea…

That was my first thought. Any instructor for anything is not going to spend the money on such a long trip just to give one student a lesson. They will have a full day of students lined up.

And even if it is group lessons, I would expect multiple to be organized.

I have no idea about surfing. I expect very surf and tide dependent.

i used to teach art classes at a rural arts centre and occasionally gave students a lift if they were stranded due to car being off the road etc, but I hated doing it and saw it as extra time on duty