Should I just walk out of here?

[Rayray118]

Okay, long story short I'm a writer who's been offered the exclusive use of a friends apartment abroad so I could spend two weeks writing. I dived on it of course. I've just begun a major project and will be enormously busy with my day job (I have one of those unfortunately!) for the rest of the spring and summer. Aside from weekends this is the only chunk of time I have to focus on this and if I don't get a decent 20,000 words written in these two weeks there's just no point in my being here.

20,000 words is easy going for two weeks and I left it at that as a plan because I wanted to spend a night or two at the weekends with my friend who owns the apartment. She lives about twenty minutes drive from here and lets out this apartment in short lets most of the year but of course in January it's quiet. I had expected, and made very clear, that I need solitude to write. I arrived here on Friday and so far solitude has been no part of this experience.

My friend stayed here Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. I really wasn't expecting her to stay last night and thought that was pushing it, so I reminded her that as I'd said I need solitude to write. She seemed rather shocked and appalled when I suggested that she come back next weekend and leave me on my own till then. This morning she came up with some bizarre excuse about needing to stay tonight also. To me it's just getting ridiculous at this stage. To clarify, she is not lonely, nor is there any other reason I can see why she'd be so inconsiderate. She knows exactly what I came here to do and why it's so important that I be left alone to do it. She lives twenty minutes away in a very large comfortable home with her husband. She is also in a very happy and loving marriage. It seems to me she's just wilfully oblivious to how important it is to me to be alone to undertake this task, however clear I was about it before I arrived.

I can imagine some people may think I've little to worry about but if I don't get this done in the next ten days I won't get it done before late summer. I am wondering to myself if I should just pack my bags and rent an Air BnB somewhere else while I've still got ten days left? I don't want to do anything to damage my friendship but I cannot say how important or irreplaceable this time is to me. I am also getting increasingly frustrated, another few days and I'll be extremely resentful - honestly this about the most boundary-less behaviour I've experienced in a long time!

Any opinions would be most welcome.

Oh god yes, leave!

I’d agree that you have to leave but out of nosiness what did you have lined up for 2 weeks of solitude before she offered the apartment?

Leave! This is bizarre behaviour on her part.

I'd be livid with her and that would really strain any future friendship but then I work creatively too and totally get the need to get into that working mood first and then to keep it up. That is shocking behaviour of your so-called friend.

End of a friendship, I'd say.

Bizarre behaviour. I think you are going to have to leave.

I also write and I am an only child to boot. I cannot tell you how much I understand your need for utter quiet and headspace, but some people cannot comprehend that this level of 'alone' is actually what we mean and what we want. My DH thinks this means 'whispering' questions at me instead of using his normal voice. And having the tv on 'quietly'. He really doesn't understand what 'alone' means.

Perhaps by telling your friend, you have no choice but to leave, the penny will drop...

You made it clear that you needed space to write.
She has disregarded your wishes by seeking your attention for some considerable time in your fortnight, which suggests she thought you didn’t really mean it when you said you needed space and thinks that she can have a girly time with you.
She hasn’t even responded to hints while she was staying.
Coupled with the fact that she only lives 20 minutes away ( odd) then the only solution left to you is to move out and make sure she knows why.

Hope you get your project completed.

She owns the apartment, right?
Is she afraid of what might happen there if you are left alone in it? Does she think you might get drunk or something???
Does she hate her husband so is happy for any excuse to stay away from him?
Does she have something she wants to share with you, a secret of some sort, but is having trouble telling you?
Why is she so reluctant to leave you there alone in the apartment? Is she afraid something might happen to you?

Cut your losses and leave, Rayray, if therr’s somewhere you can go that's guaranteed to be quiet. Even if you haveto pay, it’s better than wasting time and missing a deadline.

Some people are just genuinely baffled that others need or enjoy time on their own, and want to constantly “rectify” it by “keeping them company”.

My in-laws don’t get this either. We have a holiday home near their permanent house in a very remote area. A friend of mine once stayed there to complete her thesis. Like you she wanted 2 weeks of complete solitude but my (lovely) ILs felt sorry for her being all on her own and FIL turned up unannounced every afternoon to Check on her and then bring her back to theirs for her dinner. It was very kind of them but it took up a good 3/4 hours of her day. In the end she started going out for a walk between 3 and 5 to avoid him and just to be on the safe side would leave ingredients /pans out on the counter so if he turned up earlier or later she could claim to be just cooking her own dinner.

I don’t know how you can tactfully retreat from this OP but it sounds like you will have to make your excuses and leave. Good luck.

You have nothing to lose by leaving so I would get out ASAP

I agree with others - blame it on miscommunication/a misunderstanding

Good luck

Completley bizarre behaviour on her part.

What part of 'I need to be alone to write' did she interpret as 'please leave your lare house and husband and sleep on a pull out bed outside my door for two weeks, ignoring any requests for you to leave'.

I can't think of anyone apart from my DH, DC and mum that I could spend two weeks with, let alone when you are trying to write! (Also a write, empathy!)

No point getting annoyed with her, she clearly doesn't understand. You get what you pay for and it's hard to dictate the terms by which you are lent an apartment for free.

Why do you need new flights? Just get somewhere cheaper nearby. Much less disruption.

unless other people do a similar kind of thing writing, academic work, poetry they have no real idea of what is meant by solitude and think that bothering you every half hour to chat, to offer tea, to update you on the random thoughts that are passing through their mind is a kind of friendly kindness. It seems not to matter how clearly or thoroughly you explain what you need -- the words seem to mean something different to them.

This. 'I need to be on my own' seems to translate as 'but you don't count, please bother me repeatedly, pop in for a chat, make me tea and lunch, it will be all lovely and cosy and in between you blethering away I'll magic up 3000 words a day'. I find if there's someone around who doesn't get it, even if they leave me alone for an hour I still can't write anything because I know they're there and they might decide I really need to hear this thing right now.

Even my dad, who is an artist, thinks that me being freelance means I am available to Skype whenever he notices I'm online - and not just on Skype, but anywhere else. I have to have a SM lockdown against my own father just to get any fucking work done.

I know it can sound really precious and I know it's her apartment but I would leave. Even if she does bugger off now you won't be able to relax properly. 'Dear friend, thank you so much, it's been great catching up. I've found this lovely other place, [a significant journey away from you] and I'm going to go and work there. Thanks again'.

I completely sympathise, non-writers often just don’t understand the need for your own space, physically AND mentally.

Has she said why she wants/thinks it’s ok to stay with you, when you made it clear you’d want to be on your own? Even if she thought you’d write during the day and have the evenings free, why does she hang around during the day?

I’d give her an ultimatum in the form of “I think there’s been a misunderstanding...” and make it clear that you need to be on your own else you’ll have to stay elsewhere. Then, if she won’t leave you alone, I’d absolutely be finding somewhere else to stay. And I’d be keeping the weekend to catch up on writing rather than seeing her then!

I still don’t get the need for all your drama op. You said up front you expected to spend the w/e with her (and only start writing, by inference, today). She then overstays Sunday night. Frustrating, yes. Why didn’t you first thing Monday say ‘right, I am off to write now’ and go and move yourself into a nearby hotel?

Yes... today I have been working on an article that I've really had to think about. Listening to recordings of interviews, having a think to decide what to write... My OH said he'd stay out of the way. Which lasted for 10 minutes before he kindly arrived with a nice cuppa for me and a video on his phone to "quickly" show me. He's been banished to the garage.

I've voted that YABU, because I'm part of the minority on here who think you don't need to get an Airbnb or similar.

I think you need to explain your writing process to your friend, and why, when she offered to give you her apartment for 2 weeks you accepted, as you believed that being isolated in a new environment would be the perfect conditions for writing.

Tell her that as you've not been able to write due to having her as a distraction, you're now behind on your work, and it's not a position you can afford to be in, so you are now thinking that you may have to leave unless the situation changes dramatically.

Tell her how much you value her friendship (if you do) and perhaps make a "coffee or dinner or drinks" arrangement for a few days time where you can catch up with her and tell her how much you've done and still have to do.

It sounds to me like you don't see this person often, and it's a friendship that she values, which is why she wants to spend time with you. Even if she didn't fully understand that when you said that you needed to be alone, you meant 24/7.

Have you asked her why she made the offer given that you were abundantly clear that what you needed was solitude? Because, apart from the immediate need to write, if I were in your shoes I would also be annoyed about what this implied in terms of my friendship. For her to stay another night after your conversation last night isn't just obliviousness, it's either deliberate boundary pushing or extreme self-centeredness. Maybe she has a problem at home she hasn't managed to broach yet or some other reason that could justify it, but it's still her knowingly putting her desire to be there above the your need for solitude and without an explanation I would find it quite eye opening. I'm not sureI'd be particularly keen on staying friends with her without more insight into why she was doing this.

I think you know you have to leave

@Talkingmouse My friend is perfectly well aware that I spend four weeks in August and two weeks in January writing every year, usually in Airbnb's or remote cabin-style writers retreats. She clearly had other ideas for how I ought to be spending the two weeks this January, i.e. falling over her sleeping directly outside my bedroom door. There are fourteen nights in a fortnight; I expected to be spending a maximum of four of them with her. We're heading into our fourth night together just four nights in. That's aside from the fact she's expressed astonishment that I expect her to go anywhere at anytime at all!

Thanks everyone else for your rational comments. I'm going to have an early night tonight and book my flights tomorrow. This first week is clearly f-uked but at least I can salvage the second one.

Yeah have a look at air n b , you need to do what works for you.

I am also a writer and totally get how frustrating this is for you, but it seems to me that there's something unexpressed going on here that you should just take a minute to consider. If the friendship is solid enough that you were able to state your needs/plans as candidly as you say, then it would seem that she is undermining them deliberately, not through misunderstanding. And, assuming that she's basically a nice person and this isn't an act of aggression, then I think you have to ask yourself wtff is going on that she hasn't told you about to cause this behaviour. Ultimately, I think ywnbu to tell her the arrangement isn't working and take yourself elsewhere, but if it were my friend I would first sit her down and ask her kindly what's brought all this on, and be ready to put the book on ice til the summer if something awful has blown up in her life that's making her not want to go home.

yes leave.make an axcuse if you have to.i follow many authors and i think only if you write do you know how truly 'on your own' you have to be.so i she doesnt get it already i think bringing it up will just mnuddy the waters further as she clearly doesn't understand.
by the way are your an author we may have heard of?
you wouldnt expect a friend to come into your office from 9-5,sit at your desk and start hanging out!