To think my friend is treating me like her maid

[Grabhands]

For context, this is a friend who I have known for years, haven't seen since before COVID. We booked and are on a 7 day all in beach holiday in the Med.

Meals are buffet service, tea service and cakes etc at certain times from a pool bar and a bar where you can go and get alcoholic drinks etc. At meal times waiters will bring you water for the table and you go to bar for anything else. Bar a few mins walk.

At every single meal we have had since arriving, she tries to send me to the bar to get her a drink, if I am going anyway absolutely fine, otherwise get your own!

She also keeps taking food from my plate to try it, with fingers , and then says can you go and get me some of that.

When I get desert, she gives me a list and asks me to bring back plates of various things.

Tea, she doesn't want to go to bar to get cakes, in case she misses some sun so again even though I don't want anything asks me to go.

I know its petty, and I'm usually easy going but after 3 days I have just said you go, you have legs too, and please stop taking food from my plate.

She is now very offended and huffing and puffing!

Am I being a cow?

What in all of OP's updates, makes you think the "friend" would be interested in hearing why OP has had enough and is going?

OP has said enough and now been called selfish. Do you really think "friend" is open to a conversation?

She sounds like me. Except it’s my husband waiting on me 😂. I’d never treat a friend like that.

I agree.

I think you have done the right thing.

I wouldn't ever want to speak or see her again.

It's actually a bit hard to believe that this is real, that someone could be so detached from reality.

No wonder she is not in a relationship.

Enjoy your last few days, money well spent.

I would give her minimal information.

I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have just said in a jokey way “get it yourself you lazy cow” repeatedly and if she says she wanted to relax say “well I do too - when’s your turn?” Surely she could not object to this. And if she did you tell her you’re not her maid (again said in a jokey way)

No harm done but gets your point across.

Leaving (& paying) for another hotel seems like madness.

Wow - she called you selfish?
I hope you told her how many things she has picked up for you during your stay so far.

I think booking in next door is the sensible option - she'll now have to get all her own things at the original place, if she's there alone. I hope she takes this time alone to reflect, but I somehow doubt it.

Hope you won’t be travelling back on the same flight!

The poor thing will starve to death without you OP 😂😂😂

Can you change your seat on the return flight so you aren’t stuck next to her? How are you getting home from the airport?

Well done @Grabhands . How you've put up with it for this long is beyond me! You're very brave lol. But I must admit, I would've been tempted to do the same, but send her the bill because of her insufferable behaviour! Lol. Enjoy the rest OP. 🏖

Thanks everyone

I think for me the right decision was to move, it's not expensive and I'm not up for a battle of wills over who gets food every meal time, find it irritating and draining

I've spoken to her a few times in the first few days and she gets stroppy and then her behaviour stays the same , I don't like confrontation and have to steal myself each time to say something so not enjoyable

We won't be going away ever again and I'm going to focus on enjoying the rest of my break in peace and quiet

We are flying back same.flight , low cost airline so can't change seats I don't think , but Head phones on and sleep for a few hours

Travel back from airport home sepately

Oh Lord OP I'd seriously consider changing my flight altogether, maybe even an extra day if you can just to avoid her completely! She sounds bloody awful.

So, to summarise - she’s early forties("so not a teenager"), moved back in with her parents a few years ago (ostensibly to save on rent) so in her late thirties at least when she did so. Works in a receptionist type role, 9 to 5, 4 days a week - so her hours are neither onerous nor antisocial. Single for the last 5 years or so.

Behaviours - Would rather sit with an empty glass than go to the bar herself, when challenged (gently!) on her expectations that you are her errand-girl just repeats she really needed a break and to relax and she ‘knows you don't mind’. When told (gently!) that you do mind gets very offended and huffs and puffs. Selective deafness to the word ‘no’.

I'm going to zero in on a couple of points OP.

You said "not a teenager", but - I wonder? By moving back in with her parents, she has resumed her 'resident daughter' role. Did her parents still live in the home she grew up in? Is she back in her own room? Are her parent treating her like the little girl / teenager she was just before she moved out? If so, she could very well have regressed inside her head to who she was at that point in time. And she's had a few years of being in this role again. It could have become ingrained. In short - you may well be dealing with a teenager, despite her being in her early forties.

"PP got it right, as soon as I get up, she will normally request something, from the room, from the bar , so head phones and forgetfulness is a good plan"
As soon as you get up, and until the very end of the day (her nightcap expectation). Wow. It's almost as if she can only exist if people are attending on her (I note she tries to ask the waiters at the resort to bring her stuff when it's self-service). Does she think she disappears if nobody is centring her in their world? I think this is actually going beyond entitlement and into - what, I don't know, but I do think there is something going on inside her head that shouldn't be going on.

She's in her forties, infantilised by her living arrangements and frankly, she's looking down the barrel of being single forever, as things stand. I'm actually starting to feel sorry for her. But that wouldn't stop me from telling her to get a fucking grip and stop acting like Lady Muck, and possibly throwing in the advice that she needs to move out of her parents' house and recover her adulthood, unless she particularly wants to be alone when old age takes them.

Well she is no loss is she? She will realise how much you have been doing when she has to do things herself. What a precious diva she is

How is moving rooms going to be less awkward than just talking to her properly?

Well done OP! Enjoy the rest of your stay.

IME some holidays are a nightmare at the time, but you can dine out on the story for the rest of your life

Did you ever just outright say, “Why do you never get anything for yourself? I’m not here to carry for you and order for you. Go yourself, and why don’t you bring me something for a change because all you’ve done is expect me to look after you.”

Leave a note and/or send a text or she will think somethings happened to you (and might raise an alarm). I think if you can afford to move for a few days I would. It all sounds very tedious and you’ve tried to solve it.

I actually think OP is giving main character energy,
she’s the kind, unproblematic friend, who’s always taken advantage of.
Some conflict arises and now there’s some character development,
when OP finally decides, enough is enough and strolls off into the sunset with her suitcase, on the way to her new hotel, a new woman 😂

the friend is definitely the mean antagonist who thinks she is the main charcter but really isn’t ..
only thing that’s missing is somebody pushing her into the pool

It's worth asking at check-in, if you explain the friendship has soured, they may move you.

No the next stage is they both fall in love with the same dashing but feckless local who does mornings with one and evenings with another….

Oops, I see things have moved on considerably since I started assembling my post and breaking in the middle for lunch!

Moving hotels sounds very sensible, Grabhands. You can relax for the next few days, not see her, not run into her, not be treated like an extra in The Film Of Her Life.

Dear …
I feel you have made a mug of me all week asking me to fetch and carry for you and helping your self to food from my plate. I didn’t want to ruin the holiday for either of us so I hinted gently that you should fetch your own food after all that’s what a self service buffet is all about. You didn’t take the hint and it spoiled things for me. But so cavalier were you with my feelings that you ignored them and it resulted in a row after your persistent daily attempts to get me to do your bidding.
I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday but I won’t be here to do your running around for you.
Maybe you will find somebody else to take advantage of. All the best with that.

This is wild, I can’t believe you had to move hotels to get away from her! 😱

well done for standing up for yourself!

Well enjoy your last few days without Ms Grabbyhands. At least you won’t be expected to pack for her or carry her bags to the plane. I think everyone asking what’s wrong with her physical health should be asking what’s wrong with her fucking ears. You’ve told her repeatedly. She has no shame.

I like this.