To ask whether you’ve ever regretted a kind gesture?

[Rainbowb]

I offered to pick up a friend’s daughter after school three times a week when she got a new job. I then discovered the child liked to jump on furniture, trash bedrooms and eat me out of house and home! Was two terms before I had the guts to pull the plug on it! Was wondering if any of you guys had ever tried to do something kind and wish you hadn’t bothered?!

Regularly.

Let a “friend” live in a flat Rent free for almost 4 years-She left it in a mess And said I should appreciate that she decorated as it increased the value (she wallpapered 3 walls)

Organised a wedding and negotiated massive discounts (Took the best part of a year) for a In law family member who was so indecisive about everything- free of charge, who then complained that I had lost one of the suppliers Cake knives and it was my job to keep an eye on it as I was the wedding planner!

Many others too- Never again

Givers - Set limits because takers seldom do.

So true love this

@Lifetheuniverseandeverything I got suckered into a few similar work situations, upon discussing with parents they advised "never allow someone else to load the gun you'll be firing" ie don't do someone else's dirty work for them! Lesson learned on my part and I passed same advice on to dd when she started working

Took in a relative of my sil. Daughter managed to get him a job with her company. Stole from me, stole from work, threatened to steal and torch my car, called me allsorts. Ruined anyone getting a chance of that type of support from me.

Someone I work with admired the baby shawl I was crocheting for another colleague's baby. They kept complimenting it, so I made one for them too. Didn't comment when I handed it over at work - never mind. No thanks after the baby was born, although there was a photo on Facebook. Fast forward a few years, they are expecting again - and asked for another shawl. Really? I had to ask what happened to the first one - had they loaned it to someone, I wondered? No, the original had been used to clean up their child after a nappy incident while they were out - so they just threw it away in the rubbish bin in the park they were in. I was so upset! Needless to say, I was too busy to make them a replacement.......

I wish every single one of these posts ended with 'and it taught me not take this shit from anyone ever again'.
The fact the majority of us have seem to feel we need to justify saying no to something we don't want to do is infuriating.
"Learn to say no" was my new year's resolution and it shouldn't be as hard as it is.

I've had a few including lending books that weren't returned.

I supported a friend when she was having cancer treatment, looking after her dc and cooking for her. After she recovered, I invited her and her family round for lunch. She declined and didn't offer an alternative date. Never heard from her again (but know from others that she is fine).

Offered to put 5 friends up for the night en route to an event. I had a tiny flat but borrowed camp beds from a colleague and bought enough food in for an evening meal and breakfast the next morning. I called one of them the night before to confirm ETA and was told they weren't coming anymore but had forgot to let me know.

Loaned an expensive item to a friend for a few months. Took me 18 months to get it back and it was damaged. She did order replacement parts but did it with such bad grace and seemed most annoyed. Didn't get so much as a thank you for the loan.

There are other examples too. I have tried to learn from these experiences and am less prone to rushing in to help.

On a train home from London when a girl stands up and asks if anyone has a spare charge so she can charge her phone enough to call a taxi for her end point. So I have one in my bag, and hand it over to her. 10minutes later she vomits all over it, the table and herself (drunk). As the train guard comes to take her to the bathroom and get the area cleaned up she grabbed the charger, wiped it on her top and offered it back to me. I declined!

@ConcreteUnderpants

Yes!! I let someone use my garage for storage for free. Then he put his own lock on and disappeared. But still uses my garage.

Really puts you off doing someone a favour, which feels terrible.

Each and every padlock would be cut off, with the doors left open until it was cleared ......

Currently up to page 11 and honestly this thread has been such therapy for me and I think I may have just turned a corner. And for those saying it's the way some people are brought up - utter nonsense, there is a reoccurring theme of piss taking family members.

Going to see famous comedienne at Edinburgh festival with 2 friends. One couldn’t come so DH offers it to a school friend. She turns up, offers no money, doesn’t buy any drinks (expects them bought by us) and is extremely rude to our friend. Stomps off at the end. Should have sold it.

Mine is my long term friend. Supported her through many troubles, costing us money and lots of time driving her about etc. She moved abroad and meets someone new. Rings and asks if they can come and stay for a week, make loads of arrangements so we can accommodate and take them places and turn down other plans. Spoke to her the week before for final arrangements. Never turned up. We had bought lots of food and booze. Rings 5 days after was meant to be here and turns out she ‘got a better offer’ and wants to visit that minute but ‘only for 5 minutes’ furious when I say not convenient. No apology.
Last I heard is when she sent me a message asking if she wanted to meet her in a European country and pay for the accommodation as ‘we would need one anyway.’

Ex best friend moved house (again).

She asked if I’d help her move her belongings. Which included not just clothes but all her furniture like chest of drawers etc.
I had a Renault Clio at the time so not the biggest car. It was quite a distance where she was moving to, but she said she’d cover my petrol which I thought was fair enough, so was happy to help to save her the costs of a removal van.

I did 3 x 60 mile round trips (in the same day), backwards and forwards from her old place to her new place, my little car packed to the brim.

She gave me a tenner

I’ve heard of that a few times before Lalotai47 of people helping someone through a serious illness and then being dropped. One explanation is that you’re (unconsciously) associated with a grim time in their life that they want to move on from, so they drop you. It’s awful for you, but you’ve done nothing wrong, and it’s hard to hold it against someone who’s perhaps just had to reappraise their whole life and not made the most rational choices. You’re not alone, but it’s still a hurtful experience.

Some people are unbelievably selfish

I started a new job and mentioned to one of my new colleagues the company that I used to work for (think quite pricy beauty products). She immediately told me how much she loved the products from my previous workplace. Gushed on and on about how much she spent there and what her favourites were.
As I was feeling generous and had a shit load of unopened stuff from there I wouldn’t have been able to get through I offered to give her some. So I brought in a good selection of the kind of thing she’d said she used and she complained that they weren’t in the right scent and did I have the other ones... Uhhh, nope! I’d just handed her around 90 quid worth of products. I gave her a wide berth from that point onwards.

I made costumes for the school nativity.
I went to the first of two performances but after the second and final show, they presented thank yous for people involved including a box of chocolates for me. Except that because I wasn't there, the chocolates were scoffed by staff. They could have literally handed them to my kid to give to me.
Last time I volunteered for that job.

Loads. Playdates not reciprocated. Looked after someone's kid and they then asked me to drop the child home, when they could have picked them up.

Won a national award and work didn't even get me a card no matter flowers.

A popular mum at school is doing something to celebrate the end of year and people are already saying let's buy her flowers.

Bought something for a neighbour whilst she was on holiday as she requested. She took ages to reimburse me and then when I asked her to do something similar for me she forgot.

@Tara336 sorry to butt in, awful that this happened. She should be insured for accidental damage though, so would be worth letting her know! I hope she’d be mortified. I don’t have DC yet but I’m a mobile beautician and I’d be horrified if this had happened and someone hadn’t made me aware so I could make it right!! X

I supported a very difficult colleague at work, helped her with daily tasks, let her work on a project on her own because she was unable to work with anyone else in the team. She was playing up so much that I went to our boss to say I was concerned about her health and offered to take on some of her work to help her out.

Turns out she was badmouthing me to everyone behind my back. Claimed I was undermining her and she had to take leads on projects because I couldn't. The list of her viciousness could go on.

Little did she know that I knew she was sleeping with a guy from another department. I regret not showing her up for the tramp she was. But no one liked her anyway.

Happens all the time. One that really got to me was I lent money to a friend as she either had £50 to buy her son a birthday present or to give the council for a flat (don't really know the exact details of how that works). So I offered to lend her £50 so that she could do both.
It took her 3 years to even acknowledge her debt to me, I had asked a couple of times but did eventually give up. In that time there were countless nights out. She eventually acknowledged the money and basically said she paid her debts to the most important people first - I assumed companies but thought it was a really shit thing to say.
I would never in a million years dream of lending her money again.

@Graphista

"Parents meet childminders often thinking only "do I like them?" without considering the childminder (if they're sensible and experienced) is also sizing them up! "

Totally! I'm a child minder as well, and this made me laugh because it is so painfully true

I think most of us have been stung at some point by agreeing to be the one to sit on the computer or phone and stump up for concert tickets and then had someone drop out without paying

The time I got stung, the person was OTT about wanting to go and then started avoiding me from the moment I asked for the money. I kept hanging on because she kept assuring me they would pay. I knew she didn't want to miss out, I really think she hoped that I would say "oh just have the ticket" but it was a High End ticket price because they are a very popular act and I couldn't take the hit.

As it got to the last second, the boyfriend of one of the others said he would take the ticket, but I knew he wasn't really interested in the act, and only offered because he disliked the girl and it had pissed him off that she had left me out of pocket.

I had seen them previously, and they had been amazing and I had raved about them.

Not only were they absolutely shit that night, the night in question was one of the worst storms in years and the journey was horrendous. I ended up feeling absolutely dreadful that he had put himself out, worse because he was so nice about it.

I've got a fairly good filter for this tbh nowadays. If I meet someone and they immediately ask for a favour /to move in rent free I just bin them off. No way are decent people that cheeky.

Volunteered for my church to make dinners for families of sick parishioners. I made a huge amount of food because I was asked to cook for a family of five including two teens and I thought they would have huge appetites. Took the food over. A woman opened the door and harangued me because she had told the church they didn't want any more food. I was not involved with any of the organizing, just turned up with food when told to. I stood there mostly stunned and started to turn to go away wondering what I was going to do with all this food as DH traveled for work five days a week and most of the time it was just me and 18 month old twins. She then very ungraciously decided that she would take the food after all, snatched the trays from me and slammed the door.

I sometimes wonder if people who do this are essentially like young children who've never grown up. They just expect to be given the boring but essential things, like clothes or meals, with little or no asking and then they have their pocket money to spend on the fun things like Lego or sweets.

As they get older, they end up with bills they have to pay and their heart's desires tend to cost a lot more, but nevertheless, just as their parents never expected them to buy new school uniform when they outgrew it, it doesn't occur to them why they would choose to 'waste' their new car or holiday fund on things like petrol/travel fares or accommodation costs if somebody else can step in and provide them.

Not excusing them at all - I just think that a lot of people look like they've grown into adults, but their mental processing abilities have never really quite kept in step.