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?

She's being very disrespectful and you've done well to call her out. I went self-catering with a friend once; she was the self and I was the catering. Never again. Stand firm.

@Grabhands You've been very restrained booking a different hotel, I'd have lobbed her off the balcony :)

If she doesn't like hot, spicy food put dome on your plate and watch her face when she puts it in her mouth!!!!! Might make her rethink her actions!!!!

If you’re close enough to go on holiday together I can understand why you aren’t able to just speak up

• can’t

I had a friend like this. Used me like a nanny to her daughter. Took me a wee while to cotton on what was happening as was trying to help her out (she was a lone parent). No longer a friend. Heard later that apparently treated most of her friends like she employed them - as used to having ‘staff’.

Sorry somehow missed the last sentence 🫣 no Yanbu

I'd personally hate to spend the last few days of my holiday in a constant conflict situation or battle of wills with someone, especially if I was sharing a room so didn't have my own space away from them. I don't think it's lacking in assertiveness to remove yourself from that situation if you can do so cheaply and easily, I think it's sensible. Surely even assertive people don't actively enjoy conflict and would find it draining? Not what you want on holiday.

> she was the self and I was the catering

+1

@SquirrelSoShiny and @captainmarvella are saying similar things here. Namely, that the OP should be more assertive ('get it yourself '). At what point do you assert yourself when you're on holiday with a friend? The first time they ask you to get something? Would you really be that rude? Or the second time? Or maybe when you realised a pattern was emerging, as the OP did?

This is amazing, I'm hooked! What possible reason could she have for not getting food and drink for herself?? Weird.

Seriously she is taking advantage. I would say exactly what you’ve said here but to her face. Tell her you aren’t her maid and you aren’t running and fetching for her as it’s your holiday too.

This is a great post. What’s interesting is that I think I was similar to OP when I was younger in that I’d find myself in situations with WIERD people like that friend, confronted with having to say no. As someone who came from an aggressive household, I was passive and indirect in my replies, not able to assertively and actively voice a strong defiant NO!! because it was bloody scary, due to my past. But I increasingly found myself facing these sorts of people over and over again, whether they were ‘friends’, coworkers, CFs, bosses, landlords, my own parents, the list continues. In these situations I had no choice but to stand up for myself and set my boundaries. My stress level at times like this was an absolute 10/10. But I did it, over and over again, until it became easy. I’m now so assertive it’s not even a problem.
My best friend is in fact a CF but I assert my boundaries constantly and she respects them, laughing at herself in the process 😜 She’s actually getting therapy now which I respect her for. But I can TOTALLY see why OP moved hotels, your holiday is NOT worth that level of stress, I also think she did extremely well, practicing her boundaries and voicing them to this wierd ass character must have been so unpleasant 😂 Well done OP 👏👏👏

I think we can see why she is single.

She sounds spoilt and taking the p**s. yanbu that would annoy the heck out of me if my friend did that constantly. Once or twice if I was already going to get something is no problem, however asking you to get up and get it for her constantly isn’t right

I went on holiday with a friend I'd known for years. Long story short, I ended up getting another room and flying home early. I've not spoken to her for over 20 yrs.

I don't either. If I tried a few times to get my friend to see what she was doing, and she still persisted, I'd not want to ruin MY holiday any longer to have a snipe-fest. I'd also remove myself from her presence and shared room, so I could salvage some holiday peace and quiet.

OP I'm sorry for you that your holiday has been spoiled by this idiot.
I hope you enjoy(ed) the last few days, and the flight home was(is)n't too bad.
I think your friend has mental issues, what she's doing is not normal.

Some people seem to have very strong opinions here. I think you did just fine. You weren't the problem, just there's a lot of idiots wandering around in life. Look on the bright side. Enjoy making jokes about your crazy experience. Treasure it as a silly memory. I once went on a date to an Indian restaurant that clearly thought a huge deal of itself but was utterly beyond rubbish. Even the fish in the fishtank were all trying to kill themselves by all swimming into the air filtery thing and a bunch of staff were trying to stop them. The staff had no more clue about running a restaurant than why the fish were so desperate to kill themselves. Even though the whole experience was god awful we still laugh about it to this day decades later. Enjoy the stupidity of your trip and turn it into a positive :)

This made me laugh WAY too much! Bravo!👏

Act deaf. Go get your own and say
" yumm you should go get yourself a bla bla."
Get own towel and lie down with your book and not budge

The other guests in OP’s new hotel will probably be confused about why she’s saying yum to thin air.

Give us the long story!

Does she have some sort of anxiety about going to the bar? I hate going and will send DH, I have never sent a friend though, I just make myself. I don't have the same anxiety about coffee shops, I just get very uneasy in noisy packed bars, My best friend knows and often offers to go, but even with anxiety, I don't let her go for me everytime. DH won't always go for me, he tells me I need to do it. Just wondering if this could be a reason, as behaviour sounds very odd.

Is she fat? Just wondering if she’s embarrassed to get and get food, extra portions etc if she’s fat. It’s really weird behaviour.