to be absolutely staggered by my friend's total utter selfishness and re-considering our friendship?!

[EmmyMaz]

Friend X's brother has a terminal illness and has not got long to live. Friend X is doing lots of fundraising / campaigning to raise awareness of this illness. I said I would support Friend X with his efforts.

I therefore (very politely) asked a few of my closest friends (including friend Y) if they would be willing to do a couple of very very small things to assist with the awareness-raising campaign. What I asked them to do is something that will literally take 5 or 10 minutes of their time and will not cost them anything financially. I have not asked for their money, just 5 or 10 minutes of their time.

Friend Y responded to me in an email saying "I do not have time for this". When I read her response I was absolutely stunned, I cannot believe she could be so selfish not to spare ten minutes of her time to help a really really important cause and also to help me, her friend.

Also, it is worth adding that Friend Y is not a very busy person, she only works part time and has lots of support with her DD from her Mum who looks after her, so I know for a fact she does have the time! She is always getting her nails done and getting her fake tan done so she is hardly too busy to spare 5 minutes for a really important cause.

I won't bore you with the details, but over the last few years I have spent hours upon hours of my time helping Friend Y with various things. I cannot believe her selfishness and quite frankly do not feel like speaking to her at the moment.

She is normally quite a sweet and kind person (although can be a bit self-absorbed in some ways) and has been there for me though some difficult times, so I am totally shocked by this.

AIBU to be really angered by this and actually to be re-considering our friendship?

But Rhubarb, you may not mind if people ignore your requests on Facebook but some people (like the OP) clearly do and will judge you for it. As it happens these days I tell people that I'm not on Facebook very often purely to excuse the fact that I am not reposting 'important information' or 'being one of the people that a 'friend' knows will respond to some piece of bollocks. And yes I 'do know who I am' thanks.

Apocalypse I did not mean to patronise so there is no need for the sarky reply. I hoped that you would come to see that not everyone who donates to charity is some kind of annoying do-gooder who only supports charity in order to self promote.

Those people are around and my mother is one of them. Everyone knows about her good causes and how much she goes out of her way to help others. She's had her reward tenfold already.

But there are other reasons which make such promotion so useful and that is the awareness of serious issues like Malala Yousufzai and also to spread the word for more donations.

If you don't tell people about fundraisers then those who would gladly donate don't get the chance to.

It's a fine-line between self promotion and honestly doing all you can to raise both funds and awareness.

I'm sure you still don't agree, just do me the courtesy of not being quite so sarcastic in your reply.

I agree with apocolypse

atthewelles yes yes. I don't often carry change with me and when doing a food shop I pay by card. I could see the boy scout was offering to pack bags and I could see he was getting disheartened by the refusals. So I decided that I would say yes and I would get the cashier to change the fiver I had into pound coins so that I could drop one into his pot.

He packed a few things, I paid by card and when the till popped open as it always does I asked the cashier if she could change my fiver, explaining that I wanted to give him a couple of quid. She refused, saying it wasn't policy. I explained again, asking very nicely and telling her that I only had a fiver and it would make for an expensive bag packer if I gave him that. She just stared at me blankly, as did the people behind who were listening. He had shuffled off looking embarrassed so what else could I do? He got a fiver and I left feeling pissed off.

"So you ask someone what they would like as a gift, you say "ooo a donation that has a cause which is very close to my heart", and someone then decides you are spending their money for them (after they ask you what you want) and decide not to do anything instead"

it is DIFFERENT when it is a charity request, because just as someone can feel passionately about a charity for personal reasons, someone else can feel passionately AGAINST that charity for personal reasons too. I know someone who had really negative experiences of a local hospice that a lot of people fund raise for for example, so being asked to contribute to that is going to provoke a stronger reaction and desire not to than a couple saying that they prefer homebase to john lewis vouchers if asked what gift they want!

I did agree with you olde further on...

I have to agree merlin. If a friend asked me to release a balloon I might be a bit but if it was obviously important to them and they were a good friend I'd just do it.
If, for some reason, it wasn't practical I would explain why I couldn't do it and wouldn't just give a peremptory refusal.

If a mate asks you to help by doing something that doesn't actually help anyone and you disagree with for enviromental reasons and isn't even for the person who asked, its for the brother of the friend of a friend then you should do it anyway because someone asked? Really

Oh yes, people can have bad experiences of charities. I know I read some reasearch about a sudden death charity doing experiments on babies to discover what happens when they stop breathing. I was very shocked and so when someone asked me to support something they were doing for that charity, although they had very good personal reasons for supporting them I just couldn't and it was very difficult to explain why, as you can imagine.

I think the moral of this thread is not to judge but to actually grow some balls and just ask her why she doesn't feel she can help with this issue.

As demonstrated in these posts, she may have very valid reasons for not responding to you in the way you would like.

Just because you have put yourself on a pedestal it does not mean that you should expect others to now drop everything and bow down to you. For all you know, your friend could actually be very generous with her donations and just doesn't feel the need to publicise her charitable side.

This thread has made a little sad now about those who do try and raise money. I find it interesting that Apocalypse has called the OP judgey when she herself judges those who raise money.

Do we all really just go around judging one another without realising how hypocritical we are being?

If a mate asks for help, you help. Er, that's it

No, I disagree. I use my own conscience to decidde what I do. I don't just blindly agree to and obey every request a 'mate' makes. It's unwise to unquestioningly follow orders from others, just because they are 'a mate'.

I hoped that you would come to see that not everyone who donates to charity is some kind of annoying do-gooder who only supports charity in order to self promote.

You say you're not trying to be patronising, but you're assuming that I don't know what people who do charity think of themselves. In reality, you've got to know that we all do know why you're doing what you do in your eyes, and while people can see that on one level, on another you feel free to speak to adults as though we were dim four year olds and then get all huffy when we don't appreciate it. It's exactly that kind of attitude - that you know best and if others just understood they'd agree with you because it's so obvious that you're right and good - that drives people insane.

if it was a good friend wouldn't the OP reply with some concern about why the friend sounded so addled/overwhelmed?

@merlin probably more than the number of friends the OP will have if she throws a stop everytime her friends fail to jump every time she tells them to.

I hate 'raising awareness' type stuff.

I don't think it raises awareness at all.

I would find releasing a balloon pretty pointless.

Merlin if your friend told you they were chucking crisp packets and coke cans all over britain to raise awareness for an illness that a friend of theirs brother suffered and asked you to do it from would you?

I think the OP is getting a very hard time. If I asked a good friend to do something that was important to me and they said 'Sorry, no, because x,y or z' then that would be fair enough.
But if they just said 'No, I haven't time' I would be taken aback.

I havne't got time is a reason though.

"You say you're not trying to be patronising, but you're assuming that I don't know what people who do charity think of themselves. In reality, you've got to know that we all do know why you're doing what you do in your eyes, and while people can see that on one level, on another you feel free to speak to adults as though we were dim four year olds and then get all huffy when we don't appreciate it. It's exactly that kind of attitude - that you know best and if others just understood they'd agree with you because it's so obvious that you're right and good - that drives people insane. "

I have no idea what you are talking about now. You clearly are reading something in my posts that is not there. I don't think I have spoken to you like a 4 year old, I don't know best and I certainly never thought you would just agree with me. I don't think I am right and good at all and I don't believe I have said this.

That was not the point of my posts at all. I have a feeling that no matter what I post, you will read into that what you will. I am seriously not a self-promoter and actually left my role as fundraiser for the British Red Cross because I just wasn't cut out for it. It also opened my eyes to the way money was spent in charities (on expenses, hire cars, pointless meetings, huge salaries for bosses) and I disagreed with it.

I did say that I agreed with you on some points and not on others. I still do but I reckon (hope) you've got my posts all wrong. For all I know, you could have secretly donated thousands to local charities and for all you know, I could be a raving hypocrite who loves to force her dd into fundraising against her will just to get into the papers. See I'm not blind to what people might think. But then most people love being judgemental and most are just wrong.

But if they just said 'No, I haven't time' I would be taken aback.

Why, though? Isn't 'No, I haven't time' a good enough reason? Asking someone to do something is just that - a request. They aren't obliged to comply for any reason at all, and they don't owe an explantion that you would consider adequate.

They certainly don't deserve to be called totally and utterly selfish and to be defriended for not toeing the line.

Got many mates, Scarlet?

Yeh, plenty thanks. Question for you;

Do you think having mates depends on doing everything they ask you?

@everlong but there are children with cancer all the time. Presumably adults will have decided whether or not that is a cause that they want to support.

Why should a friend's friend's brother's suffering affect how much you were going to do for a particular cause? Most adults have considered the possibility that there is suffering, injustice, illness and death in the world.

There are a million worthy causes in the world, lots of injustice, you can't emotionally blackmail people into agreeing with you on the worth of every single cause.