Anyone else ever secretly impressed with how cheeky people can be?

[2ndtimemum2]

Having read another thread where a woman was asked to go 40 minutes out of there way to drop someone elses child to school, or the poor woman who's been asked to give daily injections to her neighbour because her kids couldn't be bothered has gotten me thinking are these people absolutely mental or how are people brazen enough to make these requests?

It seems like a daily occurance where a poster seems to deal with some crazy cf!!! I don't think I'd have the actual nerve or be brazen enough to make some of the ridiculous requests that people have made so I'm secretly impressed that there's these group of people who don't even think twice about these off the wall requests!

@Soubriquet

I think some people go by the “it doesn’t hurt to ask”

A while back there used to be a mantra of, "If I haven't had 3 knockbacks a day, I'm not asking for help/favours enough".

The daily injections if not the oddest that I've heard. I've an astonishing neighbour who has, in the past, agreed to insert daily suppositories for a deeply unpleasant neighbour. This continued for years - and lovely neighbour was not a healthworker but somebody with a large number of children (and later, grandchildren) for whom she did an enormous amount alongside several PT jobs that she was patching together in an attempt to make something like a FT salary.

I have asked some spectacularly brazen things of my friends in my time, BUT I am absolutely ready, willing & able to go above and beyond for them, so it works out.

The general level of cheekiness seems higher in the UK than in the US, at least in my experience. The only relevant experience I've ever had was a mum who would occasionally ring to ask me if I could take her daughter to crew practice with my daughter. It really wasn't much out of my way, but what made it cheeky was that it was always very last minute.

What eventually put a stop to it was the time she rang me while DD and I were 200 miles away visiting universities. I explained to her that no, I could not be there in 20 minutes and the reason why. She said "crap" and hung up on me, then never asked again. I guess I had become unreliable.

My neighbour used to do whatever she liked, as long as she followed it by - you don't mind do you?

This included taking my brown bin and filling it with her own garden waste.

Me coming home to find her on my kids trampoline with her partner picking my pears from the tree.

Taking my car because she had an urgent meeting - this was agreed, but it was after knocking on door saying you won't be going far today will you?
She then slagged off my little shit heap as it rattled when she got up to 60.

Leaving for airport in 25 minutes, here are my keys, you will pop round and feed cat - you don't mind do you?

She did naff all for me! Not that I would ask her she was bloody useless!

I had a friend like this . Her motto was if you didn't ask, you didn't get.
She asked for something from my house ( ornamental, very nice but also my DH's momento of a sibling who had died in childhood). I of course said no, and why.
She stole it. Absolutely no shame at all from her when caught out . Slagged me off for " making a fuss"
I DO believe the CF threads. These people walk amongst us ........

Former (note that) good friend who always used to do stuff like this.
At Uni, she was always borrowing clothes and not returning them.
Getting lifts, cadging cigarettes and other stuff.
For years I didn't notice, or really mind.
Only started to get irritating when I split up with an ex.
I was quite upset, she turned it into a night out with cocktails, and she turned up to meet me dressed in a killer outfit, but she had forgotten her purse...
Booked a spa day for us both, but borrowed the money from me.
Happened a few times before I started to get really pissed off with her.
We no longer speak.

CFs are one thing but have you ever spent time around someone who is able deflect even the smallest CF request without flinching? My partner grew up in a scammy country (his words) and knows every trick in the book. Before I even have a chance to think, he's already given them a stern "no" and walked off with an incredible resting bitch face. That truly is impressive.

There are some excellent CFery-themed threads on MN Classics:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/1735637-Have-you-ever-encountered-anyone-this-cheeky

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/4283142-To-go-round

are very good and filled with horrors. But I think the one I despised most was the appalling cckwomble who tormented a lovely lady with the CF (knowingly) illegal parking of his knbchariot. Sadly he didn't get much of a comeuppance (which he certainly deserved) in the end...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/4312884-Locked-parking-thread-4-The-End

Some people seem to be SO thick-skinned that they must share DNA with reptiles...

Yesterday my neighbour lent out of her window to shout at DFiancee that we need to cut our tree because its causing a crack in the wall. This wall has been extended many many years ago and the 'crack' is a perfectly straight line... its quite clearly the join in the wall. I went to look from her side and this has been plastered over many times in the past. She also said the tree was growing through the wall... about 3 meters further down. On inspection this is a tree on her side of the wall completely separate from the offending tree.

Nice try lady, im not paying for your wall to be fixed.

I had one who asked me to take her Ds to school a couple of times a week. (40 minute drive). Not really a problem (not reciprocated but never mind). Except that one morning she rang in a bling panic. She had been called into work as an emergency, could I do the school run that morning, she was desperate and panicked.

Fine, no problem. Except that day it was DH doing the school run and so i wandered into town to do the shopping and have a cup of coffee there she was in the cafe having breakfast with her married lover.

What was funny though was that she saw me and RAN to the bathroom and never made a reappearance. What was less funny though was that since then she has slagged me off to all the other mums. She is popular, I am not and it was a classic case of 'do me a favour and I'll make you pay for it'.

Biggest CFer one I've had is where a man in Asda carpark was asking for 68p to buy some food I gave him a £1 as he seemed distressed. I pulled up to the Lidl carpark about 400 metres down the road an hour later and he was there asking for 68p to buy some food he hadn't realised I was the same person !! I said oi I've already given you money and he ran away I wouldn't how much he had made

My cousin is an absolute CF'er and sometimes I'd love to be that fucking rude because she has a very easy life because of her way. I could never do it as I'd be utterly ashamed.

She recently asked a couple of people on FB if they had "any recommendations" for a bathroom fitter and tiler as she'd been let down and with her having a disabled child she can't not have a safe bathroom. The people she "asked" were a bathroom fitter and tiler who, after all the "OMG hun what happened? That's awful" felt obliged to fit her in asap. I'd be amazed if she paid them full price as well.

She's currently on the fourth or fifth person who takes her child to school for her. The child has a very mild disability so is not in need of transport and would much rather walk to school, but cousin insists it's too far (it's about a 10 minute walk max).
The childminder that she no longer uses, or pays, drops her child home every day.

During lockdown she had people running around after her left, right and centre including at one point her 75 year old neighbour doing some shopping for her - she hasn't spoken to me since I told her I thought that was disgusting as there's fuck all wrong with her and she wasn't even taking a turn.

She used to go on holiday with a friend of hers when they had a caravan. She never paid a penny toward it and the year that they got rid of their caravan the friends paid for another caravan for them all to go to - again she didn't even offer a penny toward it!
The year after that she was lamenting on FB about the lack of holiday and managed to land herself another bloody freebie!

I had a friend, we worked together.
I left the company and then so did she a little while after me as she’d been having an affair and her DH found out. He’d moved out and she was stuck for childcare as she wanted to work nights and had multiple DC.
She rang me one day and asked if I’d go round her house every evening after I’d finished work at 8pm (Mon-Fri) and look after her kids and then sleep there as she couldn’t leave them alone.
She genuinely couldn’t see why I didn’t want to do it.
All for free as well as ‘you’d only be sitting in your own house and then going to bed so you may as well do the same thing but in my house’

My mum used to be friends with one of these CFs, we moved to a new town and at school drop off she got chatting to the CF and when she left another mum came over and warned her not to get too friendly with the CF or she’d be forever asking for favours, my mum didn’t listen 😬

I’ve honestly never come across CFs like this in real life, only on mumsnet

Neither have I. I think I must come across as "please don't ask me because I don't wish to offend by saying no", or "don't guilt trip me because it won't work"

I think quite a few mumsnetters need to take a leaf out of your partner's book @PartyStory. I'm inclined to think that a lot of people behave like this because they can. If everyone did what PartyStory's partner does there wouldn't be any CFs.

@pombear4949

Part of the issue is people who DO go along with their mad requests for one reason or another, which validates the A) people that it was reasonable and fine to ask because they’d say no otherwise, or the B) that you can get away with it as long as you find someone too passive to say no

///\
this

I know I should say no and I think my friend plays on that. eg how do I say no I cannot take your child to school when I'm going that way myself to drop my own kids off. The problem here is that her child has (undiagnosed) special needs and is difficult to manage and also hates my child to the point i cannot leave him in the same room as my child. Also, how do I say no you cannot borrow cash when she knows full well I have it (I earn a lot more) but she has either over spent or over committed herself, which is why she needs to borrow money (usually around £450 a time, not talking £20 here and there). I don't mind helping someone, but mixed in with all the other asks makes me reluctant.

The phrase I used when my sister asked for a loan is "I don't have that sort of money to spare'. I had the cash in the bank but it is for me and my financial dependents not for her. She got by just fine without it. With a friend it's even more of a no brainer. Another useful phrase is " that's way out of my budget/price range'.

When I read these threads I always think about locus of control.

Some people have a very externalised locus of control -an inherent belief that events, people, factors etc outside of them (and outside of their control) are responsible for their happiness and comfort in life, as well as their misfortunes.

Some people have a very internalised locus of control -believing that their every success or failure in life depend on them, their own actions, their own hard work or mistakes.

It's a spectrum from one extreme to the other, neither extreme is very healthy. Life is too random for that.

I have met lots of people at the first extreme. It seems to be accompanied by a strong sense of entitlement to others behaving as "needed" (in quite a childlike and dependent way). I suppose if you have no sense of your own agency and truly believe that your happiness and comfort is entirely dependent on what other people do...then you would feel quite entitled to them doing as you ask. If you meet someone who is as extreme (and brazen) as this, there's unlikely to be any reasoning with them. Their sense of entitlement can be extreme, with no insight, and minimal flexibility. Just say no, and walk away, repeat as required. They will decide you are a terrible person who doesn't play by the (their) rules. Which is probably not the worst outcome here.

Do come to dinner ?
Oh yes that would be lovely
I thought you could bring the starters for 8 people!!

Actually NO.

Can I wear your clothes when I want to go out instead of buying my own..... bring them back dirty and damaged....

It is amazing - not only that people ask, nor that people actually DO it, but that people then come on MN and ask AIBU?

Like they don't really know whether they are being massively taken advantage of, or mugged off, or they need to be told that IT'S OK TO SAY NO!

@3GreenPullups

I had one who asked me to take her Ds to school a couple of times a week. (40 minute drive). Not really a problem (not reciprocated but never mind). Except that one morning she rang in a bling panic. She had been called into work as an emergency, could I do the school run that morning, she was desperate and panicked.

Fine, no problem. Except that day it was DH doing the school run and so i wandered into town to do the shopping and have a cup of coffee there she was in the cafe having breakfast with her married lover.

What was funny though was that she saw me and RAN to the bathroom and never made a reappearance. What was less funny though was that since then she has slagged me off to all the other mums. She is popular, I am not and it was a classic case of 'do me a favour and I'll make you pay for it'.

I'd make it my life mission to take her down.

@Psychonabike that is really interesting, I'm going to read up on it.

Yes, I know what you mean! I find it quite hard to ask for reasonable help e.g. borrowing something like a garden tool that doesn't get worn out, from a close friend - can not imagine asking someone to take my child to and from on a daily basis!

I used to be a bit of a CF about money when younger, but I was marginally messy back then

I did once comment to another mum who was moaning about being asked to take the child to a sports fixture 'X is very good at getting other people to do things for her'.

Many years ago, a neighbour with whom I had become quite friendly, would routinely ask me if I was going shopping. I quickly realised that there was no right answer to this, because I would either be asked to get a long list of stuff for her if I was going, or to look after her 2 DS’s while she went. I didn’t have the use of a car, so I had to walk with a pram or pushchair and carry her shopping as well as my own, but it was preferable to looking after her offspring, who were very hard work.

When my dc were just over 3 and the baby about 9 months my NDN had two children who were both about 6 months younger. Her dh went away with work for one night and she asked me to go round with my 2 children and help her get her 2 kids to bed because I was used to doing it on my own (my dh often worked evenings/nights). She thought I would be cool with this because mine went to bed later than hers.

She honestly thought I'd take my pre-schooler and baby round to hers, stick them in front of her TV. Help her get her kids to bed, then take mine back home and get them to bed on my own.

Unbelievable but true.