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 signed up for a group which is a 40 minute bus ride away. That was her choice.

Just like it's your choice not to give her a lift.

There is something a little odd/off about people who declare themselves "genuinely nice" ...

'Self praise in no praise'

Just tell the truth, sorry but we often do things before or after the hobby. It’s the only mother and daughter time we get all week, and we really look forward to it. You’re getting a hard time because she’s disabled. They feel sorry for her and are advocating for her. I grew up with a disabled family and people expected me to go above and beyond even as a small child! People don’t want to help but are quite happy to stick it onto the next person! Your time with your daughter is more important than someone you don’t know. Why was the bus fine until she knew you lived close by?! What changed?! I think if I caught them talking about this again I’d ask, I thought you caught the bus? What happened? Listen to her answer. If she says the bus is fine but hoped for a lift back just explain, we don’t go straight home as we like to spend time together. This stops her offering to join in for the lift.

Exactly this, she had no intention of getting public transport every week, non drivers are very good at this tactic I’ve noticed over the years.

Absolutely this. I’m disabled myself and worked in disability support as an outreach worker.

I came across quite a few people who knew exactly how to use their disability to manipulate and guilt trip others to get their own way - often trying to use the same tactics with me, as their support worker, simply because I’m disabled and ‘l get it’.

Well no. No one else is responsible for your disability and it’s up to you to make yourself as independently mobile and self reliant as you can. While it’s good to be able to offer help if you’re willing and l would help in a heartbeat someone genuinely struggling in a given situation, it should never be an expectation on the part of the disabled person that they are entitled to impose on others in the way OP describes, just because they have a disability.

Yes others need to chip in and offer lifts too.

But none of them are - surely that is the point? They are badgering and bullying the OP but no one else is offering to help! Not with their own car or for taxi
money 🙄

These something off about some who sees the negative in everything .
have the day you deserve 😀

It's not the 'just' getting into the back of the car and then getting out again that is the problem - it's the 40 minutes each way that their private vehicle then becomes not private.

You make it sound like somebody has given them a bag to pop in the boot and asked them to bring it over when they come; a human isn't like that.

Plus, how do you even know that she would get in the back? She's disabled (in some way), quite likely a more similar age to OP than her DD and is clearly of an entitled mindset, so my money would be on her 'needing' the front passenger seat.

A mother and daughter who could previously spend valued time together just the two of them, sit next to each other and chat, laugh and listen to their choice of music, audiobook or whatever in their private vehicle now have to lose this treasured opportunity because other people - who don't have to lose that for themselves - have decreed that they must.

Do you drive? If so, how often do you drive through town and stop to invite a passer-by to 'just sit in the back' if you're going in a similar direction to them, and 'be kind'?

Awkward op but I find if you do it once.. can nobody else take her. Could you say no you go direct from work to there. My colleague like that does not drive..

There appears to be lots of bullies on this thread as well. OP is under no obligation to give this woman a lift, nor should she have to leave the group. If you want to offer your services to ferry others around then that’s entirely your prerogative but don’t guilt trip others who don’t want to.

The fact that the CF is trying to turn the rest of the group against the OP shows that she is incredibly manipulative.

I have a tiny two seater and a love of Slipknot played very loudly. I suggest you try it @DanceUnderStars

That is a massive reach.

You are being spiteful.

As someone who cannot drive I loathe the issue of lifts. It isn’t something you can ever offer to other people.
And many who do have a car and can drive have no, and I mean no concept of life without a car. The inability to ‘pop’ anywhere yourself. To just go shopping at the drop of a hat. To visit other places or people. By yourself. Ever. To offer lifts to other people. You live differently to other people.
Everything has to be planned. If public transport is not very regular and reliable you can find yourself in all weathers, sun, rain, wind, hot, freezing etc standing there waiting.
The lady who does not drive in the group may have been driven to ask out of understanding the sheer ease of getting a lift comparative to not. Not because she wants to be annoying. Someone may have suggested she ask.
She is unlikely to want to be anywhere where she is unwelcome. And you don’t know if others at the group are making a meal out of the lack of lift more than she is.
Don’t give her a lift. She would hate to feel obliged to you. And you do use the time for your chats to your daughter. And don’t want that time to be spoilt.

This isn't "the right thing to do", though. She's capable of getting there.

It's a massive favour for a stranger. She'd like a lift because, obviously, it's nicer for her. But if it's not nicer for the person being pressured into doing it that's just a transfer of their happiness to her happiness. Why on earth do you think avoiding that would make someone a wanker?

How old is your DD @DanceUnderStars ? The only time my teenager will open up and tell me anything personal or meaningful is when we are 1:1 in the car. Something about sitting side-by-side not looking at each other creates a "safe" space where barriers to communication are easier to overcome. I wouldn't give up that precious opportunity for any money. It's not about being "nice" when you are being railroaded into sacrificing something you value. "Nice" is possible when it doesn't cost you anything, like how it costs @Howyoudoings and the other members of your group nothing at all to criticise and pretend when nothing is being asked of them.

I remember a thread on here in which OP declined to give a new work colleague a lift and HR became involved asking the OP to do the lifts!!

Although hobby woman is a cf, I think I would be inclined to offer the occasional lift if I wanted to maintain good feeling with the group. I’d feel awful actually if I saw Penny clambering into the bus with a stick as I sailed past in my car.

I’d say, “Look, Penny, I can’t promise anything regular but I’ll message you if we’re not doing a detour.”

I think I’d move on if I were adamant about no lifts. The bonhomie with other group members has clearly now gone down the drain.

It isn’t about being right. I want the time to chat to my daughter and we do want to be able to pop in the supermarket, drop in and see a relative or stop for a coffee or McDonald’s on the way there or back if we fancy it. We would like to continue doing the hobby but we really like the time before and after it being just us.

If it does get to the stage where you've nothing to lose because you've had enough of the sniping and are considering leaving anyway,I'd take paper and pens in and announce that having thought about it "perhaps a lift rota to bring in and take home Deirdre could work well.
So to start,who's volunteering to collect her next week and who's doing the home run? We can't do the next couple of weeks unfortunately but maybe the week after that"
All the snippy comments would totally piss me off to be honest.
What an awkward situation you've been put in by others who have no intention of stepping up to help her themselves but still feel their opinions are valid.

Yes, it's a genuine tactic that many people deliberately use very successfully. Being a victim is a horrible thing; but falsely framing yourself as a victim is an extremely powerful move.

The biggest giveaways that this woman is a CF:

• She didn’t even offer petrol money
• When OP said no, she didn’t accept it gracefully, she keeps discussing it in the group. If someone said no to giving me a lift, I wouldn’t gossip about it with others

💯 very well said

You can definitely tell who the extroverts are... I bet even they still don't keep an open house for any random person who fancies it to pop in whenever, though.

Or even better, Until I get my horrendous 'wind' problem sorted I only carry family with me, the smell's dreadful'

This is it exactly, the people accusing you of being individualistic are denying you your own right to move and act freely.

When you have to factor in a lift to someone else, all those small freedoms of being able to spontaneously do fun things goes away.

Even within families this can be an issue. For example, we often give my mum a lift to family events and have to kibosh spontaneous things like going for dessert because she sleeps so early. But we do it without fuss because she is my mum and I love her.

But to have to curtail your movements because of a stranger who signed up to a group knowing she would need to take a bus or taxi is a completely different kettle of unwanted fish.

This is what I would do

So in your view it’s perfectly acceptable for other hobby members to make it awkward for OP within the group just because she has the nerve not to be manipulated into doing something she doesn’t want to do ?

From experience, this woman has likely signed up to the group with the intention of scoping out where other members live and securing herself a lift. When OP scuppered her plans she discussed it with the rest of the group to enlist their support in putting pressure on OP to change her mind.

It’s manipulative and it’s nasty and the fact that the woman is disabled is irrelevant. She is clearly mobile and capable of using the bus otherwise she wouldn’t have signed up for the group. It’s not on OP or anyone else to try to make things easier for her if it inconveniences them.