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.

These threads can be like Chinese whispers. People interpret something one way and it then becomes a fact. Which others then pick up and go with.

I’d be tempted to email teacher and just say Julie demanded a lift a few weeks back. It’s not possible and you’ve been very clear you can’t help but it being repeatedly mentioned is making you and dd not look forward to the class and you have enjoyed coming for the last 2 years.
Teacher could send email saying if you can’t attend let me know directly and transport to and from class is down to each individual.
If you do leave (and I don’t think you should) teacher has been given opportunity to stop it.
Other way is to be as rhino skinned as them and just run with premise meddler who read our text is giving lifts. Oh it’s a shame Marion didn’t get you Julie she said she was sorting a rota between her and Sheila last week.

Well done OP!! I’d love to have seen their faces :)

Keep bringing up the rota including to the CF herself. I’d flag to the teacher that you’re starting to get harassed now and see if they can send a message round….

great idea!

The woman sounds horrible, I'm so glad you didn't give in. I totally understand why you don't want to give her a lift! She is incredibly rude.
I hope you and your daughter continue to go to the class and enjoy your chats going there and back!
I think the group trying to bully you into it and I'm pleased it hasn't worked!

I think it would be better to keep the teacher out of it. She now knows what is going on because the message was read out in front of her. It would be very difficult for her to do anything without exploding the class which is presumably at least a part of her income.
"but it being repeatedly mentioned is making you and dd not look forward to the class and you have enjoyed coming for the last 2 years."

This actually sounds a bit like a threat ("do something or I will leave") and I am not sure what the OP would do if the teacher replied "well I'd be sorry to see you go but you have to do what you want....."

It sounds to me like the OP and her daughter have this handled.

Yes, sadly - 100% this. To a great many able-bodied people, disabled folk are just liars/exaggerators, moaners, lazy scroungers OR utterly helpless, useless pity-cases, who are 'disabled enough' for them to adjudge them as 'genuine'.

Most people frame circumstances and experiences as they affect them and just cannot comprehend that they may be very, very different for others. You see it all the time on MN, where somebody will start a thread about a significant problem that they encounter regularly and others will come on and say "Well, that's never happened to ME - so you must be making it up this must be AI slop started by bots".

I always wonder why freeloading CFs usually don't even pretend to be nice people and thus those whom others might actually want to help. I guess they'd just see it as a sign of weakness and them conceding ground, though, when their whole system revolves around them being in charge and calling the shots.

At the end of the day she can and has used the bus to get to class - there is absolutely no need for any kind of rota. She signed up for the class with the expectation of using the bus so if she doesn't want to when it's so hot then that's on her. This has only come about because she now thinks there is a better alternative. Stay strong. If the others want to pander to her then that's on them.

Wow this seems like an extreme CF with enablers.

Well done for standing your ground. This is kind of thing - as you can see from other posts - that bullies people out of groups and classes.

If anything’s said next week, I’d enquire about the rota her friends were looking into as, like you’ve previously said, you can’t help with lifts.

if anything was said the following week I’d be incredibly direct: “Mary, you signed up for a class 40 mins from home knowing you don’t drive and would have to take public transport to get here. You asked directly and were told no. You’ve asked indirectly through other group members and were still told no. The answer isn’t going to change and it’s getting tiresome hearing about it week after week. Let’s put this issue to bed and focus on enjoying the class”

I think people who have never driven have little concept of costs or inconvenience - in fact the whole caboodle. Dm never drove, and neither did mil. Neither ever helped with navigation, or even looking out for a parking spot. Both would sit there like the Queen of Sheba.

After df died dm (not old at the time) refused ever to take public transport or a taxi. She was a bit of a lift cf, actually, expecting to be driven everywhere - not just by me but by anyone and everyone. I did order a taxi for her once and she burst into tears.

Teacher may not know the full extent though.
I think it’s better to give teacher a heads up rather than just leave and her lose 2 longstanding paying customers.

100% this
CF will always push again and again and enlist others to back them up
They do not respect the boundaries of others, neither do the be nice crew

That is your red flag waving right there
Op played a blinder with the rota 😂

Cf are Cf because they dod demand and coerce.
Asking people favours or for help is fine. Demanding others dance to our tune and bitching about them when you don't get your own way is what makes these types of people arseholes. Their whole modus operandi is to be disrespectful and entitled, it's a power thing.

Yesss! 🤣

At this point they’ve been so out of order I’d be dropping them right in it.

At next class, Id be saying that last week her two friends were discussing a lift rota to help her- isn’t that kind of them! 🤭

Give them a taste of their own medicine

Well done for sticking to your guns & your DD for also standing up for herself & you!
what a bunch of cheeky mares & so predictable that the most vocal wouldn’t actually step up themselves 🙄

Yes and then it switches round to them being the victim who the OP is persecuting by not going along with their plan. It’s infuriating.

Lol at ‘your pro CF’😂😂😂

oh I am sure they know.

No but it puts the onus back on the enablers. They then become the meanies rather than OP.

I think it’s a brilliant plan to treat the rota as a fait accompli OP.

The friend she texted to say she wasn’t coming didn’t offer her a lift then either …….

I do agree - they are all being played by a manipulative CF,

And if you do push ahead with the suggestion of a rota (including all of the people who wanted her to get a lift but not with them), don't forget to mention the costs - don't let CF woman off the hook, whilst others are left to find a solution for her.

Talk about it as a given that all the money she was expecting to regularly spend in bus fares when she signed up to the class will naturally be handed by her to any lift-givers as her contribution towards fuel. And if she cavils that she gets free bus travel, or that it's already included in the weekly/monthly pass that she's paid for anyway... well, that settles it that it would be utterly mad to spend money on extra fuel when it's already free for her on the bus, wouldn't it - terrible shame to waste the pass and not get her money's worth?!

I was about to post to say this too. If the pressure continues at the next class I would have a quiet word with the teacher at the end, explain what’s going on and say if it continues you’ll be forced to quit the class. It’s progressed through bullying to harassment and it needs shutting down altogether. Perhaps the teacher can help with that if the alternative is losing members of the group.