She should have let me have it surely?

[AaaaaaarghhhWhereAreMyKeys]

In charity shop today with a GOOD friend (friend went in before me as I needed to go to another shop). When I got back 2 mins later she’d found a gorgeous coat, lovely colour, in great condition, my size not hers.

I said how lovely it was but was it the right size for her? She said she liked it anyway, fair enough, kind-of. After we left, I repeated that I thought it was lovely and if she changed her mind and didn’t want it after all I’d buy it from her. She still said she wanted to keep it.

Greedy cow has only gone and listed it on eBay!!! It’ll probably sell for much more than she paid for it. She doesn’t particularly need the money. I have a young DC and not currently working. There’s no way I could afford a coat like that at the moment at full-price, let alone whatever price she gets for it on eBay.

She’s been a good friend for a long time and we’ve been through a lot but I honestly think that was so unkind. Am so upset with her.

What do we think Mumsnet? Aibu?

How do you know how much she needs the money or not?
Do you know about her finances?
Seems to be you are expecting your friends to think of your needs first whilst you think of...your needs first too!

The op is only assuming the mate isn't hard up. From what has been posted about her mate, she doesn't really talk about her finances. Not even sure what mate talks to her about ebay either. And she doesn't have to.
Perhaps the 'side hustle' is to put food in their mouths and doesn't want to share this info with op.
Could be saving up for medical treatment.
It really doesn't matter. The friend is making some money to pay for whatever.

I really cannot understand why the mate is getting such a hard time. She can decide who she wants to sell her property to. She has made this choice for her own financial reasons.
Surely a good friend understands that you don't know what goes on in others lives.
You don't go down the self-employed route to help out mates.

I took from what OP wrote that the friend uses EBay as a side hustle to make a little extra, but isn’t hard up. Op, however, is, so I took her responses in the context of anger and fear. Have you ever been very hard up? It can be extremely frightening

Yes, very. It’s far from pleasant and I have sympathy with OP on that front. But OP doesn’t know her friend’s financial situation - she just thinks she does. She has been very unpleasant towards towards her “good” friend on this thread, who it would appear she actually doesn’t like, and responded to posters disagreeing with her by calling them trolls.

Perhaps if she hadn’t implied that her friend was too fat for the coat, and let her actually exit the store before starting the pressure to buy it from her, then this story might have a different ending? Perhaps it wouldn’t, but we’ll never know.

I certainly don’t think OP should go shopping with friend again. And definitely refrain from donating her own belongings to friend. But there is no censure due to the friend here.

I agree we don’t know for sure that the friend isn’t hard up. And if she is, it would put her actions in a slightly different light. OP does say she has seen the friend do other things that make her question her morals, though.

Personally, In the absence of knowledge of financial hardship, I would be disappointed in the friend’s conduct and would be distancing myself. I guess Op could ask gently about finances to see if her conduct could be excused, but then that might very well not go down at all well!

Wow - this is still going, can’t believe I’ve started a potential MN classic and all over a stupid coat 😂

Just to clarify: I KNOW she doesn’t NEED the money that much. She spends what she earns on buying more stuff on eBay.

Yes I know she saw it first so she can do whatever she wants with it but it doesn’t stop me feeling hurt that she wouldn’t even let me try it on and consider letting me buy it instead.

I didn’t push it too much as a thought she might hang onto it for when she looses weight but the fact she wouldn’t let me buy it then put it straight on eBay stinks.

She liked my tablecloth, I didn’t need it anymore, I gave it to her. I cloud have easily sold it on eBay but knew she liked it and it would go with her decor more than mine.

She is clearly not the friend I thought she was, so the friendship ends. Obviously I haven’t just based this decision on just the coat, there is more of a backstory which i’m not going to divulge on here but Coatgate only confirms what I’ve started to realise about her recently.

Just to clarify: I KNOW she doesn’t NEED the money that much. She spends what she earns on buying more stuff on eBay.

Erm you do realise to sell stuff she needs to buy things. So ergo she needs that money. Just not in the same way you need money.

I don't generally go round mates trying on things, even more so when I haven't had the chance to try something on. Can understand why she didn't, minimise the tantrum a bit.

The table cloth is irrelevant. You made a decision to give it to her. You had it around your house and it didn't suit your needs. You gifted it to her. How are your decisions more valid than hers?

Tantrum?

Yea tatrum.
Wha it's not fair she won't let me try on her property.
Its not fair she saw it first.
It's not fair, she's just a grabby cow who doesn't need the money.
It's not fair and I am going to tell the charity shop where she bought it.
It's not fair.
She should let me buy it. I need want it more than her.

Sounds very similar to how my children sounded when they were a lot younger and going through that awful stage of tantrums.

Tantrum eh?
Unless she has seen this thread, she is still oblivious to my feelings. I asked her politely about the coat and respected her wishes to keep it until I saw it up on eBay the very same day. No tantrum. No confrontation. Nothing. I’ve just decided the friendship is no longer viable and deep down think I knew that as soon as I saw it on eBay.

Funnily enough I remember her having a bit of a thing a few years ago with another of her friends also about a coat - her friend had given her a coat and then asked for it back. This friend always gave her lots of stuff...maybe she realised she was being taken for a ride as it wasn’t reciprocated.

Well if I’m having a tantrum then you’re a bully ffs 🤗

You're not having a trantrum 🙄 Your so called mate is a dick

Thanks sky, so difficult to rise above all the haters on MN. Understand they don’t have to agree with me but honestly 🙄🤣

Wow.... what a depressing thread. So many pp that clearly have no idea of friendship.

Reading your recent posts OP, it's not your friend who is coming across like the jealous grabby one

It most definitely is. Who in their right mind would not give their friend or let them buy at cost, a relatively low value item that they couldn't use? Just petty. Very petty.

Although being totally honest, this wasn’t my greatest MN moment...

To all the MN haters, oh there are so many ....so little old me gets dragged around the chazzers like some kind of donkey doormat while she funds her sad little fleabay business

🤣😂🤣😂😘

Yes you are most definitely having a tantrum. My kids know they can't have everything they want, especially if someone else has it first. You sound exhausting (I'll just wait for this to be deleted like my other posts on this). This thread will probably be a classic, for all the wrong reasons. She saw the coat first, bought it, can do what the hell she likes with it.

Or maybe I did and that was the none sugar-coated version. Who knows?

@ffswhatnext 👏 spot on (I feel the need to praise this while I can as my similar comments were promptly deleted)

I asked her politely about the coat

I wouldn't consider implying that it wouldn't fit her particularly polite.

You’re having a tantrum
You’re a bitch
You’re exhausting
Etc etc etc

Wise-up MN people, there’s so many better ways of putting it.

If I’m exhausting then why are you even on my thread? Feel free to read and go 👋

She’s not having a tantrum, ffs, she’s hurt about the way she’s been treated by a so-called friend. She’s allowed to have feelings. They do not necessarily = tantrum.

And her mate is also allowed to have feelings.
She didn't feel like selling the coat to the op.

I think this is a win-win situation in the end. . OP is going to end a friendship with a woman she appears to dislike and whose ‘values’ she disagrees with.

Friend, by the same token, is going to lose a frenemy who calls her a ‘greedy cow’, ‘jealous’, runs a ‘fleabag business’, questions her right to like/want something the OP doesn’t think fits her and implies stuff about her diddling her MiL, on the internets.

This is a GOOD thing. And all thanks to the power of Mumsnet. 🙏🙏🙏.

Let it go OP

That’s true, ffs . And OP is allowed to ditch the friendship because of it.