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?!

@makingmiracles

How many years ago,did you make the mistake of trusting your friend to pay you back for laptop with Litlewoods catalogue then?

Just for you to know there are small claims courts in which you can/or could have taken ex friend to court to get your money back with a limited time frame .!

Look up uk Gov website on small courts claims section.

Sorry to hear about your experience !

Your ex friend sounds like a Arsehole !

[daffodil x

Yes I've had similar. Gifted a cot to a woman in need on Facebook (lesson definitely learned never to fall for a sob story from a Facebook post) and delivered it. I had bought it brand new and used it for a year so it was still in great condition. Her boyfriend helped me unload it and barely said thank you, just a grunt. Lo and behold it was pictured for sale the next day. When I messaged her to ask why she was selling it, she blocked me. Never again!! You try and help someone out of the goodness of your heart and they shit all over you.
Never again!

I know this is an old thread but I gave an entire childhood’s collection of beautiful books on a particular subject to the daughter of my then boss. I didn’t get a single thank you from any of them and I found one of the books torn up and dumped in a bin at work (the kids would come in after school).

I’m still really bothered that I did it. I thought a kid with a similar passion would treasure them like I had, but she was just a spoilt ungrateful little madam.

@NormanStangerson that's horrifically rude the little brat!! Obviously hasn't been taught any manners. They could have at least thanked you for them, taken them home and been gracious. If she didn't want them she could have discreetly passed them on or donated to charity.

Sorry I've only just realised this is an old thread.

Lent my skirt. it came much much shorter. it had been professionally taken up to cover a stain!!!

Yes. Being there for someone who ditched me as soon as her life improved.
One of my biggest regrets. I was completely used.

I lent a friend a really nice suitcase for her holiday. It was immaculate and had only been used a couple of times by me. It came back filthy and had spilled make up and body oil inside it. Not only that it had bits of food lurking too, stale bread and crisps, worse still melted chocolate which had stuck to the sand from their footwear. She had made no attempt at all to clean the case before returning it and I was too much of a coward to confront her.
Never again!

Oh yes, haven't we all? I gave someone the benefit of the doubt because it felt like a kind and reasonable thing to do. Much good it did me and it blew up in my face (metaphorically speaking) so never again will I be so generous.

[quote Whoknows77886]@NormanStangerson that's horrifically rude the little brat!! Obviously hasn't been taught any manners. They could have at least thanked you for them, taken them home and been gracious. If she didn't want them she could have discreetly passed them on or donated to charity.

Sorry I've only just realised this is an old thread.[/quote]
I was fairly heartbroken, I’ll be honest. Nevermind. I’ve actually started to collect the same books, in the same editions, as an adult. No one is getting their ungrateful little mitts on them this time

Yes, but most people are worth a bit of kindness. There are usually red flags though that I have ignored when I have been stung.

However, this happened relatively recently and still stings. Made friends with somebody on mat leave. She told me all about her personal tragedies and I had (wrongly) emotionally invested.

We have older kids a similar age and her kid was just moving school as the lockdown began as she can be a little tricky. So she would message throughout the week about her life and I would organise lovely days out most weeks to entertain the kids all through Summer, and get lots of discounts through friends and contacts. She would moan, disengage from the kids and talk about herself and her problems - and how hard her life was. My partner has worked 70 hours a week in a key role during the pandemic from home and I needed to keep the kids out of the house so saw a few friends each week - by the end of Summer I was a tad exhausted. Normally upbeat, I mentioned I was struggling a little that day and she promptly dropped me like a sack of shit and said she couldn't be arsed.

This coincided with the schools going back, her older kids moving to a new posh school and she had spoken about her plans to make new friends at the new school as they were her sort of people. She explained to me that she just gets sick of people, once she has got to know them. I haven't heard from her since September, and any attempt I have made to mend bridges has been met with a disingenuousness that borders on sociopathic and says she was surprised I thought we were friends. (I have never got that wrong before, am a genuinely good friend to a wide circle and am generally well liked). Well and truly used...

@Tooshytoshine you're well rid of that one. You sound lovely, she was a user. If she ever attempts to contact you again ignore!!

Oh Christ, too many to mention.
As above - absolutely no good deed ever goes unpunished.
Ever.

Yes...
Same situation as OP
Offered to pick child up from school but the mother didn’t collect said child.
Mothers hospital procedure had gone wrong and she needed to be in hosp for days!

Child was a wrecker.
Thank goodness another woman helped- kids who wreck and wreak havoc clearly have issues , hence no one in the families step up to care for them.
Alarm bells should have rung.

Kid was known to be “Naughty “ at school.

My own DC had his toys trashed by this child.

Never again!

A toddler was running thirty yards ahead of its mother alongside a busy road. It fell over just in front of me, so I picked it up, dusted it down and walked it to its mother. She gave me a filthy look and just stalked off. Since then, if anything similar happens, I step round and continue on my way.

Offered to get some bits for a friend who couldn't get to the shop on the understanding she paid me back, never paid me back but had the cheek to chase me for 50pence!

Lent out a Vax carpet cleaner for it come back covered in cat and glitter and broken.

Lent my car to a family member for the day for it to come back with several scratches on the bonnet.

Lots more, no good deed goes unpunished I no longer offer and just say no. People are CFs!

Years ago in my first house I welcomed in a guest from Denmark for a week who someone on the internet I'd never met asked if I could put up.

He brought with a girlfriend and, as my downstairs was open plan they had to sleep on the sofa and they showed no sign of going after a week, but after the second I managed to shove them out the door to a hostel. They weren't awful or anything, but I hadn't signed up to host 2 people indefinitely!

Also, when we were a bit desperate to get a new au pair, an agency I'd spoken to rang me up and said they'd been contacted by a girl who was too young for them to take on (17 and a half) whose placement had fallen apart and she had nowhere to go. We took her in and said we'd give her a trial, we made it a condition that we speak to her previous host to find out what happened and we were impressed she was OK about is doing that. We concluded maybe it was just a case of poor communication about what was expected of her from host.

But it turned out she was taking night jobs (without telling us, we thought she was just going out with mates) and was sleeping all day when she wasn't with the kids and trying to set an alarm to wake in the morning and afternoon, which she frequently slept through. She got bleach on a towel, burned a hole in our bedroom carpet and missed picking up the kids several time.

I think it is common.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

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.

This is my stepdaughter. EXACTLY.

Fortunately, my stepson is normal.

A best friend, whom I had supported since she found out her husband was viewing child pornography online, including living with us for weeks until DH and his cousin found her a flat, dropped me like a ton of bricks shortly before the court case. Another very wise friend said I knew too much.

I invited a woman I’d never met to our wedding as she was the girlfriend of our best man and they hadn’t been together long. Anyhow, she didn’t turn up. Absolutely no offer to pay for her place (roughly £50) and the best man didn’t either. Ironically we would have declined the offer of repayment but to not even send her apologies, so rude!

A "friend" and I use the term loosely, was going through a particularly bad time, so to cheer her up every week I bought her a bunch of flowers. After about 2 months she said "dont get me roses anymore I dont like them and I usually bin them, would rather have chrysanthemums instead" That day I learned a very valuable lesson!

Bought mother a washing machine when she was fostering a siblings kids with agreement she pay it back in full.

I never saw a penny and the same year she booked a holiday to Disney land.

I had a really good friend right through secondary school, she had a bloke who she really liked, he was a bit older but generally messed her around, he was immature even though older than her. We were probably 17 when I saw him in a nightclub and I was chatting to him, he told me how sorry he was about how he treated her and that he really liked her and would love to see her.

I called her that night, we hadn't actually seem much of each other since starting college. I told her what he said, I was so excited to tell her as she had never really understood why he was like it.

Next day at college she came in (she didn't attend the college) with a mutual friend and basically attacked me physically. Apparently she had called him and he told her it was untrue and that I was coming onto him, just a load of lies. The worst thing is she probably would have just called me to have a go but our mutual friend along with a load of others encourage her to go into the college to beat me up.

I am still really hurt by it 20-odd years later, I just don't understand why she would think I would lie to her given the way he had treated her. I can still remember smiling at her as she approached me at college as I was so excited to hear about what had happened with him!

I know this is a zombie thread but can’t resist chipping in...

My ‘best friend’ and bridesmaid started pleading poverty and was constantly asking for money to tide her over to pay day. It wasn’t much, only £20-30 and she always paid me back on pay day. This went on for about five months until I twigged that she was having her nails done every month, going out for loads of meals, getting her hair washed and blow dried for every night out etc. Essentially I was just funding her glamorous lifestyle.

I cut her off as I was due a baby and cited maternity leave as the reason I couldn’t keep lending her money. She finally visited my DD 10 weeks after she was born, didn’t even get a card to say congrats (much less a present!).

Since then I’ve spoken to her once- DD is 18 months now. Clearly I was of no use to her when I was no longer in a position to supply her with cash!

Oh, I didn't notice the date, why do people pick these threads up??

Really interesting thread though