Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

to abandon my “friend” in her deepest hour of need?

149 replies

NotSureThisIsWhatIWant · 22/02/2018 21:56

To cut the story short, we both were academics when young, we both became SAHMs when our children were born, we both split from our exes when our children were young and we both had found it very difficult to get back to our previous careers.

After the split, and due to our low income, we both ended in receipt of tax credits. I saw tax credits as something that I should move on from as quickly as I could, just a bit of help to get back on my feet while I was raising a child alone with a low income. I have worked and continue to work very hard and very often long hours to try to stop this dependance on tax credits.

She saw tax credits as her right, choose to work from home in sporadic jobs and rely on tax credits, child maintenance and house benefit fully as her most important regular income.

Over the years she has been belittling the admin jobs I have taken, saying that she wouldn’t lower herself to do “such kind of shit and bad paid jobs”.

But now, with her children over 18, her tax credits, child maintenance and other benefits have come to an end. Naturally, she is struggling, feels the state took advantage of her by “using her while she was a mother and discarding her as dirt now that her children are adults”. She is still the entitled git that can complain about the lack of money, the unfairness with benefits and other stuff but she still refuses to get a proper job and insists in doing her shopping in Waitrose.

She complains about not being able to get the kind of job she wants, but if you try to offer her jobs she always says that she is too busy, is not convenient or doesn’t like it. She sits at home all day long but won’t pick up or return calls.

Suddenly out of the blue (as usual), she contacted me last week and asked to meet for a coffee. I said yes. She texted me earlier to say that her car has not passed the MOT last week and she has no money to sort the car, so she has no way to get to Waitrose to get food for the week, that she is terrified to be found at home without food as low temperatures are expected and she is afraid it may snow. She says I should pick her up from her house, drive her to Waitrose and we should have a coffee at the Waitrose cafe before I return her to her home. (She doesn’t even live near me).

I have said I’m too busy (I am, I have clocked 50 hrs this week and it is not even Friday!) and suggested she ordered from a supermarket online.

She has replied saying that it is too expensive for her to have her food delivered as she only needs a few fresh vegetables so can I take her to Waitrose please?

I guess I just need a rant (I’m not replying to messages anymore) How can people be so bloody entitled?

OP posts:
ToHullAndBack · 22/02/2018 22:44

She will probably expect you to pay for said vegetables and the rest of the food she can't afford because she has "forgotten" her purse or some such crap.

Dear me, you have to live within your means, I'm bloody terrible with money but I shop at Asda/Tesco and don't take the P out of anyone.

I even manage to go on the bus if needed.

This woman is clearly trying to live a champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget ( Waitrose lemonade of course ) Grin

Cheeky mare.

JeffreyNeedsAHobby · 22/02/2018 22:45

Also not sure why she needed a mechanic if she needs lifts?

NotSureThisIsWhatIWant · 22/02/2018 22:47

“Sorry, I’m poor and need to work. I can’t afford to be a free taxi service.”

I think I am sending that back... Hmm

OP posts:
SteamyBeignets · 22/02/2018 22:51

Oh and try not to have a pop at those claiming tax credits. Düe to ridiculously abysmally low salaries. Some people have no choice. I'm going to be honest. It seems like you look down your nose at her.

Are you for real? She belittled OP and looked down on her job? Wouldnt even shop at Asda or Lidl. Bin her!

JeffreyNeedsAHobby · 22/02/2018 22:52

Bin the thread.
With tomorrow's fish and chips in it, more likely.

Mxyzptlk · 22/02/2018 22:54

This isn't her "deepest hour of need". She can shop at one of those other stores that are near her.

Longhairmightcare · 22/02/2018 22:58

You’re obviously meant to pay for the shopping once she’s got you there.

That’s why she won’t do online/get the bus/cycle/walk.

SoftSheen · 22/02/2018 22:59

Waitrose do free delivery, so there's no good reason for her needing a lift...

I would suggest a compromise, where you get her the vegetables she requires, but from your regular supermarket and on a day that you were planning to go anyway (assuming you don't shop on-line). Also, she needs to give you the cash up-front.

NotSureThisIsWhatIWant · 22/02/2018 23:04

Softsheen, do you really think I have the time to go and buy the vegetables she needs and drive them to her house to enable her to be sitting on her arse all day?

Nah, that doesn’t sound like something I would do for a person that is perfectly able to do that on her own... nope.

OP posts:
ReanimatedSGB · 22/02/2018 23:06

OK, she sounds like a PITA and you don't have to do anything for her if you don't want to.
BUT I have a certain amount of admiration for people who won't take shitty jobs. The fetishization of work for its own sake (often pushed the hardest by people with independent incomes) is harmful bullshit, and universal basic income needs to be brought in as soon as possible. Because giving money to the poor with no conditions attached is actually the only way to fix the economy.

Applesandpears23 · 22/02/2018 23:11

Two miles?!? If she cares that much she could walk to waitrose.

Peekaboo3 · 22/02/2018 23:13

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

LaurenCooper · 22/02/2018 23:14

Love how she dressed up the free lift as a 'meet for a coffee', as if she's doing you a favour.

RavenclawRealist · 22/02/2018 23:18

I haven't done online shopping with watrouse but with others if you pick the right slot it only costs a couple of quid! I would suggest she takes the money that would have been spent on coffee and gets her shopping onljns as you are unable to help. Then block her she doesn't add anything to your life so why carry on contact?

GreenSeededGrape · 22/02/2018 23:19

You can afford to have some admiration for those that won't take 'shitty jobs' wtaf because of tax credits/universal credits/housing benefits.

Anyone who chooses not to work and thinks they're entitled to a handout is an arsehole.

Cop the fuck onto yourself Reanimated Hmm

GreenSeededGrape · 22/02/2018 23:21

Yes OP you sound smug for working and looking down your nose at your friend who is above shitty jobs.

I fucking despair at some of these attitudes.

The world doesn't owe you anything.

ReanimatedSGB · 22/02/2018 23:26

You cop the fuck on to yourself. Wages have been artificially held down for decades, and far too many companies treat their staff like subhumans, while dodging their taxes. The single biggest problem we have is economic inequality. Increasing automation is doing away with the need for a lot of jobs as it is, and the insistence that those who weren't born into wealth should have to take what are often pointless jobs for less-than-subsistence money is simply unsustainable.

DarthArts · 22/02/2018 23:26

But the OP isn't asking for anything - that's the point 

On the other hand her friend is expecting her food snobbery to be subsidised by someone else---- while she does FA to contribute to her own life expectations.

You're entitled to your opinion @GreenSeededGrape but I'm frankly utterly bemused or tbh amused by it 😂

LapdanceShoeshine · 22/02/2018 23:27

the insistence that those who weren't born into wealth should have to take what are often pointless jobs for less-than-subsistence money is simply unsustainable

so how will they live?

LapdanceShoeshine · 22/02/2018 23:29

@DarthArts

I thought GreenseededGrape was addressing Reanimated, not the OP?

PotatoesOfTheCarribean · 22/02/2018 23:29

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

ApproachingATunnel · 22/02/2018 23:34

Since when inability to get yourself to Waitrose is classed as ‘deepest hour of need?’Grin
I thought you was abandoning a friend in proper need not this. Just tell her you’re busy and dont respond after that!

SteamyBeignets · 22/02/2018 23:35

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

DarthArts · 22/02/2018 23:35

@LapdanceShoeshine and @GreenSeededGrape

Ahh apologies - comments should have been directed elsewhere....

Peekaboo3 · 22/02/2018 23:42

Some fucking blessed fuckers on here who don't have a bastard CLUE about what life is like for poorer/less fortunate people who didn't have the same lucky hand of cards dealt in life as them.

As @reanimated said, some people have been kept down all their lives, and no matter what they do, they can't get off that bottom rung of life's ladder. Anyone who says that is not true, is an entitled, clueless twonk.

Shoulda worked harder at school eh? Shoulda married up? Shoulda waited til their 30's to have babies, shoulda sucked up to the right people. And 'if you had worked as hard as me, you TOO could be a success like me!'

ODFOD! Hmm