Am I being mean about the "supersweet" friend?

[endlessnonsense]

I have a friend (well, she's equally a friend of me and DH, she and her XH used to be our neighbours). We now only see her a couple of times a year as we live far away now, and I wouldn't call her a really close friend. When we go on holiday, which is to a hot seaside place in Europe, we often get friends joining us as we have a place to stay and a boat, which is fun. This year she came.

I spent a lot of the time she was here in a state of suppressed anger at her, which caused me to resent her being here. This is because she turned out, on a several-days long time together, rather than the odd dinner we usually have, to be constantly pretending (or was she pretending?) to be very thoughtful and considerate, when I felt she was being just the opposite, in a passive aggressive way.

Everywhere we suggested going and everything we suggested doing, she deferred to us, "oh I'll do whatever you want, don't worry about me", never offering any suggestions of her own or seeming especially enthusiatic. OK, fair enough, we know the place and she doesn't. But it went much further. She was always faux putting herself down/being the martyr/putting on performative sweetness.

My son has special needs and she is always supersweet to him, but I told her multiple times during the holiday, no, he doesn't want an ice cream, he doesn't like it. It must have run into more than a dozen times she said, "oh darling, do you want an ice cream, oh please let me get him an ice cream, I'll pay"(as though I wasn't getting him the ice cream myself because of meanness). (Strangely, although she knows he does like chocolate, she never once offered to buy him a chocolate)

We planned a trip to a particular place she hadn't been, specifically to show it to her. Other friends were coming too, they are local and had been to the place many times, but we're coming along to be sociable with us and her. When she asked me how many people were coming and I mentioned it would be quite a few (in positive way, saying it would be a fun social event) she said, all sweetly, "well if you don't have room for me I'll just stay behind at the apartment, I don't mind at all". That really annoyed me, she knew the trip was arranged specifically for her!

Another (even more annoying) example, we were at a beach bar/restaurant with a bunch of people. Too many to get one table so we were split between 2 tables. Our food came marginally before the other table's (not more than 2 or 3 minutes). In that time she expressed concern that the toddler at the other table had not yet got her food, and actually got up to take her own plate of food to the toddler (it was a salad of some sort and the toddler was getting chips, so not even remotely the same thing). Me and DH had to physically get her to stop it and sit down before the toddler's mum saw.

She has always been very much a "oh don't worry about me, I'll just have a tap water" type of person, but on this holiday she really got my goat. She's left now and I am not sure if she noticed I was a bit snippy with her by the end. AIBU and a mean friend?

She sounds performative and irritating - but, as others have said, maybe she’s just trying to “fit in” and “be nice”. Maybe just accept you are chalk and cheese and don’t push for a closer friendship.

Also holidaying for days with others is full on. My parents have legions of friends but over a lifetime realise literally just one couple is compatible for a long summer holiday and even they have their moments.

She sounds like a friend I went on holiday with when we were students. I knew she was quite indecisive, but never realised how much till we were on holiday. We were constantly delayed going out because she was trying to decide what to wear, and ultimately I learned that there was literally no point asking her what she wanted to do as she would never be able to answer - it was actually a kindness to her to be selfish and just opt for what I wanted to do. I returned thinking "Never again" though we still stayed friends.

Subsequently she became quite seriously mentally ill - it was partly agoraphobia, but I think there was quite a lot else going on. She never managed to follow the career she trained for, she lived with her parents till they died and subsequently managed with carers till she also died quite young. With hindsight, that illness was obviously starting when we were students and the holiday was probably quite difficult for her to cope with.

Could there be anything like that going on with your friend?

She sounds like a people pleaser, coupled with a bit of anxiety and low self esteem. Doesn't want to rock the boat at all or be seen as a burden or demanding in any way, and probably a bit desperate to be liked and appreciated (hence the attempts to get ice cream/feed someone else's toddler!). That and she probably sensed your irritation and upped the ante, like a vicious circle.

I really don't think it's coming from a bad place, but it's ok to not be compatible holiday friends. Just stick to occasional dinners.

She might be annoying and anxious. but she sounds harmless and kind, and has a broken marriage, I feel sorry for her.

The only example you gave that was stupid was the ice cream. The other examples, I'll do whatever you want, if there's no room for me I'll stay, would the toddler like some of mine while they are waiting......I mean they all sound like normal things to me. Normal things that probably all of my friends or family would say because everyone looks out for one another and cares for one another. The only reason something like this would get under my skin is if I didn't like the person. You CLEARLY don't like her.

@RunningThroughMyHead

1. I told her multiple times he doesn't eat ice cream. She just kept at it every time we went past an ice cream shop.

2 We didn't invite other people on the trip (well we did, but they weren't here at the same time as her). We have been coming to the same place for many years and we socialise with many other people here, both locals and other holiday-makers who always come to the same place. She had been here before (with her XH) and knows this perfectly well. She came to a big birthday party of mine here, years ago, at which there must have been 50 people.

1. She has a son, now an adult.

god people like that are irritating as fuck - incredibly hard work & frankly manipulative.

No, it isn’t kind, but she’s not thinking about you or your child or the hungry toddler at all.

She’s thinking (probably from a place of anxiety, low self-esteem, and people-pleasing, which doesn’t make it any less irritating), ‘How should I behave to appear generous, flexible, self-sacrificing and to make everyone like me?’

If she weren’t concentrating solely on this, and was paying more attention to other people, she’d have picked up on the chocolate/icecream thing, realised that giving a salad to a toddler who wanted chips and would get them in a minute was ridiculous, and that volunteering to stay home from an expedition planned specifically for her was deeply irritating.

But people-pleasing often has the effect of pushing others away, because it’s very clear the ‘recipient’ isn’t getting an authentic version of the other person at all, just one calculated to please. And often getting it wrong, as in this case.

I don't agree at all with the people saying she seems sweet and kind to try buy a child an icecream or give another child her food, she sounds like she has a mental illness.

I'd just tell her each time that she's being silly

I think her inferring that you don't want to pay for the ice cream is your interpretation though. I doubt that was the intention but its how it came across to you.
I know people like this, and they were actually a genuinely nice person - but quite shy underneath a gegarious personna and a little socially awkward. e.g. constant praise for really tiny things all the time "wow, its so clever how you though to get juice." I found out they had been reading a book about love languages and this was a type of "love language" they were trying to use.

In your friends case, she is probably a bit out of herself due to the divorce, it can knock your ability to socialise with others, position yourself, sideways so I would cut her some slack. (She could have been flirting outrageously with random men, going on and on about her ex, crying everytime she sees another couple etc. Its fine to find people annoying - but I don't think its fair to attribute malice to her actions.

I don't understand why you would invite her in the first place.

And another thing…. Can you tell she’s annoyed me?

Taking a plate of food to a child is bloody insulting to the parents/ adults taking care of them. As is pointing out she would pay for the ice cream as if you wouldn’t.

You don’t need to have children of your own to know these things are rude and suggest you know better and the parent is slacking

It's not a big deal, she is who she is, just don't invite her on holiday again.

I don't think it was really on purpose, but it still annoyed me, although I realise that I should have resisted that feeling. She is definitely not mentally ill, but people who have mentioned confidence problems are probably very right.

She doesn’t sound sweet, she sounds bloody exhausting.
I read it as constant attention seeking under all the self deprecation and ‘don’t mind me’-ness.

She has already said she wants to come again next summer! With luck (hers and mine) she'll have a new man by that time and she'll be off on a romantic trip with him!

She does sound meek and overly self effacing, but you sound full of suppressed anger - I think it's a bad combination. She has probably spent time with someone who got angry with her if she didn't submit 100% to what they wanted, and she learned to appease them by effacing her own wishes. The more she senses your anger, the more she will try to appease you, but going the wrong way about it.

Just meet up for a few hours once a year and you'll get on fine!

Sounds like your personalities just don't mesh well together.

I'm not sure what you want from this thread really - are you wanting everyone to validate that she sounds really annoying and say it's OK for you to not be friends with her? It's a really unpleasant thread.

If you don't want to be friends anymore then just cool off and don't invite her again. You're not 13.

She reminds me of a divorcee we have in our social group who goes out of her way to please everyone. She makes conversation with each person when she arrives, does all the tea and coffee making and washing up and tells us all how shy she is. It is embarrassing how she puts herself out to fit in. Just not your fit. Neither of you is right or wrong. Just keep a wide berth of her.

Know what you mean but haven't heard this in a long time.

Sorry wrong quote

Reminds me of Martin's mum in Cabin Pressure

MARTIN: Good. Milk, one sugar still?
WENDY: Oh, just however it comes.
MARTIN: It comes however y... Fine.
(Pouring of water.)
WENDY: Oh, give me the chipped mug.
MARTIN: Well, I-I-I could do that, or we could both have mugs without chips!
WENDY: But I don’t mind the chipped mug.
MARTIN: I-I know you don’t mind it, but ... Fine. There you are. Already-being-made tea, however it comes, in a chipped mug. Just the way you like it.
WENDY: Dear, you-you’re very good to... Oh, Martin. You’re having coffee!
MARTIN: I know.
WENDY: I’d have had coffee.
MARTIN: Mum, two things: you don’t like coffee; and you’re not allowed to have coffee!
WENDY: It would have been fine.
MARTIN (loudly): Yes, absolutely fine, except you wouldn’t have enjoyed it and it might have given you a heart attack!
WENDY: I’m sorry.
MARTIN (apologetically): No, no, Mum. I-I-I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m sorry.
WENDY: No, it was my fault. I’m sorry. I-I just don’t want to be any trouble, that’s all.
MARTIN (plaintively): I know. That’s the beautiful irony.

I can see a mix of someone who isn’t used to putting themselves first, and a lot of performative people pleasing to seem like the ‘nice,
placid one’.

I was raised as someone who was made to believe their wants came last, and it has got a lot worse since having children. I plan everything around everyone else to the nth degree, the moment anyone asks what I want, my mind goes utterly blank. It’s easier to say you’re happy to do whatever anyone else wants, because what you yourself want to do is never at the forefront of your mind.

The ice cream thing is irritating, once should be enough to say ‘he doesn’t enjoy that’. I have children with SEN and it gets exhausting having to explain that they have limited tastes (not ice cream in their case unfortunately 🤣). And the wanting to give a toddler her dinner is just odd, that would irritate anyone in terms of performative ‘niceness’.

I can see why you’re irritated. I’d probably have snapped a remark by the dinner incident.