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!

I honestly think it's because of this: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/change-life-asker-guesser

Once I read this article, all the CFs made sense to me!

@Diverseopinions according to my parents (mid 70’s) people didn’t lock their doors as they had nothing worth stealing (post war no one had anything) and it was still a pile of shit where you were judged for almost everything. Don’t always believe the rose tinted ‘oh it was better back then!’ That keeps being presented

I cant believe people allow themselves to be such door mats and cant just say no.

@ThorsLeftNut

I think it’s worse when they phrase it as helping YOU out.

My MIL constantly says she’ll ‘have the grandkids because you need a break’ or ‘I’ll take the kids if you want to do something with X’ when really she should just say ‘I’d love to spend the day with the grandkids’
I don’t know why but it totally pisses me off 😂

I think you and I share a MIL

Yes I’ve thought this often. I could do with being a bit more of a CF in my life!

I am particularly impressed by husbands Ex. I don’t want to be as selfish as her, but then again she has managed to get both my Ex and her new fiancé running around after her in a way that I kind of wish I could do!

Ex had to take the kids to school and back even though they lived in her house, she didn’t have a job and had a car. She never went to a single parents evening. Anything in the house was sorted by Ex, including plugging in a new TV. The older kids had to look after the younger ones. When she wanted the house to herself she just kicked all the kids out. She even got me to babysit for her nephew quite a few times before I realised I was being taken for a fool!

I don't tend to have run ins with CF's as I think my face puts them off. i just look permanently grumpy. I'm not, I just look that way. Still, it's better to be relatively unpopular and not CF'd on a regular basis than to be a friend of mine who is popular, but probably because she may as well have a handle sticking out of her ear as everyone takes her for a mug.
She's been suckered into afternoon childcare despite finding out later the Dad was actually available, he just didn't want to. She's constantly being asked for lifts here, there and everywhere. I've had to listen to her complain about how stressed it makes her, but my suggestion of "Stop agreeing to it then." didn't really go down well.
She did grow a bit of a spine when her sister wanted to use her address as a correspondence address so she could commit benefit fraud.

The real problem is that the CF's exhaust everyone around them so that if someone else has a real emergency, they're less likely to get any help.

Also, I disagree with the Guardian article, most of the CFs I know make it very clear that they expect a ‘yes’.

Either through manipulation or by giving you grief if you do say no.

Husband’s Ex complained very loudly when I stopped babysitting her nephew. And completely ballistic if my Ex refused to do stuff at the house!

I’ve had this with other people too. Sometimes it isn’t even asked, so there is no way to say no! Lately a friend expected to stay for 3 weeks because she had some work in my city. Didn’t even ask. When I said ‘no’ she went totally quiet and asked what I meant. It affected our friendship, she withdrew from me afterwards. I found it very stressful!

So no, In my experience CFs are not cheerful ‘askers’ who do not mind at all if you say no. They really, really do mind!

The real problem is that the CF's exhaust everyone around them so that if someone else has a real emergency, they're less likely to get any help

It's worse than that. Somehow, CFs condition many people to do what they want but, if a non-CF - particularly someone who usually gives help instead of receiving it - asks a favour, people resent it.

MissLucy
That if very true. I tried to ask favours of cheeky fuckers. But it was engrained I was the giver and door mat. Not anymore though!

@NCBlossom

Also, I disagree with the Guardian article, most of the CFs I know make it very clear that they expect a ‘yes’.

Either through manipulation or by giving you grief if you do say no.

Husband’s Ex complained very loudly when I stopped babysitting her nephew. And completely ballistic if my Ex refused to do stuff at the house!

I’ve had this with other people too. Sometimes it isn’t even asked, so there is no way to say no! Lately a friend expected to stay for 3 weeks because she had some work in my city. Didn’t even ask. When I said ‘no’ she went totally quiet and asked what I meant. It affected our friendship, she withdrew from me afterwards. I found it very stressful!

So no, In my experience CFs are not cheerful ‘askers’ who do not mind at all if you say no. They really, really do mind!

Yes - the Guardian article muddles up cultures where it is not rude to ask directly (Russia, Scandinavia etc) with individuals who lack any sense of reciprocation or boundaries. I agree with you that CFs very much do object if people say no - non-CFs need to learn to overcome their discomfort when this happens.

I have a distant relative on fb and I swear the only reason I don't delete her is because she's just priceless entertainment. She's forever posting (free) requests for help, she got a new dog and literally the day after she got it there was a request for someone to look after the dog whist they were at work 🤣, it had to be in their house though!! She added she'd be looking for someone to take the dog for walks twice a day once the dog was allowed out 😆 I don't think she realises that's a service you pay for. Then she was moving house over 1000km away, she said she'd looked at removals and it cost thousands so she wanted a couple of people to take 2 days off work, drive a van over 1000km (and back I guess), load and unload at each end for "a few beers" 🤣🤣🤣. The annoying thing is she has these people who will actually say yes, I mean she did share the moving post about a dozen times before someone bit, but they did bite and she saved thousands. She's got an amazing job that she emigrated for, her requests are not due to lack of money and she has a partner so isn't in need of help with not having a man around. Just a marvellous cheeky fucker! It's quite sad how much I enjoy her requests 🤣

someone bought me round about 4 binbags full of clothes, didnt want them back!
i didnt want them either, i hadnt asked for them, had to take them to charity shop!

she also asked for squash, milk, even her dh came one morning for milk

Some of these are amazing! Top CF-ery.

I know a couple who I don't think have ever once paid for accommodation on holiday. They stayed with me once and I barely saw them. If they were in my tiny flat, they'd always be locked in their room having "naps" in the middle of the day while I sat outside their door in the only living area 🤢. I think they're confused about what a hotel is and that their acquaintances' homes are not hotels!

The woman made me snigger to myself when she said "well, I've been invited to my friend's wedding. But I don't think I'm going to be able to go because nobody has offered me a place to stay". "Oh right. Where is the wedding again? Oh, in a MASSIVE city you say? One where you might find circa a thousand hotels"?

They asked to stay with us after they'd been to a concert in a city which I didn't even live in! It was very weird. I said no, you'd be as well going home. Fuck off. I'm not a hotel!!

Is it a British thing where we are too polite to say no? I used to attend a choir and I was asked to give someone a lift home one week as her usual lift couldn’t take her. It wasn’t a big deal, a one off and whilst she didn’t live that near it wasn’t hugely out my way. Seemed a harmless request.

The following week I got a message asking if I could pick her up and drop her off, sure no problem then she told me she had moved to the other side of the city. Did I say no? Of course not, I went out my way and drove over to pick her her. At the weekend she phoned me and I missed the call, she left me a voicemail to ask if I could drive to her house as she needed some furniture moved and it would fit in my car. Did I say no? No, I ignored it and left the choir!

As it happens I don’t think she was a deliberate CF, just someone who had never driven and had no concept of how inconvenient it might be for me.

Its the degree of selfishness that I find outstanding! I'm constantly surprised by how inward looking some people can be.
I had one ex-friend who went to Oz for 3 weeks. Told me her dog was going into kennels. Turns out the dog was never booked in kennels and I had a panicked phone call from her elderly mother telling me the dog had been left a home and could I have it for 3 weeks!

I have a friend who somehow manipulates people into driving her to appointments which, in itself, doesn’t sound bad, but these appointments are ones that are some distance away eg 50 miles and this is despite her having a shiny sports car sitting in her garage! But why use your own petrol when some other mug will do it? So yes, I am impressed with her Cfuckery!

I think older teenagers helping with pet sitting and walking kiddies to school, for community service, is a good idea.

No, this is CF-ery, unpaid child labour, and age discrimination. You would pay an adult for that (assuming you don't know them). Community service should be more community focused, such as food bank volunteering.

The thing I find weirdest is when people say this happens with relatively new friends. I’d have to be close friends with someone for about five years minimum before I wouldn’t find a request for help with anything profoundly uncomfortable and probably permanently off putting. When I read about people lending relatively new or not that close friends money and things like that it genuinely boggles my mind.

@Diverseopinions

Out of interest, what happened to the pulling together culture of 60 - 100 years ago when neighbours didn't lock their doors; borrowed sugar; helped out with childcare? In 'Sons and Lovers', the mother actually borrows the train fare from a northern town to Beckenham to see her very ill son. Close communities used to all help one another on a very regular basis. Usually it's reciprocal. Someone minds someone's kids and then does the favour in return, the next week. My impression is that, in other parts of the world, friends help each other out more than they do here. We have reached a stage of extreme independence, in the UK, I think, when even having help from siblings is a no-no.

There is an assumption that everyone ought to be able to manage their own stuff and, obviously, a feeling that it is unlikely that a person helped will ever be in a position to help back. I think that is the feeling, that there are needy people who always want others to do things for them. Strange really, as, in my life, I've heard lots of people talking about friends who have helped them, e.g. lending them money to buy a car; definitely pet-minding.

It sounds like something has gone wrong with the council school place allocation, if a family live further than walking distance from school and there is no bus service. There may be a genuine difficulty.

I think older teenagers helping with pet sitting and walking kiddies to school, for community service, is a good idea.

I think that's a myth that people pulled together. People lived closer to their families and didn't move away from the area they came from in the same way. So it was families helping each other out. Not your random neighbour who moved in six months ago. Also that's not community service that you are suggesting, that's just helping one person. I don't live in the UK. There are CF here too and frankly it's no different from that point of view.

I have resting bitch face and I always say NO to everything first. I might think about it afterwards and change to yes but it’s far easier if you start with no. Also it’s not NO because xxxxx… it’s just No, sorry, I can’t do that. If you say because xxxxx then the CFs just argue with you.

@candlelightsatdawn

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

Honestly, it's really nothing to do with you or anything that you do. Some people are happy to ask for things, the important thing is how they react when people do not do what they want.

A shrug and ok is fair enough. Anything else, is really not.

@GetOffTheTableMabel

• 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.*

This is genius.

During the war looting was a huge problem, burglaries, rapes, murders all increased. Perhaps there was more "pulling together" with some people, but it wasn't universal.

That same war saw some people, typically those who secured contracts for supplying the military, get v v rich by providing substandard materials eg boots for the troops.

Plus ca change....

@HarrisonStickle

During the war looting was a huge problem, burglaries, rapes, murders all increased. Perhaps there was more "pulling together" with some people, but it wasn't universal.

This was a central theme in the TV program Foyle's War, which was really good if you've never seen it.

Since DC started school I'm finding more and more CF. SO many people especially trying to manage wfh and not pay for childcare, basically relying on begging friends to "have DS/DD for an hour after school"? I accepted once on my day off and lo and behold that mum had an "emergency" every week on that day since trying to get me to have her DC again. She does it to loads of people and its bloody annoying. She isn't hard up at all she just refuses to pay for a childminder or the after school club.