Random woman paid for customers coffee

[TheoriginalLEM]

A gentleman came into the cafe and ordered a latte. He was a bit doddery and scruffy and was counting his money from money bags (checking he had enough i think). another customer paid for his coffee when she settled her bill for no reason.

AIBU to think this was patronising and embarrassing for the man? Maybe he just doesnt carry much cash but is perfectly able to pay for his own coffee

FFS are you really that hard of thinking Garlic? I have never said people shouldn't offer help. All I have said is that people actually think for a few seconds about the recipient. Unless you are completely devoid of empathy you don't need to ask people, just make a judgement call.

LEM asked if some people might feel embarrassed or patronised by being given money by a random stranger. I said they might, and explained why, given my personal experience.

As a result I've been called jaded, ungrateful, bitching, miserable, lacking in kindness, having a chip on my shoulder and, of course, that my feelings and experience are irrelevant. You are negating the views and experience of disabled people because they don't fit your world view. We should just accept your charity, put on a brave face and act grateful

I dunno about that, Bears. I'm disabled people too. I'm leaving this now, it's a pointless dispute.

No, it's not pointless.

I meant I see I cannot persuade you that RAKs are not "charity", patronising or condescending. You are entitled to your view, of course, and I'm entitled to mine.

I will not accept there's anything wrong with random acts of generosity.

OK, final post You are negating the views and experience of disabled people

Bollocks. I'm disagreeing with your personal view.

You don't speak for everyone with disabilities. You sure as hell don't speak for me.

I haven't 'insulted' you yet, but now I'll say it's incredibly arrogant of you to assume the right to speak for everybody.

I never claimed to speak for all disabled people. You are negating the views of me and other disabled people on this thread. So I stand by what I said.

Also, for the 50th time I have NEVER said there is anything wrong with random acts of kindness, other than that if you don't care about the impact on the other person then it is more about you than them.

I agree that the dispute is pointless. If you can't understand that I am talking about singling people out rather than random acts of kindness we will never agree.

Someone paid for my supermarket shopping when my card was declined once. I did have money in my account but the card machine wasn't working and I didn't have any cash on me. I could have gone to the cash point but I was in a rush and had my baby with me in a buggy. And I was so grateful and happy. I offered to take his address and pay him back but he didn't want me to. He felt good, I felt good. I think your intentions were lovely and I don't think you did anything wrong.

My son is disabled ......he has had kind people help him when he has got anxious and got in a muddle on public transport. I hate the fact that another young person may not get a bit of kindness when in a public place because the person who could have helped them decided not to after reading some of the comments on this thread.

Perhaps Bear if you hadn't tried to hijack the thread with moans about someone misguidedly pushing your chair and likening it to the standard RAoK the rest of us were discussing you wouldn't have been so misunderstood. On the bright side you can be fairly confident no one who has read this thread would knowingly dare buy you a random cup of coffee so every cloud has a silver lining :)

Wow trafalgargal are you this unpleasant in real life when someone disagrees with you?

bears come over here and stand with me. I get you, as does the OP and several others.

Listsandbudgets so glad that lady spoke to you

I have no strong opinions on the original issue posted, but funny how a reverse thread usually gets the OP ripped to shreds. Unless it's a long-term poster, and then it's all 'hugs' and 'how lovely of you'.

I think it's a bit sad that LEM has now said she's never do that for a disabled person. RAK's should include everyone!, also thers no way of knowing who's disabled!

Bear I can completely understand that it could become very pattronising to be targeted frequently, it's really hard to know where a line should be drawn. My experience of disability is that of hidden disability where I've spent time desperatey wishing that someone would notice that I need a seat, or that I'm struggling. I hear what you're saying about "othering" and thinking about the target of an act of kindness.

I just wish we could all be kind to each other wthout the need to question why. And surely the reason for LEM's writing this thread is in part due to anxiety which can be a disabilty in it's own right.

YAB TOTALLY U. It's just an act of kindness.

Just think Proteus, 10 years from now this could be you. if you were actually a consistently nice poster

Oddly enough, 'beING on the receiving end of some hypocritical arse-licking on Mumsnet' isn't on my list of long-term ambitions.

Well this is going well

Perhaps we should all just try and be kind to each other

I think Bears is completely correct in saying take the time to think about how the recipient would feel before undertaking a RAK, and be prepared for them not to accept it. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm sure we all agree, otherwise the RAK is performed solely for the giver's benefit and not the recipient's.

And it's nothing like offering your seat to a disabled person - that's just the baseline normal behaviour rather than an act of kindness, surely?

In fairness; the reverse was ridiculous and she should have been pulled up on it just like another poster would have been.

This is why MN is accused of being cliquey and unpleasant to newbies.

If it hadn't been LEM she'd have been torn a new one.

Anyway, I would have thought it was a no brainer that it was just a nice thing to do. Obviously not.

Every day is a school day.

Of course not. None of us like setting unrealistic goals.

I like random acts of kindness and believe in 'paying it forward'. It's true, nobody does these things for completely altruistic reasons - even a warm fuzzy feeling that you've helped someone in some way is a form of pay back.

I've given all day travel cards I no longer need to people struggling with luggage or looking lost at King's Cross, given away unspent parking tickets, stopped to offer help to broken down motorists etc. I figure if I was in a bad situation it would be nice if someone did the same for me. Unfortunately when my car had broken down on 2 occasions not a single person offered help to move my car to a safer place. But I'll continue to do it for others.

Look, if Poster 1 (known by loads of people on the site, supportive to many over many years, unlikely to say something mean) posts "something controversial", people are going to react very differently from Poster 2 (unknowable element on a site being overrun by trolls).

That's not "cliquey" that's just how relationships, including online ones, work. I'm not MN royalty by any means but it's annoying to see this shit all the time.

I'm serious - give it 10 years with one username somewhere and you'll get the same level of trust. which is how long term trolls work but let's just skip that for now

Len I've just read this and it's amused me no end that, by reversing this, you've had to call yourself a random woman!

Don't get caught doing the all day travel card thing - the station people get very cross.

I think Bears makes a completely reasonable point and is just asking for people to think a little. The random acts stuff is great but that's not actually what Lem did, it was a targeted thing. I don't think she did anything wrong actually but I understand why she was a bit worried and can see the dilemma.