Tell me your CF triumphs please

[Sickofcoughing]

In real life I know I am regarded as calm and assertive. In lots of way I am definitely able to speak up for myself.

However CFs get right under my skin. I am a fairly generous person, I like to treat people and it leaves me feeling good. 99% of the time any financial deficit is negligible in friendships, I certainly never notice it.

Except of course for the one I started the thread about. This friendship spans decades. She is a shameless CF. I genuinely think I love but heavily dislike her. It's exhausting being around her because I always have to be on guard for being scammed into paying for something.

I continue to do nothing about it except carry all the resentment by quietly seething. Pathetic yes, I know.

Inspired by this thread www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4687359-lift-for-5-years-aibu?utm_source=thread&utm_medium=share can you please share with me your victory stories of how you finally called out the CFs in your lives and came away feeling good about it?

I once had a young woman (18ish) share my horse. She had set days to ride him. He was on full livery such I paid so it was a sweet deal. One of my days was Saturday. She asked if she could come and ride that day. I said no, once was enough for him and I would be spending time with him. She asked if she could just come and spend time with him too. I didn't know much about her life and it seemed mean to say no so I said yes.

She then texted the next day to say she had arranged to go on a hack on my horse with a new friend from the yard at lunch time on Saturday.

I said she was no longer welcome.

A friend who has had me pay for things then 'not had the money to repay', or cancels meet ups last minute, after I've already arrived, no longer gets any help. She's hinting now, almost daily at school pickup, 'not sure how she'll manage childcare over the holidays if her MIL isn't available, since she's rostered on a few days a week'. I reply with, 'holidays! we're so booked up already the DC won't get a break, poor things!' She's CF enough to ask directly last minute too, because shés 'desperate'. I'll suddenly slot an activity into that day. I'm not looking after/feeding her kids even once, as it will end up being almost daily & longer and longer while she CF's around with getting lunch, groceries as well.

Another was a friend I hadn't seen in years moved back to town. She'd regularly dropped me for others or not invited me to parties or girls' trips when we were friends previously. She wanted to be friends again. I said I was too busy. I knew her BF had just left town as she moved back & she was lonely. Ironically, she whinged about two of the people she'd dropped me for taking advantage of her recently. I thought that was lovely karma.

I'd been waiting in line with DD5, for a ride for almost 30 minutes at a festival. The family in front had friends stop to chat, then tried to push their kid in line with their friends kid & pretended not speak english. I glared straight at them and said, loudly, 'oh, DD, it's almost your turn! I know you've been waiting a long time but now there's only 1,2,3 kids in front of you!'. They got the message. I would have told them off if they'd have tried anyway.

I had a friend try this with me. The difference being that I came from a low income family whereas her parents where much better off. She had a monthly allowance which was more than my part time wages. She took advantage of social situations where it was difficult to call her out without changing the atmosphere and raining it for everyone. People forget that CFs are very good at this. It all came to a head when she got a lift with me and my dad because she had no money for a taxi, wouldn't take a bus and then was bitching about the state of my dad's car. We had to go out of our way to drop her. I gave her the biggest dressing down infront of all of our friends, threatened to slap her (maybe not my finest moment) but she never tried it on with me again. Our friendship group one by one ditched her after that, she had been leatching off of everyone and they had enough. I recently saw her again 15 years later, I heard her say to an acquaintance that she would be going home with me as my hotel was in her direction. I laughed and said I hadn't been asked for a lift, had no intention of offering one, was not a taxi service and she was still the selfish, entitled cow she ways was. The acquaintance was shocked, her boyfriend said that I had said what everyone else was thinking.

Some people will never change their ways op. You however can learn ways in which to manage their behaviour. Stopping giving two flying fucks about lowering the tone of an evening for a start, calling out each incidence of cheeky fuckery, being blunt. It doesn't come easy to all of us but once you've started it gets easier.

When I was heavily pregnant CFs kept patting me on the tummy. One day I’d had enough. This lady in Asda patted my tummy - so I looked her directly in the eyes and patted HER tummy. She was horrified and scurried off. I can still feel the sense of gratification.

When I read these things, I always think Oh what a shame they sound really skint. But in my experience, the CF's are anything but!

My friend visited me with her DH. They stayed 2 nights. I cooked all weekend and we all had copious amounts of wine. I had clocked that they turned up empty handed, but as they were leaving she said "Oh, we left our alcohol in the car"....she went in to the boot and handed me.....one miniature bottle of Budweiser. This couple are LOADED.

I've also witnessed people turning up to parties with 4 cans of beer and then ripping in to the spirits.

I work for myself, and have noticed that it's always the richest clients that take the longest to pay. Weird.

Black tie works do. Me and DH arrived with my work colleague and her DH. We got in the first round. When those drinks were finished and it was obvious that it was the other couple's turn to go to the bar, she announced "we can't get any drinks, we've only got 50p". I still can't believe that one! It was over 25 years ago. I wanted to scream "Why are you here then?"

@TortugaRumCakeQueen please don’t tell me you paid for their drinks all night?

That's annoying but it's not a cf story. A cf is someone who tries to get things for free or demands excessive favours without returning them

TortugaRumCakeQueen · Today 07:41
When I read these things, I always think Oh what a shame they sound really skint. But in my experience, the CF's are anything but!
My friend visited me with her DH. They stayed 2 nights. I cooked all weekend and we all had copious amounts of wine. I had clocked that they turned up empty handed, but as they were leaving she said "Oh, we left our alcohol in the car"....she went in to the boot and handed me.....one miniature bottle of Budweiser. This couple are LOADED.
I've also witnessed people turning up to parties with 4 cans of beer and then ripping in to the spirits.
I work for myself, and have noticed that it's always the richest clients that take the longest to pay. Weird.

I've found this, too. Some well-off people are the last to pay up, or never do. Everyone's different, so generalisations may not be useful but after many years of noticing this, I think it's sometimes because they can't imagine anyone really cares about a tenner, or even £30. Surely that's an insignificant sum?

At one job I had, I was asked to buy a birthday present for a colleague on behalf of 5 of us. The person who never paid up was the spoilt little rich girl who was always talking about treating herself to this and that - and always advising people to buy the best of everything - no compromise! Cashmere or bust etc.

I did ask her several times but didn't get paid. That was the last time I fell for that one, though.

So for example, an Irish person (in my circles) says "I'll get you a drink" if they are going to the bar and they do but there is an understanding that the other person will buy them one back. If the other person accepts it's reasonable to expect one back.
If the other person does not intend to buy back or does not want to get into rounds it's perfectly acceptable to say "no thanks, I'm only staying for one so I'll get my own."

But if you didn't know that you could cheerfully accept the drink then just buy your own afterwards.

That's not only an Irish thing OP!
Anybody familiar with UK drinking culture & keen to NOT be a CF either already knows, or would intuit what's expected & how to behave.

Another one - not very exciting, sorry!

In a big M & S on my annual and very tedious knicker/bra-buying expedition. I was in a very long queue for the changing rooms (don't know why it was so bad) and stressed because I had limited time. All the queuers were a bit fed-up and some older ladies were finding it hard.

I became aware of a mum and daughter (not little - probably about 9/10) just behind me. The mum said loudly in a performative 'baby' voice: 'Don't worry, Darling, I'm sure some of the ladies will let us through.' I stood my ground and prayed that none of the ladies would, and thank goodness they didn't.

If the girl needed the loo, then simple - just leave the queue and go. ( Before anyone suggests the girl might had been ND...well, similar - it's not a free pass to jump queues! The child was talking an behaving like a pretty typical pre-teen.)
I would have more happily given up my place to an older person who may not have been able to stand for long though!

I think we all get to set our own parameters on what constitutes CF'ery to us. & I agree with @Schlaar that is is VERY cheeky to lay hands on someone, & only Cheeky Fuckers act like a pregnant woman is public property.

The tummy-patting CF never expected that her 'favour' would be returned.
She felt SHE had the right to grope Schlaar, but was horrified when Schlaar did it back. I call THAT a triumph of CF-handling. 😁

We have a holiday home in a very popular tourist destination overseas which we rent commercially. We said to a friend once they could use it free of charge, to check the website - let us know when it was free and we would reserve it for them.

Other friends we have done this for are very grateful, choose out of season dates and try and pay us etc ('at least let us pay a contribution to bills, pay for the cleaning etc.')

This one friend came back with peak school summer holiday dates (just a few weeks later), noting it was already fully booked but 'is there anything we can do' (meaning can we cancel the existing paid booking). We politely explained that this was a long standing and paid for booking and it would not be possible to cancel it.

Agree, I think CFery is usually financial / about material goods, but it can be about less tangible 'goods' - it is characterised by entitlement and non-reciprocity. Like a friend always demanding a listening ear then blowing you off when you have a problem and need to talk, IMO, is emotional CFery.

I had a lovely friend who couldn’t say no and was always been taken advantage of for childcare as she was a sahm. One CF mum at school had a VERY IMPORTANT JOB and was always asking for school pick ups for her twins, one of whom was in the same class as our boys. Last minute she would often say she had nobody to pick up her younger DD in reception so my friend would end up with all three. Friend and I had a nice deal where we would take the others’ boy home for tea then on to beavers every second week. We decided it was easier to do pick up too so each of us had a week off. CF wanted her boys to do beavers (or just wanted the childcare) and asked my friend who has the good sense to say she had to ask me (and warned me). Cue a phone call from CF who had always ignored me socially. After a fun few minutes where I pretended not to know who she was she said how much her boys wanted to do beavers and could she join our car pool. I then asked her if she wanted to do her two weeks in a row as she had two kids or if she wanted to do every second week. Obviously she had no intention of actually doing any of them. She was so pissed off when I said “but why on earth would we feed your kids and drive them around when you aren’t willing to do any of it, either you do 2/4 weeks or it’s no deal”. Don’t think she ever spoke to me again but my friend was very grateful I had got her out of it.

Agree, CFery is mainly about entitlement, and randoms (or anyone) touching a pregnant woman’s body without her permission is the ultimate sense of entitlement.

I actually think this is one of the funniest of all the CF posts on here today and what a way to get her back. I bet that made her think twice about doing that to any other pregnant woman.

Nicely phrased. There are subtleties in every culture.

A completely different example - in my culture, you should show appreciation to the host by finishing the food provided. We were lucky enough to be taken out for a very lavish dinner in another country with a very different culture. Thank goodness someone warned us that unless you leave some food, the host will keep ordering courses and more dishes, because they need to provide more than you can eat to be considered generous.

Family member is shortly moving an hour away by car from DH and I. I said that was great, not a long drive and we would see far more of them. They replied saying they plan to mostly take the train which is 20 mins to a station which is 25 mins away. So they want me/DH+DC to drive for an hour round trip so they can take a 20min train rather than drive them self. That doesnt work for us.

During the school holidays a child in our ds class rang to invite him to play at his house the following day.
Our son wasn’t particularly enthusiastic as he didn’t play with the child at school but was ok about it.
We dropped ds off and picked him up as arranged with the parents.
At about 9pm that evening the boy rang again to ask if he could come to play at our house the following day. I thought it was a bit forward and felt put out due to the late request but agreed.
Unbeknown to me the child told ds that his dad would drop him off at our house at 9am and pick him up at 4pm! I was fuming as his parents obviously needed childcare because they were back at work.Not only that but they used their child in the deceit.

Ok so you get what I'm saying.

Let's imagine the scenario then I'm at the bar with CF and maybe a third person. I say "what'll we have?" and purchase three drinks. Other person says "what'll we have?" and buys three drinks. CF disappears either on a long-winded phonecall or out to the shop or else it's time to leave.

And yes we've tried saying oi your round but there will be a big pantomime of yeah give me a SEC and then it's a waiting game where she keeps wandering around pretending to be engaged with other tasks. It creates stress when eventually someone cracks and if it's not someone who sees her regularly they will be insistent on sorting the bill.

What I'm saying here is turning to CF and saying you owe me the money for the drink I bought you would be fairly rude. Leaving her out and buying the other person is fairly rude but given the history is necessary. Opening with "we will just get our own shall we?" is the way it has to be whenever she's around which makes it slightly less pleasant and it means we have modified behaviour. Also if (as frequently happens) the third person shouts in the first round then the whole cycle kind of kicks off. The other person might not notice because it's one drink (maybe two or more if more people come and go) but if I address it then I'm the person splitting hairs over A PINT.

So most of the time I am aware and do not pay for anything for her but it's an effort all the time around her.

Why is anyone still inviting CF out with the group?

Regarding the round dodger, if you don't do anything about it then you need to stop complaining about it. I have an acquaintance that I will leave out of a round to his face because he's as tight as a ducks arse. I make no apologies for it either.

Only once have I got the better of a CFer in a way that I'm proud of.

We used to go out every other month with a group of couples. It was generally a lovely bunch, but one of the women had a partner who was a grabbing knob. He'd always order something really expensive, have lots of expensive drinks and then be super quick to suggest splitting the bill. It had started to become such an issue that a few people, who were finding things tight, stopped coming out all the time.

On one occasion one of the attendees was having a really, really tough time. Marriage ended, left with all the bills themselves type of thing. They'd had one course of pasta and a coke. Twatface had had 3 courses, including steak, a bottle of wine pretty much to himself and a coffee. He pulled out his wallet and said "usual - just split it?" and something snapped in me and I just laughed and said "Don't be silly X, you had three courses, steak, wine and coffee, and Y had pasta and a coke. Lets all just work out what we owe."

He actually said out loud "But I wouldn't have had that if we weren't splitting..."

Which then made someone else snap and say "You ordered that expecting other people to pay for you? That's a bit shit."

He tried to backtrack and say that he meant he would have just had one course and he just felt "greedy", but the damage was done. One of the group calculated twatface's to the penny and he paid with a face like thunder. He has never, ever spoken a single word to me since. His partner comes to events occasionally, but he very rarely does.

I remembered another one regarding DH’s cheeky fucker, tightwad ex-friend. We went out with him and my DS to a burger place that had an early bird special. £5.95 for a burger, side and a drink 😋 DH and I paid for ourselves and DS and then walked to the door whilst ex-friend lingered and said he’d ‘pay the rest on his card’ We’d left a bit of a tip so it was only about £1 short of the entire bill anyway. We looked round to see him use the tip to pay and then pay the rest on his card!! We know this for definite as DS was coming back from the loo and heard it all.

And here’s the best bit…he claimed the meal back on expenses!!!