How to tell my friend who lives in Saudi to stop bloody patronising me!

[SomeLikeitSnot]

My friend lives in KSA with her family and LOVES it. Loves having a live in maid, pool on site, glitz and glamour. Great- v happy for her! Shes in the UK over summer visiting and we are seeing her a lot and shes driving me INSANE.
Shes taken on this real 'aw poor you stuck in UK its sooo hard here' mentality and I find it so grating. I have no inclination to move to Saudi/the middle east and her acting like Im jealous of her life is becoming so tiresome.
When we are chatting she will keep saying 'sorry I'll stop going on about the sun and lifestyle it must be hard to hear!' when I honestly couldnt care less. Sounds great for her and I love the stories- I also love the UK countryside/weather/culture/all our friends and family. I think she feels me prickling and thinks is jealousy.
I remember from visiting friends in the UAE everyone is v anti-UK and thinks its a shithole and theres a real feeling of people 'escaping' to the ME but I really don't mind it here and I want to say something to cut out the comments.
She is a friend so I wont want to make a sarky comment about womens rights/death penalty etc just a 'please stop feeling sorry for me, I dont want your life'!

It's funny. I live abroad. Yep, have swimming pool, maid, hot weather. And I do genuinely like where I live - I like the people and culture too (also trying very hard to learn local language) and, yes, I do like my privileged bubble but totally recognize it as such. And when I'm back in the UK, I don't stop raving about the beautiful countryside, the fact that I'm not "foreign", that I understand everything that's going on around me, the amazing culture that's all accessible to me, the fantastic parks and playgrounds, being able to see friends and family. Of course, there are things that pop up that make me appreciate where I live too . But I never understand people who dengirate the UK all the time - it's such an amzing county (warts n all) and I appreciate it so much more as the years go by. We've made a choice (for many reasons, mainly due to work) to live abroad but painting life abroad as some kind of paradise with no acknowledgment of the downsides sounds like there are many issues going on with your friend who is unlikely to be as happy as she says she is.

Ewww to Saudi. Dubai isn’t much better. It does sound like she’s looking for validation, and that the climate change / human rights issues are going round and round in her head at night. I think I’d be ghosting this friendship, if it was me - and if she asked me why, telling her plain we just don’t have the same values.

As others have said just reply - O no no whatever gave.you that impression? It's great how much you obviously love it out there but it isn't the life for me ! You don't really need to say any more - why should you have to explain?

Same here.
I wouldn't be able to stay silent. When she goes on and on, I'd say, ' I'm really glad it works for you but I'd hate it. Too hot for me and I have a real problem with the human rights issues and way women are treated over there. It's just not my personal idea of the good life, but it's clearly yours, so I am happy for you.'

I assume that the maid had to leave her young children in the Philippines to work 6 long days a week for your entitled friend for a pittance?

Setting aside Saudi's horrific human rights record (Raif Badawi's imprisonment and flogging, the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi Embassy, their prolific use of the death penalty (they've just executed 17 people in three days, which is normally carried out by beheading), the criminalisation of same sex relationships, and their woeful record on women's rights), your friend's life sounds dull and lazy.

I would find her constant boasting about her lifestyle unbearable and would either have to say something or make excuses to stop seeing her when she returns to the UK.

She is right, the UK is hard, and deteriorating fast, so good for her being out of it.

That said, I have been to RIyadh on business twice, and it’s not a place I would choose to live, for myriad reasons.

Perhaps go with it? Perhaps agree that she is SO LUCKY....and it sounds delightful...and that you are SO HAPPY for her, but "could you just shut the fuck up and tell me more details instead of just the headlines, which you've mentioned a NUMBER OF TIMES?".😎

Oh I always think it looks awkward and uncomfortable the nanny thing. I’ve seen lots of people with them in Thailand and Singapore and Malaysia. For me a nanny is for when patents aren’t about but these are looking after the kids when the parents are there so at dinner where the nanny is sat with the baby at the same table as the parents. The ones I’ve seen don’t interact with the children (parents and nanny) and the nanny generally looks unhappy.

funniest one was in Egypt in a hotel where the nanny pushed the pram whilst the parents walked in front. I think they may have wanted to let people know they had a nanny.

Tell her! If we all lived the same lives and wanted the same things it would be very boring. I think you need to be honest. Maybe it’s her insecurities and that she is struggling without the nanny which has made being in the uk hard for her. I had a friend who did recently similar recently but a different topic. I realised her defences were making her tell me how wonderful her life was but actually she asked nothing about me. I actually thought she was lonely.

I had an similar experience with someone and just said that she was trying to sell it to the wrong person, I wouldn't contemplate even visiting Dubai, never mind living in SA.

@SomeLikeitSnot anyone who boasts that much is probably just trying to convince themselves it's the best place to be.

I have friends who lived there who all but one have said its a much darker place behind the scenes. Maids being raped, passports taken away. If you are white, you are treated better admittedly, but non whites arent treated well at all. Friends who moved here wanted to show their kids reality rather than a very privileged, sanitised life. There's money there but a high price.

It’s ok if you have children to occupy you but once the DCs leave I’ve no idea how people occupy themselves.

I know someone who lives half their time in the ME, half their time in the UK.
They used to live permanently in ME. They are minted.
From what she's told me, from an ex pat perspective, it's a very 'keep up with the Jones' society. Everything is about wealth, excess and what you choose to spend it on. It all sounds incredibly superficial. Some people love this kind of lifestyle.

She says a lot of the Philippino people prefer to work for Westerners as they are treated better by them.

It just all sounds too gawdy for me.

Having seen how impoverished
workers from the Indian subcontinent are treated in the Middle East when they are shipped over for cheap labour, I would never ever live in those places. Whether the wealthy bosses are Arabs, westerners or Asians. The life of poor Indian people is cheap and they have little autonomy when they go to work in people’s houses or on construction sites in the searing heat. No thanks.

In any case, this isn’t really just about Saudi Arabia. Gloating to your friends is just an exceptionally unattractive trait and could hint at some insecurity.

I only know two people out there. They are constantly posting photos of the gold markets and jewellery they have bought or yachts they have been on. I am sure that non-blingy people go there, by definition they just don’t post as much on social media

Thanks for all the advice I am seeing here today so when if it comes up I will say something and try and shut it down. Not the chat as I do actually love hearing about it but the sympathy. Glad others feel similarly! I think it doesn’t help that we won’t visit she gets really upset that people don’t want to go visit KSA but it’s just not for us really.
FWIW I dont really get it as we have a lovely house, kids are doing really well at school and DH and I have good jobs. We aren’t bringing in anywhere near as much money as them obviously but we are doing ok!

You are right. Though it’s not just Indian people. For example, the human cost of building the stadia for the Qatar World Cup was horrific.

I always call it a hot Milton Keynes.

Yes, of course, many mainly Asian nationalities. I suspect the maids who provide childcare have a slightly better job. I reckon the poorly educated most vulnerable workers are the ones on the construction sites and in cleaning jobs. All the impressive buildings and fake beaches in these countries are built on the back of virtual slave labour. I understand that employment rules are changing and there is hope for improvement but as things stand, it is a cruel industry in cheap
labour.

It's odd how many people go abroad because there are "too many immigrants" in the UK.

What do they think they are in other countries?

I’ll tell you what strikes me most in these threads as a non-Brit (who spent almost many years living in the UK) — all the rhetoric about emigrating because the UK is supposedly so awful. I come from somewhere with a huge diaspora and spent my life living mostly overseas between the ages of 23 and 50. But I didn’t leave my home country because it was ‘awful’, just because the world is big, and I wanted to see other parts. (I moved back a few years ago and and am enjoying it.)

I don’t recognise the ‘if I emigrate it’s because there’s something wrong with my country of origin’ stance that seems to be the norm on emigration threads on here.

😂👏👏👏

We know someone who went there to work as a maid, Indian. She had many hopes and dreams of a better life. Turns out her passport was kept as soon as she arrived, and she ended up raped by the employer. She came back somehow by contacting her embassy. She's now a shell of herself, being looked after by others as she's in a constant depression. This is the reality.

I'd be asking her whether she doesn't feel guilty making someone work six long days a week for low pay.

I think thats standard across the ME so it's not like shes the only one, and actually her perception is she treats her maid better than most so they are 'lucky' relatively.
I think when you live somewhere it all becomes normalised. I have friends in Dubai who toyed with the idea of getting a second maid so the first can focus on the kids and who have a driver to take the kids to school. Seems absolutely ludicrous here but over there its fairly normal! Objectively for the ex-pat I can see it must be incredible to have all that help and those daily chores covered by someone else and if they pay them the going rate and don't treat them badly I dont judge them as such its just not for me! The cute kids enjoying the safety of the ME are turning into consumerist teens who are a bit obsessed with screens and are very naive when they come over to the UK so it's swings and roundabouts isnt it.