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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Not wanting to socialise on holiday..

250 replies

Ditsyprint40 · 22/08/2016 13:47

Being on holiday and wanting to rest and recharge, not make friends with every other holiday maker staying at our resort/hotel etc!

OP posts:
winterinmadeira · 22/08/2016 17:28

Yadnbu - I hate it. I spend my working life talking so why do I want to do it on holiday?

I go away for a week each year with my mum. She loves to talk to other people and can disappear for hours chatting to them. At some point I am introduced to them and expected to make small talk. At which moment I say hello and wander off.

She thinks I'm incredibly rude but I'm like 'do I care?'! It's my holiday and I need to recharge.

CandODad · 22/08/2016 17:28

DW and PIL believe holidays are for meeting people. They regale with stories of "Bob who we met on that holiday that time" etc. etc. etc.

I believe holidays are for chilling or talking to the people you are with (at a stretch). DW can't understand why I wouldn't want to talk to Doreen from Liverpool and her varicose veins or hear about her son who drinks too much.

I did get given a tip from a friend though and that was to never tell them your a teacher. She said she spent years listening to people on holiday telling little Billy that he better be good or the teacher would tell him off.

FarAwayHills · 22/08/2016 17:29

100% antisocial on holiday even the DCs can't be bothered

confuugled1 · 22/08/2016 17:33

Another one who's not bothered about meeting other people on holiday.

We used to go on cruises in the olden days pre kids when we could afford to and it was great. First cruise - we found a little spot on a lower deck with a couple of loungers either side of the door into the bar. We sat on one side, another couple sat on the other side, by the end of the holiday we'd got to be on nodding terms when we arrived/left but that was it. The lady would come out from the bar every half hour or so to see if we wanted more drinks and snacks, so we didn't even need to move to do that. We could sit in the warm but out of direct sun, watching the coast of North Africa go past, read our books, doze, drink, and repeat. Very civilised and relaxing.

We did a couple more including our honeymoon. The latter you didn't need to sit with anyone at dinner but you could if you wanted. The last night when we arrived they were busy so said we could wait for a table for two or if we didn't mind eating with the people in front of us (a couple of old ladies who were both 80+) we could eat now. We decided to be sociable as we were very hungry - and it was a great decision. Despite the massive age gap, they were amazing and had such great tales to tell that we were the last table out of the restaurant (one was an archaeologist who had excavated in Egypt and beyond with Agatha Christie, the other was a sculptress who had also had an amazing life and seemed to have known and partied with everybody in the art world in the late forties and fifties.) Our only regret was that we hadn't met them earlier in the cruise - Egypt was one of our stops so it would have been amazing to have ended up in a group going around the pyramids with them!

So sometimes serendipity smiles and it can be good to talk to others - but for the most part, it can be horrible!

GwendolynPost · 22/08/2016 17:38

We live in a busy, over crowded city so we go on holiday to get away from people.
Luckily we have a villa in the middle of nowhere and tend to eat out in the smaller towns but the kids really wanted to go to Alcudia beach today so we've been doing the anti social British thing!

My parents are the same but MIL considers a holiday wasted if she hasn't made at least six life long friends.

Agree with cand I have friends who are a teacher and GP. When they go away they both invent careers in IT!

CPtart · 22/08/2016 17:59

Another who avoids all that making friends malarkey. I too, spend my working week talking to the general public with enforced politeness, on my hols I just want to sit and read a book. DH thinks I'm unsociable.

SealSong · 22/08/2016 18:02

I've found my people Grin

namechanger456 · 22/08/2016 18:13

Honeymoon. Went to Marrakech. Ex decided to invite people to hang out with us every bloody day. When they found out it was our honeymoon they were mortified. Ex didn't get it as he is "too sociable to sit around with one person even if it's me." Came home to nervous breakdown and eventual divorce.

GiddyOnZackHunt · 22/08/2016 18:18

Before dc I had a made up holiday name I used to use in case anyone tried to become friends.
Bizarrely we do now have holiday friends and the woman has my made up holiday name as her actual name.

MumiTravels · 22/08/2016 18:24

If I wanted to socialise with British people I would have stayed at home.

Iona0911 · 22/08/2016 18:24

We had a stalker on holiday, she was like hey let's push tables together so we can sit together, every morning I would go out to meet boyfriend (who went out to smoke) and she'd be there, boyfriend said to me do you wanna go to the bakery across the road for lunch later, she was like hey sounds like a great idea, I'm up for that, it was a bloody nightmare, spoilt my holiday, my looks obviously weren't a big enough hint to f**k off, she was there 24/7 then got a friends request from her on Facebook when I got home, was like eh no, don't think so

BagelGoesWalking · 22/08/2016 18:30

I can barely tolerate the people I do know, I can't be doing with getting to know more.

So true! I'm also glad it's not only me Grin

youarenotkiddingme · 22/08/2016 18:32

Yanbu.

I am on Majorca ATM. I'm in a multi national hotel, it's AI but it's quite small and always room around pool and sun beds. Never a queue at bar, always seats in bar etc.
It's part of 3 hotels. The other 2 are over the road and their 2 pools are in the middle of the 2 hotels. The sun beds are literally side by side and are being reserved at 7am. I don't think you can avoid getting to know other holiday makes you are sunbathing in their pockets!

I have spoken to a few people staying here and a lovely family who popped into our hotel this morning (sports etc are over here). It's just general chit chat and we go on our way. I cannot understand people that live their holidays by others making arrangements around others.

mrsc118 · 22/08/2016 18:52

I have to be cheery and sociable for work and I'm buggered if I'm going to be sociable on holiday! My husband befriends everyone wherever we go.

nowahousewife · 22/08/2016 18:57

Hardly ever bother with others when in holiday apart from the couple we met 10 yrs ago and have since become v v good friends with. Go away with them for the odd weekend, out for dinner 3-4 times a year...love them!

Keep an open mind, you never know what's around the corner (or the pool!)

AppleSetsSail · 22/08/2016 18:59

I like meeting people on holiday. I get a bit bored 2 or 3 days into a one-week beach holiday and like talking to people other than my husband and children.

oldlaundbooth · 22/08/2016 19:02

Some good points on here, especially to go where the Swedes and Germans go - they are polite and civil but don't make conversation. Or just go out of season but then you'll have to start a thread about crap weather

Forced socializing is my idea of hell.

ForalltheSaints · 22/08/2016 19:06

YANBU. For me it helps that the DP and I can avoid speaking English to the staff in the hotel, so any potential English people trying to make friends are stuck thinking we are not British.

LisaC7 · 22/08/2016 19:06

Hubby and myself have always scoffed at the holidays friends thing but every year we always meet lovely people whom we chat too.

Ghodavies · 22/08/2016 19:07

Please tell me there's a happy medium somewhere.
That some people just have a brief chat and move on??!!
My issue reading all these moaning posts is that everyone is becoming so isolated in their own family unit that the skills of niceties and pleasantry are missing out of people's lives.
I get u don't want to be bff's but isolating just causes half of the problems that are wrong in society!

bibbitybobbityyhat · 22/08/2016 19:08

Eh? hang on a minute!

Yes, Giddy, that is bizarre Grin!

Jjacobb · 22/08/2016 19:12

YANBU, I'm in Zakynthos at the moment. Dh is knackered so has gone up to our room. The DC are all hanging out with their new friends.
I'm sitting with a glass of wine, mumsnet and my best resting bitch face. Hoping no one feels sorry for me and tries to start a conversation because I'm very content sitting here alone.

bibbitybobbityyhat · 22/08/2016 19:12

The last time we got chatting to someone on holiday, it was in a restaurant in Lisbon. We were sat next to an American couple who seemed to be pleased to hear English voices. We exchanged a few pleasantries and then the Mr half of the American couple tried to get dh engaged in a conversation about fekking Top Gear! Hmm. He felt (and said as much) that this was the UK's greatest export.

rugbychick1 · 22/08/2016 19:14

I hate it too!

Piscivorus · 22/08/2016 19:16

I'm probably in the middle, happy to be polite within reason and share the odd drink but no desire at all to see people ever again.

What I do object to though is antisocial people who are happy to send their children off to spend time with their new friends and their families without ever returning that favour. On a holiday a few years back we acquired a boy, same age as DS (around 11 or 12), whose parents went to the beach each day, leaving him in the hotel as, and I quote, "he'd be bored with them". One year SIL and BIL went away with a group of friends and found 2 extra children with theirs every evening whose parents stayed on their balcony with a nice bottle of wine and never once spoke to them!

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