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!

(That is in response to @LaetitiaASD ) :)

Sadly truth is I am too out of the cool mum club (which she is Queen Bee) to risk trying to take her down. It would only end badly for me.

Her son wins all the sports stuff too and gets loads of kudos for evry bloody thing. No-one seems to recall he held my eldest down once and pissed on him at school......

charming family.

My neighbours complained when we fenced in our front garden that her kids could no longer play in it. Why the fuck did she think we fenced it in if not to stop them playing in it……?

I worked FT and a friend who didn’t work asked me to walk her dog at lunch time as she wanted to go to London for the day.I said it was not possible as a very short lunchtime ,a 20 minute walk each way and I needed to eat lunch in that time.She didn’t speak to me for 2 years as I didn’t help her.No contact now after 30 years of knowing her.

There was a CF, she was in her 80's VERY able but just loved people running around after her, my Dad was in his 60's and had had a heart attack and was a soft touch and she still had him running around after her. He died then I shit you not, I had either 17 or 27 missed calls one day from her after his funeral. She wanted me to be her new skivvy. Nope.
Never spoke to her again. I believe she died 1-2 years later, never offered condolences and never went to the funeral. The usual she was loaded and left all her money to these 'honourary' family members or step kids of step kids who never once visited her.

Some CF play a long game. I had one who 'helped' me a lot. In reality we were both single, working together and lived a short drive away so we spend free time getting a coffee, or going to the expensive gym of HER choice before and after work.

Somehow the narrative became HER doing ME a favour, keeping me company. Years later we used to watch each other's DC on occasions. She took one of mine overnight when I rushed the other to A&E DH was away and then I never fully paid that back. All favours went her way and even after I'd done the overnight babysit when it was her turn for the A&E run, I still seemed to owe her.

It came to a head when I'd done a huge favour, and a week later a mutual friend (MF) chided me for not helping out in her moment of need. I'd done the favour and been bad mouthed in return. It turns out she often played us off against each other and it was an illuminating conversation MF and I had working out just how much of a CF she was - CF had asked MF to do the same huge favour the very next day because I'd let her down!

I'm usually good at saying no, but couldn't see the woods for the trees comes to mind with her. She played other nasty mind games, and I think there's something psychologically diagnosable with her now I look back at it all.

@RollaCola84

Agree with *@Sparklesocks* some people do just seem completely oblivious to the fact that they're not the centre of the universe.

My mum had an attempted CF who she used to work with, asking for help with all sorts and kinds of things constantly, and regularly expecting lifts. She only lived a few streets away from my parents but they weren't even really friends. Most memorable one was asking my retired parents to mind their two tween kids for the weekend, my parents hadn't looked after any kids that age since me (and I was about 25 at the time) never mind two that they'd never met before !

I recall one job where I offered someone a lift and every day he harangued my with his views on the iniquity of the internal combustion engine and how everyone should be on public transport or bikes. After a week I suggested that he follow his own principles.

@Sundancerintherain

Some stuff here and on wikipaedia:

www.verywellmind.com/what-is-locus-of-control-2795434

The people with a very external locus of control who've ended up in my clinic also tend to have Dependent Personality Disorder too, so they are an extreme set:

www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/dependent-personality-disorder

But I think there are parallels with every day CFery and I suspect the people who do these things sit much closer to the "external" end of the spectrum than most.

(I find it all interesting because I'm definitely an internal locus of control person -I have to remind myself constantly that not everything is under my control; I'd blame myself for a freak snowstorm in June if it came when I'd "stupidly" booked a holiday)

@TreeTed

My neighbours complained when we fenced in our front garden that her kids could no longer play in it. Why the fuck did she think we fenced it in if not to stop them playing in it……?

A relative's back neighbour was delighted when the relative paid over a thousand pounds to remove the massive leylandii from the end of their, the relative's, garden, it made a huge improvement to her, the neighbours, light. However she then started to complain that the loss of the trees reduced her privacy!

We have a "free" local page where people from the village can put up used items they no longer need and see if anyone wants them for free to save them going to landfill etc. It's usually bundles of baby clothes, used school uniform, old garden furniture or battered toys, bric a brac type stuff, absolutely nothing really of value and not worth the longer trip to nearest charity shop in next town over (we are quite rural).

It's in the rules of the page to not ASK for items, just reply when something is posted.

Our CF started small with sob stories of needing clothes, but would prefer them to not the supermarket ones. Then it was asking for free help to get some furniture as she doesn't drive. Apparently nobody she knows would help her (wonder why?)

Recently she's really stepped up a gear and asked for winter jackets (got to be warm and good condition of course!), stair gates, hoover and I've just seen her asking if anyone has a spare tv going free because hers has blown up.

It's hilarious. I think the Admin is just letting her post for the shits n giggles as we are all on the page waiting for the next instalment of CF requests.

I’ve honestly never come across CFs like this in real life, only on mumsnet. But my DS isn’t school age yet, so I’ve got a few years to prepare myself for the onslaught of CF school mums.

12 years in here - still never come across one yet.

I'm more saddened by people's lack of ability to say "No, fuck off"

Yes. All this "I was too shocked to say no" nonsense. If I'm sitting in a park and someone asks me to move, unless it is because there is a spider infestation or a car hurtling towards us, that's a no from me.

@3GreenPullups

I seem to be a magnet for CFery.

I need to work out what it is about me that makes people think they can get away with it.

Then i need to think about WHY I let them get away with it.

I had one just this past weekend which I cannot even explain without it sounding utterly ridiculous.

If it helps me too. When you find the solution can you let me know ? 😵‍💫😵‍💫

In the 60s my mother worked in a confectionery shop owned by a friend but there were no staff rates for anything they purchased. On Christmas Eve the shop was open til about 8pm, and my mother had put to one side a dozen mince pies she had paid for. At about 7.50 one of the usual customers came in and asked for mince pies, she'd forgotten to buy them earlier, and my mother said there were none left. Her boss said Oh you have that dozen, let her have those! My mother then came home at 9pm and started baking mince pies.

I have a practised, exaggerated response to CF requests.
“Really? Me? You are SO sweet to think of me. Honestly, it’s SO kind of you but I’m going to have to say No. I couldn’t manage that. Thank you for asking though”
It works every time. They just move on to next sucker.

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.

I should add that he's not even particularly tall or imposing. He just looks at them as though he is thinking "I'm in hurry, why are you wasting my time with this?" and that's enough for them to accept the "no" first time.

It's starting to rub off on me (though I'm not as fast thinking) and I have to say as a former doormat, it's an amazing skill to have.

@SapphosRock

I have a good CF story from yesterday. Me, my friend and our DC we're having a picnic on the beach. We had been there about half an hour when a woman came over and asked us to move as she wanted a friend to take some photos of her without us in the background. We were so taken aback we actually moved!

Happened to us on a tour of China, visiting some gardens a couple, not in our group, insisted that people move for their shots, they then took forever to set up the shot even though it was a noddy point and press camera. She got hysterical at me when I refused to move.

I had a school mum (knew her sort of from a bit of school volunteering but not friends really) ask me to pick her daughter up and take her to an after school activity but she framed it like she was doing me a favour.

So it wasn’t ‘could you possibly take Amy, I know it’s cheeky but she’s dying to do brownies and we can’t take her.’

Instead, it was ‘oh your Jenny does brownies as well - since you’re home in the afternoons you could pick Amy up those days and take her. Jenny will have a bit of company then!’

I just said haha no sorry car’s already full of blood related company. Not in those words exactly.

"I wouldn't mind if it was a one off, the headphones were cheap, but it's something every year."

But you keeping going away with her?

So she's such great company that it's worth it?

psychonabike very interesting.
I think most cf start small and it escalates. So they don’t say will you take my child to Brownies every week and I’ll never reciprocate or give you any petrol money. Instead it’s shall we share the driving? Ok you say. Their week DH has car so you do it. Their next turn it’s in garage then before you know it they are just assuming you’ll do it.
One I remember on here was a mum kindly taking her 3 children plus another random child on a bus and walk by a dockside to an outdoor activity. Op had refused as girl didn’t want to take coat or wellies (and girl’s mum didn’t like to make her) Lots thought op should have taken girl anyway (op didn’t want to deal with cold wet and moaning - girl had form for this) or suggested op carry bag with spares etc. Or suggestions how to chivvy her a long as though op was a paid outward bound leader. Op was doing the mum a massive favour - the only response should have been Tracy take your coat and be good for Katie’s mum. I was amazed how many didn’t see this. Likewise current thread where posters think school run mum should give notice and keep driving 7 hours extra and a cost of £20 a week for a random child she met last week even if op isn’t going to school that day.

I’ve never experienced a CF, DBro and I were discussing this a few weeks ago. He says it’s because I have a “Fuck Off Face” and that’s why people don’t even bother

My CF SIL used to ring up & say, "I think if would be nice if..." & it was always something DH & I should do at our expense, e.g. "... if you had Mum down for a holiday," or "... if you sent Mum a present because she's feeling down."

I used to wish I had the cheek to ring her up & say, "I think it would be nice if you sent me an enormous bunch of flowers," but I just wasn't in her league.

I think parking issues can give birth to some of the biggest CFs.
Lived next door to a pair of semis, they were the only ones with no off-road parking which made them think they could control the parking outside their houses. One day I read a note pinned on a car: "Pl do not park here, there are children and one is disabled" The elder was 19, drove, had already smashed up his own car, the younger (mid-teens) did have some disability but could walk perfectly well. The other house, one day a friend came to lunch, she missed our house and I saw her up the road talking to the owner. Thought he'd been pointing out the right house...in fact he said you can't park here my wife's gone to the supermarket and she'll need to unload.

I took my DDs to a hockey match one weekend. Parking is difficult to get so arrived early and got as prime space overlooking the pitch. DD2 goes down and DD1and I are sitting in the car waiting for the match to start. A car parks beside and we laugh as it’s abandoned more than parked (this is rough ground so unmarked) and think nothing more it it and the car park quickly fills. About half an hour later the match had started and we’re watching from the car when a dark shadow fills the car and then the window is rapped. I open the door and a woman with a takeaway coffee in her hand announces that if ‘would just squeeze our car up a bit’ there’s be room for her tractor - sorry, Range Rover. I pointed out that my car is parked fine and the space beside me is unusable due to the car parked/abandoned beside me and for me to ‘squeeze up’ would put me centimetres from the car on the other side, so no. I closed my door and the next thing she yanked it open and said ‘are you really not going to move it?’ No, I’m not. ‘Where will I park?’ I directed her to parking quite a bit away and also pointed out if she hadn’t gone for coffee and arrived earlier she wouldn’t have a problem finding a parking space. Well, she called me names that would make a sailor blush - probably because me and DD1 were in fits of laughter by this stage. Off she stomped and sped off. The best bit? We waited for a while until we saw her finally make her way to the crowd at the side of the pitch (after quite a walk from the next nearest car park) and watched as she pointed up at us, obviously regaling someone with her tale of injustice and - as she watched - we drove off! We weren’t staying anyway - DD1 also had a match, at a later time in a different town. We were just killing time before we left and we knew there’s no way she’d have time to go and get her car and repark - our space would been long gone. Gave me a warm glow all day - entitled CF!

I’ve honestly never come across CFs like this in real life, only on mumsnet. But my DS isn’t school age yet, so I’ve got a few years to prepare myself for the onslaught of CF school mums.

They find the people who can't say no.( Me)
Then they use you and slag you off when you finally say no.

I do notice they usually pick on loners or people going through a hard time.

I don't suffer now because I realized why are they asking me,when they have loads of friends.
Because the friends are wise to them and they're on the prowl for new victims

Divorced friend who is always posting about trips away with here kids, has decided her 3 year old kitchen needs replacing, could I help her out?

suggestion was to put her new kitchen on my credit card and she would pay if off as and when she has spare cash, others have done this for her!! she owes 'friends' thousands according to her Ex who she almost bankrupted...

I'm a GP. One of the most consistently depressing things I have seen in my career is how selfish people always seem to find some poor sap to run around after them, whereas lovely, kind people struggle on alone. It's particularly mysterious in families, where selfish narcissists somehow seem to manage to produce caring children who do their bidding, or nasty self-involved (adult) children have some frail, elderly parent at their beck and call.

(Obviously I'm not talking about all carer relationships here - just a small minority who are nasty people)