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?!

@Tiny2018 that's awful! Please seek advice from shelter I'm pretty sure he cannot do what he's claiming

@Immigrantsong that's lovely what a nice story

@WellTidy while that is CFery I would say for a situation like that you should have agreed terms before she moved in. Rent free is one thing, paying nothing towards bills - did she even buy her own food? Is quite another!

@ConkerGame I agree to a point, but I also know how bad I was at being assertive in the past and how difficult it can be to deal with CF - they are often the WORST people to confront and adapt at turning things around on the favour giver - my sister certainly is!

I am far from the only person she's taken advantage of it's how she makes her way through life. She moans she's no friends but it's due to the following cycle she does:

1 Makes a new friend - mainly based on what she's assessed they can or potentially can do for her in the future.

2 is absolutely fawning over them and does them apparently large favours in the beginning - but nothing that really inconveniences her

3 isolates them from old friends and even family with serious amounts of shit stirring

4 once they're at the point they think she's the only one "on their side" she starts asking for small favours and returns them

5 once they're pretty much dependent on her the favours increase, ranges from "borrowing" money which she doesn't pay back, to the babysitting palaver, to getting them to recommend her for jobs and has included cars and flats rent free!

6 eventually the "friend" wises up or sister over reaches usually a combination

7 "friend" challenges sister, sister goes all "hurt feelings" and "I thought we were friends" she's especially skilled at emotional blackmail and will use all sorts inc faking serious illness to try and get "friend" back onside. She does a very believable fake faint/passing out

8 friend may be reeled back in for a time but the seed has been planted and really it's just a matter of time

9 sister starts buttering up next potential "friend" as she can see current arrangement coming to an end.

10 friend has enough and cuts sister off. Sister slags "ex friend" to all and sundry including their employers, landlords, she has no shame.

I can see it now very clearly in hindsight especially now I'm removed from her drama but when you're in the midst of it it's so stressful and when stressed we don't make the best choices, it can be a form of abuse imo

@EmbarrassingAdmissions I absolutely think CF feel entitled, my sister has never gone without her whole life, is now in her 40's and still very much depends on others and gets angry when they won't help. I think they also get a kick out of it, she made a comment once when she was lining up a new "friend" along the lines of "she'll be good for a few £1000" which is when the scales started to fall from my eyes, yes I tried to warn the woman but sister denied to her and claimed to me she was just joking while also tearing my head off and getting my mum to join in!

I consider her no better than a con artist.

@Binny36 do some assertiveness training/reading - I had to as part of nurse training (people that go into nursing apparently tend to be naturally too helpful) and it made a huge difference. Through that you will learn about setting and enforcing your personal boundaries.

Loads! But I’ll just start with one:

Put sone items in the counter to pay for. Guy tipped them up and put in bag HIMSELF and I paid for it and went home. I thought it was odd that it was cheaper than I thought. Looked at the receipt and he hadn’t charged me for one item (it was £6.99). I drive all the way back with my young child and said to him “I owe you £6.99 as you didn’t charge me”, he was huffing and puffing and muttered something. I gave him £10 and waited for change. As I was going I said to him “you can say thank you, I drove all this way and could very easily have not come”. His response was “God is watching you my dear”

Reading bank that actually sounded nice but he wasn’t! His tone was I don’t need to say thank you as god watches everything.

@Tara336, do you not think maybe something happened either to him or to the note? If it's only last week, the sad reality is that he may be in hospital with his relative far too busy/distressed to respond. When my grandmother died it took weeks to get through the backlog of communications I'd meant to sort out.

@Graphista - it was supposed to be a five nights. And then a week. It then turned into two weeks. And then three. And then it was five. I get that house exchanges/completions get pushed back, but still. She paid for her own food but nothing more than that. No contribution to rent, bills etc.

It has really put me off offering anyone a place to stay to tide them over for even a few nights!

Loads of subbing "broke" friends out then to find they have tonnes of cash in the bank for house deposits!

I have a friend who drives a brand new Mercedes. I drive an older car that is definitely not a Mercedes. Anyway, have learned to refuse any invitations from her at the end of the month. Accepting the invitation is always followed by, "The thing is I'm skint until I get paid so can you sub me for drinks/my meal/cinema ticket or whatever." Really began to make my blood boil!!

@Divoc2020 I’d have cried too. I run events and I know just how much work they take and that it’s usually volunteer time. We say thank you to everyone who has so much as washed up a plate but it’s amazing how many don’t bother, like volunteers do it for the sheer joy of helping out.

I once had a situation where I single-handledly organised the “home leg” of a then-friend’s hen do, including using up my lunch breaks to go to venues, arrive hours early on the night to secure our tables etc etc. At the wedding the bride thanked everyone involved in her hen-do...except me. We are no longer friends.

A few years ago we were sat on the beach, a young boy came running up to us sobbing he couldn’t find his Mum. We calmed him down, put some sun cream on him, gave him a drink of water and I set off with him to find his Mum

3 miles down the coast we found her. He went running up to her saying how kind I’d been and how I’d walked miles with him to get him back to her. I didn’t even get a thank you. Worst still, she wasn’t even looking for him and hadn’t realised he’d got himself lost. He was10 and it had been almost 3 hours since he’d left her side

Another time I’ll point them in the direction of the life guards

Do you think part of it is that some people don't perceive these actions as kindness but as service t which they're entitled and other people's failure to understand that they're merely supporting actors in the drama of their lives?

I think that's bang-on.

Another one: a few years ago BIL (sisters husband) asked me to come shopping with him when me and husband went to see new baby. He got the counter and said just get these for us! The baby monitor was something like £90 and it was other stuff in there, it was so out of order as we had already bought a big bag of gifts with us which cost us.

separating it all when it arrives in one enormous mixed delivery, carting it all over there (with all our frozen stuff and all theirs slowly melting if we're not quick), then going through the torturously long receipt to work out who got what, then adding it all up

You can't do it as two separate shops? Put a divider in the trolley, a piece of cardboard will do.

@Verity Surely you said no?!

@SarahAndQuack he had made a comment at the time that they wouldn’t answer the door if they saw it was him, so I’m unsure if he was just rambling as I think he hit his head or in fact he was telling me the truth and they just don’t care which would be awful

Actually myself and some other friends were very cruel to the friend I mentioned above. Four of us were on holiday abroad together and at some point in the holiday she went into a shop that I would say was broadly that country's equivalent of Next and spent an absolute fortune on stuff that was nothing special. Certainly stuff you could buy similar things to in this country. Anyway on the final day of the holiday she announced that she was skint and that we would all have to have toasties, sandwichs, ice creams etc from the pool bar rather than getting a proper meal out. We all left her by the pool with her toastie and went to a lovely restaurant for a meal.

Many times unfortunately.
The worst I think, was when I spent a whole year taking a friend's son to and from school. It was difficult for me for several reasons, but I agreed to help her out.
I never got so much as a card or a phone call from her when my son died. They were in the same class for years.
These things really hurt.

@EmbarrassingAdmissions

The entitlement is something I wonder daily. There’s almost an attitude that everything is someone else’s fault or responsibility, whereas they only have rights. My CF neighbours are a case in point - common decency says you don’t take more than you were offered, and yet these people see nothing wrong in it. I wonder if they have an underlying attitude of “The world is against me” (which it probably seems as if it is if you don't play by the rules and have a crappy attitude) therefore they think they’re entitled to anything good that comes their way as recompense?

Ha Graphista I knew someone very much like your sister, she was an expert at weighing up who was good for what, she had her own business and would befriend people for as long as it took her to get them to use her service then drop them. She was an expert manipulator, and had a trail of discarded friends, some of whom had got wise, others who were used up and spat out. She could be good fun though, and I occasionally helped her if it didn’t put me out too much.

She did something very unkind to one of my children who was friends with one of hers, so I dropped her and she slandered me to all and sundry though who knew her took it with a pinch of salt.

@rc22 I don’t think you were cruel at all, it’s high time people like that learned their lessons.

@gypsywater - I didn’t pay for the monitor but paid for other stuff (I know I’m an idiot!) it was around £40 or just over.

Sorry for your loss @endofthelinefinally, that was a horrible omission on her part.

@endofthelinefinally I’m really sorry for your loss. That’s really nasty if her to not even reach out

@Verity Noooooo! It is hard when you're put on the spot though isnt it!

I think it’s a very difficult for me to figure out when it’s a CF request or when a person is needy and I should help.

I’m working on myself at the moment as I’m deeply unhappy and I realise it’s because I have in past let people use me. I’m going to keep reading this thread so I can wise up!

Looking back did any of you get an uncomfortable feeling you were taken advantage of? I do sometimes get this maybe I should listen to my gut

Gave a close relative money to buy her weekly shopping when I hardly had any spare money myself. Her husband was ill and she said she was putting food back on the shelf as she couldn’t afford it. I was on maternity leave and was horrified she would go hungry. Made plans to sent more money to her in a few weeks time only to be told that she had booked a holiday to Spain as she needed a break! Found out years later another relative had also sent her money. Never really believed her persistent dramas after that.