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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be frustrated with my friend who’s become a “guru” after a trip to India?

204 replies

Silentfriend · 20/09/2024 08:21

My friend recently went to India and has returned with a completely new attitude. She now acts like she’s a life guru, constantly telling people to quit their jobs, disregard their managers, and dismisses “first-world problems” with a “you just don’t understand” attitude. She even created a separate Instagram page to give out life advice, though it seems more like she’s having a mid-life crisis rather than offering genuine wisdom.

I’m getting really tired of her constant preachiness and the way she’s acting superior. AIBU to feel frustrated with her attitude and the way she’s using her trip as a platform to push her new “enlightened” persona?

OP posts:
GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 20/09/2024 11:09

Onacuctustree · 20/09/2024 10:55

You have a grand parent who is /was Irish.
Live in London. Drink Guinness.
Plastics...

Dh has occasionally become a bit of a PITA about ‘Irishness’ ever since he acquired an Irish passport post Brexit - thanks to a grandmother who left Ireland for England in her late teens and never lived there again.

He makes a real Thing of being able to go through EU passport control, while I have to go through ‘others’ - not that it’s ever made more than a very few minutes’ difference.

I thoroughly enjoy pissing him off by saying that his GM’s family weren’t ‘proper’ Irish anyway - they were Protestants in Eire, so probably descended from pretty hardcore Prod. Scottish immigrants a few hundred years ago. 😈 🙂

Namechangeforcheese · 20/09/2024 11:13

This reminds me of an (ex) friend who worked in a hospital as the clerical assistant to 4 heart surgeons. After a year of this she became such a medical expert she could diagnose every and any ailment within 2 minutes of any social encounter.

Mintgum · 20/09/2024 11:16

There was a lady in my old job that thought she was American.
She never went there.
It was strange she came in to work on day English as normal came the next day as a full on American.
It was cringe to say the least.

Funniest one was my friends neighbour that became a french woman that was bizarre.
She even tried to dress french if that makes sense accent and all she had a bicycle with a huge wicker basket on it and a french flag sticker stuck on it.
She was in fact Scottish.

ICallPeopleDudeNow · 20/09/2024 11:16

Cassidyscircus · 20/09/2024 10:54

Oh god.
my sisters ex boyfriend went to India and came back with a whole new name 😂
he went there Neil and came back and insisted everyone called him Bjorg. Went no contact with his parents for being materialistic (they have a normal 3 bed semi),
then promptly moved to Norway. He posts an awful lot of insta posts now of him swimming in a freezing lake in a bobble hat.
🧘‍♀️

GrinGrinGrin

CutthroatDruTheViolent · 20/09/2024 11:21

Is it bad that there's a teeny tiny part of me that wishes I could be this oblivious?!

I mean, I wasn't even in my teens (well, I probably was but in a different way Grin) so I doubt I can pick it up now in my 40s but still!

OrdsallChord · 20/09/2024 11:21

Is she auditioning for a new Goodness Gracious Me series?

SoNiceToComeHomeTo · 20/09/2024 11:27

That's a great story. You're not unreasonable to find it annoying but finding it amusing might be more pleasant for you. Just smile at her beatifically whenever she starts giving you advice.

TorroFerney · 20/09/2024 11:29

NothingWrongButTheFire · 20/09/2024 10:25

That said, I lived in India for 2 years about a decade ago.

It did not leave me any more (or less spiritual) but it did cure my fear of UK spiders. When you've woken up enough times to a dead (or live!) cockroach in the room/bed then you stop worrying so much about our benign eight legged housemates here Grin

We’ve had a less dramatic epiphany about uk wasps after going on holiday to Germany and Austria where they are bigger and very angry. Hiding in the sugar shaker and generally getting in the way and stinging if you tried to bat them away. By contrast British ones are just pathetic, we were encouraging one to eat some leftover pudding last week to try and build it up a bit.

Fnuppy · 20/09/2024 11:32

That reminds me of a friend, she's a banker's daughter. Used to remind me if I owed her 5 pence but saw no issues in owing me more serious sums of money. Her parents sent her to India for her gap year, where she volunteered at an orphanage. She used to send me disturbing emails about fancying the boys there, who were often significantly younger than herself. Back in England, she adopted a hollier than thou attitude, a bit like a guru. Cut her out of my life.

Viviennemary · 20/09/2024 11:38

Just say crack on x. I will live my life how I want to thanks.

CC222 · 20/09/2024 11:45

tygertygers · 20/09/2024 10:50

She was there for two weeks 😂

Can you get her on here to do an AMA? I want to know what the next stop after quitting my job is!

🤣🤣🤣

JaneFondue · 20/09/2024 11:49

PMSL at this thread. Especially the poster who is as spiritual as " a dead dog."

Stopbeingawalkoverandwalk · 20/09/2024 11:55

oakleaffy · 20/09/2024 11:01

As a woman of Indian decent, the only India Syndrome I suffer is thanking fuck my parents emigrated. Can't count the number of lectures I've received from middle class white people about not being in touch enough with my spiritual and cultural roots. Go and be a poor, brown woman in a remote village with no money, no education, no medical care and no prospects other than childbearing and get back to me on that.

merrymaryquitecontrary · 20/09/2024 11:58

I voted YABU simply because these are the best form of entertainment. Most people are sitting smiling at them but inwardly taking the piss, but they (the gurus) really think they are having an impact. I went to school with a boy who was described by teachers as a 'likeable rogue', basically he was a very polite bad boy, got several convictions for drugs and assaulting police officers etc, but he was from a very wealthy family and his daddy bailed him out every time. He started and left about 4 university courses, before he decided to go and find himself in a tour of Asia (funded by daddy of course). He joined some sort of buddhist convent thing (not sure exactly what is was, they were buddhist but did a lot of martial arts with swords and other dangerous looking weapons). Anyway, he would post on social media about people needing to wake up and stop being sheep, and that we weren't created for the rat race, but most people couldn't see that. Walked around wearing silky pantaloons and no top on, greeting people with a namaste gesture. I fell out of touch with him until 2 years ago.

Got an invite to his engagement ceremony (hadn't seen him for twenty years!) and somehow got seated at the top table with his mother and aunts (this was just yet another example of his odd way of thinking, we weren't even close friends 2 decades earlier). He was engaged to a woman he'd met on yet another one of his 'finding myself' trips and he'd brought her here. Over dinner I found out that he'd never held down a job or course of education, and he was living in a very nice house that his father had bought him. His mother also said that the father had got him many good jobs through his contacts but he'd left every one with a different reason. I overheard him telling another mutual friend that he'd had to leave his last job within a week as his colleagues didn't share the same mindset as him, and he felt they gave too much weight to work, which didn't work for him. He would only work with other like minded people who could see the capitalist traps and snares like he could Hmm.

He got married last year and I was invited yet again. Country estate this time, where he made his speech about the most important people of the day being the kitchen staff, who were invisible to us, but without them we wouldn't be fed, so we had to take a moment's silence out of respect and appreciation. His father nudged him about 10 minutes into this navel gazing pontification and reminded him to say something about the bride. He said the moment she opened the monastery door to him he knew she was the one he wanted to marry, even though her face was covered. A lot of talk about zen, chakras aligning and other nonsense, but nothing actually about the bride. He apologized to all of the guests (many of whom were wondering why they'd been invited) for not keeping in close contact, as he was incredibly busy with life. His passions took up a lot of time, and it's paramount to nourish your soul with things that bring you joy. His next venture is career coaching, so I can't wait to see how this pans out.

RuggedHairyTortoise · 20/09/2024 12:04

Mintgum · 20/09/2024 11:16

There was a lady in my old job that thought she was American.
She never went there.
It was strange she came in to work on day English as normal came the next day as a full on American.
It was cringe to say the least.

Funniest one was my friends neighbour that became a french woman that was bizarre.
She even tried to dress french if that makes sense accent and all she had a bicycle with a huge wicker basket on it and a french flag sticker stuck on it.
She was in fact Scottish.

I've known a few people who do the French thing. One was a former friend who even started saying things like 'oof, what is that word in eenglish?' despite not speaking french at all and being born and bred in Winchester.

Still, nowadays it's all about how you identify.

Fnuppy · 20/09/2024 12:11

Thanks for this, I laughed so much.

greencheetah · 20/09/2024 12:13

We can’t have a thread about this type of batshit behaviour without mentioning the lifetime grift of “pretending to be Spanish after a couple of holidays in Majorca” achieved by “Hilaria” Baldwin.

She is the absolute queen of this insanity.

Sartre · 20/09/2024 12:15

Learn to laugh about it rather than taking it so seriously and hope she grows out of it…

redtrain123 · 20/09/2024 12:15

Have you asked her to stop preaching to you, and you’re happy with your own life?

LightDrizzle · 20/09/2024 12:18

🤣🤣🤣

She’s such a lemon! I’m really enjoying all the other examples of people discovering their inner self-importance too. Great thread!

BlondeFool · 20/09/2024 12:20

Cassidyscircus · 20/09/2024 10:54

Oh god.
my sisters ex boyfriend went to India and came back with a whole new name 😂
he went there Neil and came back and insisted everyone called him Bjorg. Went no contact with his parents for being materialistic (they have a normal 3 bed semi),
then promptly moved to Norway. He posts an awful lot of insta posts now of him swimming in a freezing lake in a bobble hat.
🧘‍♀️

Cracking up 😂😂😂😂😂😂

BlondeFool · 20/09/2024 12:21

Namechangeforcheese · 20/09/2024 11:13

This reminds me of an (ex) friend who worked in a hospital as the clerical assistant to 4 heart surgeons. After a year of this she became such a medical expert she could diagnose every and any ailment within 2 minutes of any social encounter.

That's me after watching 20 seasons of Grey's Anatomy 😉

merrymaryquitecontrary · 20/09/2024 12:22

RuggedHairyTortoise · 20/09/2024 12:04

I've known a few people who do the French thing. One was a former friend who even started saying things like 'oof, what is that word in eenglish?' despite not speaking french at all and being born and bred in Winchester.

Still, nowadays it's all about how you identify.

This brings up a memory of my first ever job where a colleague told everyone his parents were French. His surname was Hazard but he said it was pronounced Hazaaaard, and even used the glottal aaaar. I was shocked when someone phoned looking for him, claiming to be his mother, as she had a very strong regional accent. He had form for making weird stuff up, went into great details about how he'd been born out of wedlock to two teen parents and had a girlfriend called Janet who was always too busy to attend work social events, neither of which turned out to be true.

Lovefromjuliaxo · 20/09/2024 12:25

Truthfully it sounds like she may have been groomed by someone out there. Like a cult. Maybe have a chat and see if there was anyone out there who gave her this knowledge. See if you can find a bit more out about it.

Lurkingandlearning · 20/09/2024 12:35

I understand how truly annoying and cringe worthy she is being, especially as she was only there for a fortnight - give her a wide berth until the novelty of her spiritual awakening wears off. Has it been more than a fortnight?

Inspired by @Missflowerpots friend becoming Irish while in Ireland I’m now amusing myself thinking of how she might be transformed by other holiday destinations based on all sorts of, probably offensive, stereotyping. You could have a lot of fun with that if you influenced where she went.

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