Person I knew a long time ago wants us to give her son a bit of a holiday - would you?

[Rallentanda]

20+ years ago I knew a couple - my dh worked with her dh. We got along well, there was a whole gang of us, we were in our twenties and it was fun. We'd do holidays together in various combinations. Dinners at each other's houses, days out, normal friendship stuff.

Then we all hit our 30s and started having children, and as often happens, cracks started to show in our friendship. I found her to be a very smug mummy type. She'd say things that made me realise that she felt very superior to us on the whole. Her dh at this point got fired from his job. We'd realised a couple of years prior to that, that he was an awful person, and what we thought of as biting humour was just plain nastiness. Such is life, sometimes. Friendships wane.

They moved and we moved and we now live in different countries. Her dh hasn't been able to reliably hold down work, all his fault and she makes excuses for him. She and I have barely exchanged emails in the past 18 or so years, only a couple of messages as she realised we'd know the circumstances of his latest exit from his job; or a jokey line on Facebook.

Suddenly I get a message from her asking us to put up her dc - at a time of our convenience - for a few days in the autumn, as the dc is coming a long way and would love to be shown around the city.

I am kind of gobsmacked. I don't think IBU to say no. But I wondered if other people would do this?

Same in my family. I have been hosted and have hosted countless times. My family have even taken in hitchhikers and kept in touch for decades and even gone to their weddings. I am sad for the poverty of life of those who don’t trust others or see the positives in building community like this

People of all ages can be interesting, I don't understand this view.

They have no obligation to host, but plenty of young people are good company.

Honestly @Rallentanda the whole internet gives you permission to ignore this request

she isn’t your friend and allowing her Ds to stay with you might rekindle the communication between you. Then it gets VERY messy to try to back out of gracefully.

she has probably asked loads of people for this favour, someone else will help if they don’t know what she’s like.

her Ds isn’t your issue

I definitely wouldn’t get involved. I’m
more than happy to help out family and close friends in this way but on a couple of occasions I’ve done so with people I didn’t know very well and it was a nightmare - they took the piss, overstepped boundaries, outstayed their welcome etc etc. And I made the mistake of not setting rules beforehand because I naively assumed that they would respect my home and personal space the way I would when visiting anyone. If this boy’s parents are anything to go by, he won’t be a considerate house guest so I definitely wouldn’t saying yes to this. Ignore them or just stonewall them with “No, that won’t work for us” - but don’t apologise or offer an explanation as that will give them the opportunity to come up with a compromise!

Ooh can I come and stay with you? At a time that suits you obviously, I wouldn’t dream of imposing. I love Fake or Fortune and a mooch around a nature reserve and I’m also a very considerate house guest!

You sound great! Currently discussing Fiona Bruce’s eyebrow evolution. And is there a Siskin on the morning route? You can see why we aren’t knocking ourselves out to put up an 18-year-old 😂

And have you noticed how Philip Mould’s cravats have got gradually bigger as his turkey neck has developed? Let’s all forget the American teenager with horrible parents, we have far more important issues to discuss!

The thing about people who ask really big favours like this is that they wouldn’t even consider doing this for someone else.

These people are not her friends, she doesn’t even like them!

Wow.