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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Do you have charitable friendships?

98 replies

washingmachines4 · 02/02/2022 14:52

Do you have charitable friendships? – ie friendships you get nothing from other than feeling like you have done a good deed making someone feel better/keeping them company from time to time.

If you do, do you think they would do the same?

OP posts:

Fimofriend · 02/02/2022 14:55

I have had those kind of friendships and no they would never do the same for me or anyone else. There were usually several reasons why they needed a charitable friend.

Just10moreminutesplease · 02/02/2022 14:57

I’m not sure I understand. Do you mean am I friends with people purely because I feel sorry for them in some way?

If so, no I don’t. I’d feel a bit weird about pretending to like someone to be ‘charitable’… unless it was a properly organised befriending scheme I suppose.

LakesandSnow · 02/02/2022 15:11

No I don't, because I'm not patronising and full of my sense of self importance.

KimDeals · 02/02/2022 15:11

Yes I do from time to time.

I don’t intend to, but I do this thing where I overcompensate for other people social awkwardness, I do my best to make it all smooth and making them feel comfortable when they are a bit out of their depth. I do this by being warm. This is then misconstrued. I’ve got a current friendship that was based on this “misunderstanding”. I get little out of it, our rapport isn’t genuine so I feel a bit disingenuous although I care for her. I could just see her socially drowning at a local event and I overcompensated as I felt bad for her (outsider in a very closed community). But it didn’t mean I was feeling a huge draw to her, no. That’s where the crossed wires comes.

Although it’s not true to describe what I do as “charitable”, if I was doing it as an act of charity it would be so much kinder. It’s just throwing a lifeline that has snowballed on occasion.

safeharbour · 02/02/2022 15:12

That's not really a friendship is it?

Hoppinggreen · 02/02/2022 15:12

No
I genuinely like all my friends and want to spend time with them

OfstedOffred · 02/02/2022 15:19

I have had those kind of friendships and no they would never do the same for me or anyone else. There were usually several reasons why they needed a charitable friend.

This

XenoBitch · 02/02/2022 15:20

I have done in the past, but they ended badly when I actually needed a friend myself. It was very one sided, and I would not put myself through that again.

AnnieJessie · 02/02/2022 15:36

Yes. We were friends once, but it became more and more obvious that it was one-sided and that she was only interested in what I could do for her.

No, she wouldn't do anything for me.

However, I do get something from it - I love her kids.

I'm not her only "charitable friend" - there are others whose primary concern is to make sure the kids are ok.

pilates · 02/02/2022 15:40

No, I do not like forced friendships and they very rarely work.

Wreath21 · 02/02/2022 15:42

I have had one or two. I tend to be a bit more careful around that sort of thing now as I don't think it's particularly healthy for anyone involved. If you act as someone's protector/support worker, even if it's out of initial good intentions, they will either drain you dry or work out that you think you are Doing Good Deeds and feel insulted and resentful.

KimDeals · 02/02/2022 15:42

@safeharbour

That's not really a friendship is it?

Is that to me?

Definitely not a friendship like my true friendships, but a version of the type the OPs post is about I think.

FoggySpecs · 02/02/2022 15:47

Yes, my alcoholic friend, when she in good form, i.e. Not drinking she is funny, kind and wonderful.

Original poster

washingmachines4 · 02/02/2022 15:56

Thanks for the replies.

The friendship I am thinking of began somewhat disingenuously I suppose. I was time poor, they were time rich – this is still true. They pestered me for social engagement and interaction and I was watching them being constantly rejected by others. It was awful – I caved, I felt so sorry for them and whilst I didn’t want the engagement, I felt something awful might happen if I didn’t throw them a lifeline – they were rejected by family and people they thought were friends (who I have a horrible feeling became friends a bit like I did – and then finally had enough and ‘ended it’).

I don’t know what to do other than to continue within the time restraints I am able to commit to it. I have tried gently feeding back some behaviours that may help them make and maintain friends but I think I am all too subtle and things have not improved.

They are depressed and draining and whilst they take positive steps to tackle the depression (exercise, etc.) it does just leak out into every aspect of life anyway.

OP posts:

safeharbour · 02/02/2022 15:57

No KimDeals, sorry, I just happened to post immediately after you! .

You sound lovely (and genuine)! I totally recognise the situation you are describing, and have done the same myself.

Op I think even though you have defined it as a type of friendship; I think in some instances relationships like this can be exploitative (on both sides), convenient, pragmatic, which are all words I wouldn't really associate with proper friendship.

seekinglondonlife · 02/02/2022 15:57

I have 2. I like them as people but don't get much out of the friendship myself. One has ASD and has a lot of social issues. She's extremely 'wooden' in her responses, she makes no differentiation between happy/sad emotion so it's really hard to guage how she is feeling. She doesn't like to socialise with others with ASD because she finds them too 'wooden'. My ds has ASD and struggles socially so it's really important to me to make the effort with those who have social difficulties. I hope in the future others will feel this way towards him.
The other one is an older lady with MH issues and I suspect a personality disorder. She finds it really hard to make friends as she wants to make them 'exclusive' and gets upset if they have other friends. I text her every day and take her for shopping/coffee once a fortnight.

safeharbour · 02/02/2022 16:04

Just read your update op. Your intentions were - and still are - good so I wouldn't beat yourself up about this too much. Depression is really hard to overcome but at the same time recovery has to come from within. You have tried your very best and no one can do any more than that. In fact, if you were to maintain this friendship as you did previously , you could possibly fall in to the category of "enabling". It's a fine line but that would not be good for your former friend either.

Ikeptgoing · 02/02/2022 16:19

Yes and usually I bow out after a while of doing my bit, once it starts to interfere with my quality of life and my DCs. I have enough to do and a demanding job so once I've helped a few times and realise it's not healthy for my family that I've added in extra stressors, I withdraw usually.

The only time I stayed involved for years was when I helped look after my neighbour in her 90s until she went into a care home and it was tough going at the end when I was getting called over through the night increasingly , taking dinners over and checking her meds. That was a friendship borne out of worrying about her - when she started wandering outside late at night and needing ambulances as she was falling a lot.

newnameforthis76 · 02/02/2022 22:59

No, I don’t. I don’t hang around people who are going through a bad time solely so I can feel smug and superior about what a great person I am. And if I suspected a ‘friend’ was doing that to me, we would not be friends for much longer. It’s patronising and creepy.

Original poster

washingmachines4 · 03/02/2022 12:35

@newnameforthis76 - do you really think me and others who spend time with people who need company and time where no one else will give the time are doing it to be smug and superior? I do feel I have done a kind thing when I take the time but not smug or superior.

I work more than full time hours, look after kids, help out parents+in laws, run the house and by all accounts am time poor. I spend the time because no one else will, I came here and questioned it because recently the person in question has cut someone else off because they felt negatively impacted by the relationship. They described their relationship with this person much as I would my relationship with them which gave me the hump a bit as I felt like the kindness wasn't being passed on (which is unfair, because they don't see our friendship as a kindness).

I can bite the bullet and end the interaction but they will have no one to talk things through with, and they need that. I don't think I can do that. So many have already done that.

They are a nice person, they mean well, they are kind, but they are negative, a bit self centred which I think stems from a lot of social isolation and therefore are very needy/clingy. Not evil and not deserving of this level of rejection

OP posts:

MsTSwift · 03/02/2022 12:40

I find this difficult- have encouraged dds to befriend/ invite the difficult child as feel sorry for them but then actually I don’t replicate that in my own social life…

My grandparents were like this and to this day my mum is resentful about the lonely randoms they would have round to be kind when she was a child. She hated it.

AlexaShutUp · 03/02/2022 12:44

I have one "friend" who I help a lot and from whom I get nothing in return. Not even a basic interest in what is going on for me in my own life. I think she would probably reciprocate if she was capable of it, but she is just one of those people who really struggles with life and she doesn't have the capacity to give back in any way.

It does annoy me sometimes, especially if I ask struggling with stuff myself and she is still in take, take, take mode. However, when I think about it rationally, I recognise that it is ultimately my choice to carry on supporting her. I could stop/take a step back if I so chose.

I have thought about why it is that I carry on regardless, and there are a number of reasons. One is that I feel sorry for her, and I accept that she genuinely isn't capable at the moment of doing any more than she is doing. Another is that I feel sorry for her kids and want to support her to parent them as effectively as she can - they didn't create the situation that they're in. And being brutally honest with myself, I suspect that I get some kind of psychological pay off in my own mind from being the bigger person and carrying on supporting her despite getting nothing back.

WhatNoRaisins · 03/02/2022 12:46

I wouldn't mind including someone like that in a group but I don't think I'd want to devote too much time to one on one socialising with them.

Juniper68 · 03/02/2022 12:46

Is there any way this friend can help you out OP? Childcare or doing some cleaning? If they have so much time on their hands?

I've just got rid of a friend. I've been his friend for years. Lots have dropped him. But the reason I have is his personality has changed. I can't go into it as it's outing. I've said he needs to speak to someone and pointed out the change. But he's quite arrogant about the fact it's everyone else not him. Very hard to see. He had a bad fever after his first covid jab and changed. I suspect something happened to his brain? Anyway I've cut ties as he was upsetting me.

Abra1d1 · 03/02/2022 12:49

I’ve had an elderly person in this category. It was very hard work at the end. He had ASD, I think, and became demented and was estranged from his children because of something that had happened before I knew him.

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