Second-homer wanting to be part of the community

[IMustConfess]

I live in a village on the coast in a semi-rural area. It's a place where people come to live for a relatively quiet life with great walks, fresh air and unspoiled beaches. Lots of artists and writers and gardeners.

Two years ago a couple from London bought the small detached property next door to me. It's a holiday home for them and their friends and family. They're in their 50s, clearly used to a busy lifestyle in London. Lots of talk of theatre and gigs and nice restaurants. They moved in and invited a few locals to dinner and said they wanted to get involved with whatever's going on. They clearly expected to be invited back to eat with everyone and were surprised when some didn't reciprocate. 'But we were told there was a great community here!' They went round knocking on lots of doors and introducing themselves and saying how much they wanted to be involved, but they're probably only here for 10 weeks of the year max. One of my neighbours was really pissed off by it. She said it was like they had an idea of country life they'd got from a TV drama.

When their families come down independently they knock on my door and introduce themselves and say how wonderful that we're all such good friends/ such a lovely community and seem to expect to be invited in and given tea and told what's on. If there's something happening they want me to take them along. They've clearly been told I'll be happy to include them.

This year the husband's been working away a lot and so the wife has been coming down on her own. She always messages me a day or two before she's due to arrive and announces she's coming and wants to know what's on in 'the community'. She messages me when she's arrived so I know she's arrived safely. 😱She expects to be included in anything I've got going on. I took her to my book group when she was down in the summer, and now she expects to be included and tries to get us to schedule our meet-ups for when she's here.

When I moved here I got to know people slowly and worked out who I got on with. My neighbours seem to think friendship comes on a plate and everyone loves them. We have friends who live next door to an AirBnB and say something similar: many of the people who rent the place want to talk to them as if they're friends and happy to spend half an hour telling them which coastal walk is most scenic or which local pub does the best beer. We live here: we're not tourist information or rent-a-mate.

Are we the unreasonable ones? What's going on with people that they think they can just waltz into a new area and everyone'll love them?

We squatted the Roundhouse in the 1990s. ✊️

I don't think you should compare someone who moves to an area and is there 52 weeks of the year with another who has a second home. Who in 2020 probably helped spread Covid by visiting for alleged 'essential maintenance' of said second home.

They would only have spread covid if they engaged with people in the village, close up. If they were doing work on their house, I doubt they hobnobbed with the neighbours.

These are not young people. They may have it in mind to retire to the village in due course. I hope they don't, for their sakes.

Make a list of things you’d like to do in London (Especially things like go to galleries such as Tate Modern/ V&A which people with their kind of lifestyle are likely to have membership to). Then tell them how much you’ve always wanted to be able to spend weekends in London doing things like this but couldn’t because of course accommodation is so expensive. Now that you’re besties though, you’ve got somewhere to stay and all their friends can pool their membership passes to lend you so you have a fantastic weekend experiencing London as a Londoner. Without paying for any of it or doing the leg work. Either the penny will drop - or you get fab weekends for free! Definitely suggest that the entire book group does the same thing.

But they newcomers are not moving in or living in OP’S house.
Yes, they have asked for them to put the heating on etc but OP could just say it wasn't convenient.

As for them trying to join in with community nowt wrong with that.

Op appears to be slightly resentful of them and possibly jealous of the newcomers making friends in the village

Op has a higher status although she moved from London she moved permanently so she deserves to be accepted.

Stinks of envy from the OP IMO.

The entire community of Lewis had hurt feeling as people they liked moved away, so decided, en masse, to enforce a waiting period for friendships.

Still, they brought some excitement with them. Gossiping amongst “the community”.

Which is exactly why so many of them went to the BBQ. If they hate second homers that much, they could have just declined the invitation - but why do that when there’s free food and booze on offer, plus the chance to gawp at the newbies and mentally criticise their taste in soft furnishings, with plenty of material for a bitch fest later?

They sound like a pain in the arse and I don’t know why so many posters on this thread are going out of their way to pretend they’d be fine with this when in real life it would irritate them just as much as it’s irritating you.

Its obviously not the case that you want them to be frozen out or excluded from village life. Your issue is with their expectation that you’re all actors waiting in the wings for them to show up so that you can perform community and connection on demand as required.

It would be a different thing entirely if they’d actually taken steps to involve themselves in the community in a helpful way - by volunteering, joining committees, offering help etc. - and got to know people in an organic way. Instead, they’re hoping to be presented with fun on a plate whenever it’s convenient for them.

Its the fact that they clearly see themselves as the Main Characters, instead of recognising that they’re a small part of a large community and that it’s on them to find a meaningful way of participating. You aren’t the director of a holiday camp, however they seem to view it.

Does it?
Why?

They haven’t done their time in the community, clearly.

I thought Robert Jenrick was younger.

ChocolateTelephone · Today 14:32
They sound like a pain in the arse and I don’t know why so many posters on this thread are going out of their way to pretend they’d be fine with this when in real life it would irritate them just as much as it’s irritating you.

Many of us posters haven't suggested we'd be fine with it. We've suggested that the OP either sets boundaries she's happy with or directs the second homers towards volunteering/fund raising/community projects in which they can become involved, make friends and contribute to the village.

She's never acknowledged or answered those suggestions. She just wants to moan.

That poor woman moving to a place and having to beg crumbs from the table for four years. I'm assuming she was a full time resident and not a second homer too or the OP would have mentioned that.

Most people who go to university do so for less than four years, have an amazing time of shared experiences and make friends to last a lifetime all the while knowing they'll be moving on.

All those villagers and incomers missing out on relationships that could happy, mutually beneficial and long lasting. Just makes you realise how narrow minded and mean spirited some people can be. No wonder some villages are miserable little places with aging populations with closing shops and shortages of volunteers. I suppose they get what they deserve.

An immigrant moving to live there isn't the same as someone holidaying there.

@DieStrassensindimmernass Both are potentially excluded though! Newcomers not wanted!

It feels to me like you are being used OP. Very much a one sided friendship, where you are on call as and when needed to update these people on life and include them in things. I think you should just be frank and say “look, I don’t have time to be your social secretary. You’re welcome here but you have to make your own way. Please don’t message me to arrange book clubs or activities for you. I’ll be delighted to see you at events but I really can’t take on more mental load”.

Life is precious and short. I think it’s quite arrogant to expect people to immediately invest in you when they don’t know you well and have their own stuff to do. Friendships do take time. Thats not being unfriendly that’s actually being an honest and good person

That's a very narrow view.
Newcomers who want to make their permanent home there are welcome, those who just want to holiday but be treated like permanent residents are taking the proverbial imho. OP needs to clearly set boundaries.

I don’t want to derail, but I imagine the experience would be even worse.

It seems to me the OP approaches “friendships” in much the same way as the newcomer (do we still call her that? she’s been there 2 years!). A very transactional way - will not invest unless there is return. Sad overall. As I’ve mentioned several times, I understand not everyone has to be everyone’s best friend but FFS not because they are incomers, newcomers, second homers.

I think someone coming to live is completely different to someone holidaying.

I don’t really think it is. It’s overblown distinction. It’s certainly a way for society to divide and not be welcoming. We all go on holiday.Maybe the “local” is unwelcome in another holiday area when they rent a house? Swings and roundabouts. It is very dismissive of a standard thing we do and houses are sold on the open market. No one can dictate who buys them.

Yes, and those are the places that struggle badly to find and retain essential service providers, like doctors and teachers and builders. I don't know many rural areas in the that are suffering from a surfeit of people in of those kinds of jobs. Perhaps they would do well to think about those attitudes generally.

There are frequent threads on her by adults struggling to make friends. They are told to join clubs, find hobbies, volunteer, go and meet people. put the effort in.
Obviously the answer is to move to a village and they all should become your friend as that’s the kind thing to do. Easy.

@w10mum3 A teacher or Dr moving is far more likely to be moving for good, or at least a long time. Its the retired people or the people wfh who may move quickly.

Yes, that's true, but it's a big risk to make for a community that is hostile to newcomers.

My sister and her husband are both doctors and ended up leaving a city to settle permanently in the area where they had a second home, in part because they had found it to be such a welcoming community. They certainly wouldn't have made such a big move for a place they'd been made to feel like unwelcome outsiders.

And your retired person might well be the person who takes on the village fete and your WFH person might be out there every weekend litter picking.