People expecting lifts

[DanceUnderStars]

I do a hobby once a week with my daughter that we have to drive about 40 minutes to get to. My daughter lives with me and we share the driving.

A new woman has joined the group about 3 months ago, who it turns out lives a 5 minutes drive from us, on our route to the hobby. She doesn’t drive and gets the bus to the group.

She has now found out she lives near us and has asked if we can give her a lift. Neither of us want to do it as we don’t really like this woman and we also like having the time to have a good chat and catch up on the journey. Although we live together, with my husband and son as well, we are both busy so it’s nice to have that time each week to talk. We also occassionally don’t go straight to or home after the hobby, but most of the time we do.

We have said no but are now getting some comments from other members of the group that it’s a shame we won’t help her. I have shut them down and changed the subject but people keep suggesting we should help her and we are being unreasonable. She started the group knowing she’d have to use public transport so I don’t really have much sympathy, I’m pissed off with the comments. Last week when we walked in, a group including this woman were talking about the possibility of us giving her a lift with one woman saying she doesn’t see why we won’t. It’s really awkward.

How would you handle it? We have said no, explained we like to use it as a catch up, we don’t always go straight to and from the hobby, but they’re still going on about it.

She could have asked nicely but no, she tried to boss you, what strange manners. Out of principle when people try and be pushy, they get a big fat no can do from me.

She’s been told no and now is bitching and complaining about op despite being told nicely no and why! No one owes this woman a lift and she isn’t entitled to anything from
op!!

I'd leave the class - I;d find the whole situation so awkward and I wouldn't want to give her a lift after she'd tried to railroad me - but I'd feel judged and uncomfortable. Unfortunately "no" is often not enough.

"What actually happened......." Goodness, it's strange how this woman seems to get more and more awful with every posting.

Just keeping saying you don't go straight from home and back home sorry. It will pass eventually

I’d say to her which part of NO do you not understand??? You are extremely rude and entitled and we’ve explained several times why we don’t want to give you a lift but you are still badmouthing us and bitching about us behind our back!

She wasn't asked to give an occasional lift, she was asked to take her there and back every week.
How can she say "oh, I'll take you once a month, but the rest of the time you need to make your own way."? If she can take her once a month, she can take her every week - why not?

An occasional lift is someone who can usually make their own way to something - liftshare /their own car/whatever or a one-off occasion. I'd happily step in in that case as most people would.

I'm curious if there are posters on this thread who take someone they don't know that well (or maybe don't like) every single week to a course and that it's all going really well.

Report, don't troll hunt.

The mn army are rooting for you.

Shamelessly looking forward to tonight’s update.

Neither did an upfront offer of being "happy to chip in with petrol money" by the looks of it.
It doesn't change the situation as it is but it would have shown willing.

If the woman had been polite and was asking for an occasional lift, she may have had better luck. Instead she expects a lift every week and didn’t even ask in a polite way.

My mum got stuck years ago giving someone a lift every day to work. They agreed my mum would pick her up at the end of the other woman’s road which was a 5 minute walk for the woman. The woman started off waiting at the end of the road on time when my mum came, but gradually she’d be later and later with my mum having to wait. The woman kept pushing for my mum to pick her up from her house saying she wouldn’t be late then, cheeky cow. When she made my mum late for work the second time my mum refused to do it anymore. The woman tried to turn people against my mum and it turned really unpleasant. My mum was a real people pleaser and it affected her a lot.
Give these types an inch….

I’d ignore the MN posters. Yes, the same MN posters who recently had a go at a woman who was uncomfortable with another school mum’s request to have unlimited access to her garden and pool (even when she’s not home). Apparently she’s unreasonable for not wanting half of the neighbourhood running in and out of her back garden/pool all summer carte blanche. Madness on MN.

As is so often the case, the Kindliest MNkeyboard hyper virtue signallers seem remarkably ready to exhibit unkind, fixated and unempathetic traits towards those they deem unworthy.

I think in light of your update if anything is said in terms of lifts tonight I’d tackle head on and said no it doesn’t work for you. Julie signed up knowing she’d be using public transport. We’ve been coming 2 years and enjoying class but frankly it’s making us feel very harassed. If anyone else wants to offer Julie a lift it’s up to them but we won’t be and I’d appreciate it if it’s not mentioned again.

Valuable lesson for your uni age dd. My dad’s catchphrase was tell em nowt. Don’t tell randomers info like your address or occupation.

I think most people would try to keep the peace and not say their real view on this woman to be fair to the OP. It also does sound as though OPs main reason for not wanting to help is for the time with her child

Even if Op liked the woman she doesn’t want to have a commitment every week and that’s absolutely fine. It’s very tying. 80 mins is a huge chunk of time to have someone in car weekly. All they can do is chit chat not discuss things. My dc would use it as a chance to discuss Uni options for next year or travel plans or careers stuff with me. You can’t do that with Julie sat there.
It sounds like Op and her dd has a nice arrangement. It’s nice some weeks to come home after an crappy day at work and say should we go early tonight and get food beforehand. They lose all that spontaneity. They’d have to remember to text Julie to say no lift and it would be too late for her to get bus.
Or after class just decide to pop in somewhere on a whim as they drive past.
When you are mum of a young adult daughter your time together is very precious.
Don’t let it spoil your evenings.

No child. And the woman signed up to an activity in the full knowledge she would be travelling by public transport.

Or did she sign up thinking ‘I’ll get someone there to drive me once I get to know them” which is defo CF territory/

Are they the exact same, as in same posting names?

I would probably drop this hobby group and find a new one. It sounds a little stressful from the atmosphere to having to listen to endless moaning about lifts from this woman and then others who attend.

When I was early 20s and had gotten a car I would drive to work which was 10 minutes away. A woman who worked with me and was on her 40s at the time (probably similar age I am now), started to call me to ask for a lift. She tried to pin down an arrangement where I would taxi her to and from work. I told her I wasn’t able to and my main reason actually was quite selfish maybe to many, I just didn’t want to share my space. I wanted to leave for work at whatever time I fancied, blast music, go to Maccas or just drive around, as having a car finally was a huge novelty for me. I can’t imagine now in my 40s badgering somebody half my age for a lift.

Absolutely. Ive given plenty of people lifts over the years- to and from work nights out whilst they got hideously drunk and I stayed stone cold sober- yeah that was super fun 🙄. Ive driven people to courses, to and from work when they begged me to help them, given them lifts to social groups, drove one girl to our mutual university every day for 4 years. I can count on three fingers the amount of times I was thanked and offered petrol money! The rest of the time they just acted as if I was their designated taxi driver -as if I owed it to them.

Well, no more. It's rude AF. I refuse to do it any more, ive done my time and I didnt spend a year learning to drive, paying for lessons, paying for a car and its hefty maintenance, paying for petrol etc to be taken advantage of by someone who barely knows me, doesnt give a shit about me, who considers it my responsibility to act as their bloody chauffeur when they can barely even be bothered to muster up a "thank you".

Nope.

At least read the OP's posts properly before you jump in and start snapping and snarling, Jesus wept. 🙄

I’m guessing no other attendees are offering lifts, are you sure none of them live in your direction?

There was a woman at primary who was given lifts by another parent non stop. The parent then moved away. She clearly thought I was going to take on this role as taxi on call and used to ring me at work because she wanted to go shopping! I was always conveniently unavailable unfortunately for her so she did eventually give up, but not for months.

She did eventually sign up to an activity and another parent started driving them. She started being very late and then tried to get them to take her child so she could stay home. They had to stop the lifts. She then moved onto another parent…

I dunno. It feels abit mean to dislike someone for no valid reason.

i can see that’s not what the op is doing in this case, but yeah.

But would others try to guilt-trip them the way OP is being guilt-tripped if they said no? I suspect not...