To have offered to post these

[imnoscientistbut]

A lady in front of me today was asking the cashier where the nearest post box was en route to the ferry terminal. Neither of us could quite remember, but there’s one at the end of my street, so I offered to post her mail.

She kind of laughed at first and then said she had quite a few to go and was that not a hassle. I said not at all and she gave me them.

My friend was wandering the shop and when we met outside, she asked where the mail had come from and I told her. She said “wow, I’d never trust someone to do that”.

I felt like I shouldn’t have offered and maybe put the woman in an awkward position.

I’ve done this before for an elderly lady leaving the same salon as me when I heard her say she’d have to walk some distance to post mail. I filmed myself dropping it in the box that time, but yesterday I didn’t.

WIBU and weird to offer this either time?

That's a lovely thing to do, and it's equally lovely that she trusted you to do it. 😊

I wouldn't offer that and I wouldn't have accepted, just in case something went wrong!

You made a kind offer which was accepted in good faith.

My FIL wastes his life assuming people have an ulterior motive and are trying to get one over on him and it's a miserable way to live.

If everyone thought like FIL and your mate there would be no volunteer groups and no communities.

Agreed. It must be exhausting being so suspicious of everyone, all the time.

It was a nice thing you did, OP, I don't think it is odd.

I wouldn’t hand my mail over to a stranger to post, however it was a nice offer OP but I would have politely declined.

Putting letters in a postbox? What can go wrong with that?

The letters not getting to the postbox . Being dumped or stolen

She could have said no, thanks and presumably you did do it so I don’t see the issue. Maybe your friend just doesn’t know what it’s like to need a helping hand from a stranger.

Oh I see. My first read was that you were the offerer not the letter-owner.

But even so, if someone voluntarily offers to do a nice thing, it'd be quite a leap to assume they would then go on to dump or steal them. If they were that nefarious they'd probably just snatch them straight out of your hand, not be all nicey-nicey about it.

I say that from living in a nice quiet town where that sort of action would be very unusual, maybe if I lived in a crime ridden inner city I'd think differently.

Oh I don't fully know, if the box was out of commission or I lost a letter? I wouldn't trust a stranger with my mail.

People doing wrong are very often nice whilst doing it.

More sometimes than often.

Most people are just normal people who would not offer to post a letter for someone and then do something wrong.

I think you and I are just different? I wouldn't personally send a stranger off with my mail, and I wouldn't offer. Mail is different, to me, to a bottle of milk - one bottle of milk can be replaced with any other bottle of milk.

Not a chance I’d trust a stranger with my post. It would be a no thanks, I’ve no idea who you are.