To call off girl’s holiday on the day?

[whereismyhisband]

I’m due to go on a girl’s holiday for a week with a friend, an all inclusive to Cape Verde.

This friend had warned me that she’s somewhat of an anxious traveller, but that it would be fine.

Our flight is at 4:45pm. Our airline has said be there a maximum of three hours early.

The airport is half an hour from my house and my job is 15 minutes in the other direction from my job.

I am working until 12, so that I only needed to take a half day of leave.

She has been texting me since 6am asking if I’m sure I want to work today, and asking if we should leave for the airport at 10! I can’t deal with this today, I have a lot to do before I finish at work and don’t see the need for it. I’ve never traveled with her before and to be honest if I’d known she was like this I’d not have booked it. AIBU to just not go?

Sound like hysteria at both ends to me to be honest. If you don't agree with the timing then you could have politely asserted yourself and designated the arrival time that worked for you.

You have spent the time furiously posting on a thread saying the same thing, that you think "adults" must be able to cope with exactly the same things you can and any variation on this is pathetic and off-putting for you to the point that a whiff of it makes you want to cancel an entire holiday that might otherwise be enjoyable and lose a sum of money in the process.

Sounds like it will be a shit holiday for you OP if you can't actively choose to exercise empathy, a necessary life skill. Perhaps show her this thread and what your opinions of this person are and she will do you both a favour and decide to part ways and not holiday together again. I can't imagine she would want to spend time with you either if she were able to see how you speak about her behind her back. You sound incompatible, hopefully you are both able to enjoy the holiday apart because I think that might be the way it ends up going.

Hysteria? That’s quite mean spirited. Are you amazing at everything? Think hard.
Patience? Empathy? Basic kindness?

Wow just wow

Are you aware that grown adults can have anxieties and fears? It is not abnormal.

The level of anxiety and panic the OP's friend is displaying, and the fact that she has messaged the OP more than 100 times in a single morning and worked herself up to tears in a 15-minute phone call, absolutely is abnormal.

That isn't normal or reasonable behaviour and it shouldn't be validated. It's obsessional. It's not acceptable to demand attention and reassurance from other people to that extent, at all. What she's doing to the OP to validate her travel anxieties is equivalent to, eg, someone with severe health anxiety emailing a friend 100 times in the space of a morning to ask if they think their zit is actually a cancerous mole, or someone who is insecure in their relationship calling their partner 100 times every time they go out asking them to reassure them that they haven't met someone else. Those things are not OK, and neither is what the OP's friend is doing.

She’s probably gone off the deep end cos OP is being so flaky and wishy wishy with the timings, probably had a blasé attitude and form for being late.

Well, reading this update… OP and her friends are both on fairly extreme ends of the spectrum I’d say!

anyhow, OP clearly went… so let’s hope she has an enjoyable holiday and the proof that OP still made the flight helps relax friend in regards to the return flight!

This thread is unreal. No adult female can drive home on a familiar route in 15 min, have a two minute shower, pop on flight mode clothes, laid out from the morning, lock the front door and get in the pre packed car in 10 min max, then drive to airport car park, that you are familiar with, probably pre booked, make way into terminal and get to bag drop in an efficient manner.

Maybe the heat is getting to people. Or they only travel once a year in absolute chaos, forgetting to pack in advance, not knowing the route, direction, location of car park or airport. Not taking note of likely traffic at 2 pm of a Tuesday. Not checking if their passport is expired, that their destination requires a validity of min 6 months, that they need a visa …

The amount of grown adult females seem to think the OP should treat her holiday companion as an 8 year old child with no agency is outstanding.

@Cailin66 Had the friend posted I think we’d have seen the polar opposite replies.

500 text message, wanting to be at a local airport six hours in advance and a 15 min phone call where crying was involved, can’t wait to hear from that other woman.

My children have been flying solo from the age 12 ! At 15 they had to navigate Madrid for a connecting flight with a 50 min connection and first child had a late regional incoming flight, that’s the day I learnt Madrid had an internal airport train, 😳 , child rang me while running to connection on whether to get train or not! They got it on instinct as I had no time to figure it out. Made the flight. Baggage delivered 2 days later by Iberia.

I can’t wait for the update on this holiday. And looking forward to their return flight. I hope they are not sharing a room, 😬. I’d lay odds the friendship is over.

I’m waiting for the updates during the actual holiday

@Cailin66 you can’t be this naive surely. It’s a wind up thread.

Mental health issues are not caused by coddling or cured by not coddling.

I don't think you're unempathetic. She sounds like a fucking pain in the arse. Good luck, OP!

You sound like very hard work op. Hopefully you have unclenched a bit before meeting this friend so as not to waste her £800 either!

I don’t believe there’s been 100 messages.

I am with you, OP, I just don't have empathy for this.
(And I recognize that this is probably a deficit in my character too, but I just can't stand unnecessary emotion, irrationality. I am a highly rational person, probably to a fault).

Oooh I'd LOVE to see this. @whereismyhisband can you please ask your friend to start a thread giving her side of the story please. Or write it yourself, depending on her existence.

After you've landed and arrived at your hotel of course, approximately 14 minutes later.

If only it wasn't impossible just to text someone back, say you're at work and cant talk, and then mute them, like an adult.

Honestly, my background with mental health issues has made me less empathetic, not more. If it seems like someone is making no effort to help themselves I’ve got time for it. Also having a mental health issue does not absolve someone of having a negative impact on other people. It might be an explanation, but it’s not an excuse, and nobody is owed endless tolerance. OP is absolutely within her rights to question whether she wants to holiday with someone like this. I’ve behaved appallingly in the past because of poor mental health, but even at the time, I didn’t expect people to put up with it or engage with me. It’s fine to expect support up to a point but once your behaviour is negatively affecting someone else to the point they can’t/don’t want to help any more, they’ve every right to walk away. 100 text messages in one morning crosses that threshold!

Doesn't really matter what time the touchdown is as OP now appears to have a time machine.

ONE HUNDRED messages? What on earth could she even be saying in them? I honestly cannot comprehend this level of hysteria. Seriously what is she saying?

I would have lost my shit at 10 messages. This is utterly ridiculous. I'd be dreading the holiday too.

And I retract my earlier response. You would be totally sensible to cancel on this lunatic. You're not sharing a room are you?

I really am not particularly patient with this shit generally. A couple of years back the Aer Lingus pilots were talking about striking. Myself and a woman I know had holidays booked in the upcoming fortnight flying with Aer Lingus.

I really just thought well if our flights get cancelled we will rebook our short flights and look for compensation. It's a faff but we can both afford it.

I had her at my doorstep three times over a week with some bullshit excuses so she could get on with the important business of dramatising about the whole thing - asking if I'd heard anything, showing me texts from her friend who works at the airport in an unrelated role.

I very nearly told her to FRO but managed to say "listen I haven't got time for this, nothing we can do anyway".

Unfortunately you're stuck with this idiot.

OP you sound like an awful friend & not someone I’d personally like as a friend or someone to help in a crisis. Personally you don’t even sound like this girls friend. She told you that she was an anxious flyer. Also almost everyone is basically saying the same thing, that YABU but yet in every response I’ve seen from you thus far. You accept no responsibility & talk about your so called friend as if she was someone you just met. Why bother asking people for their opinions if you’re not going to be open to what they’re saying? And in all honesty you sound like the over dramatic person not her. As she knows herself enough to let you know in the beginning that this part of the holiday will be testing.

I'm with OP. Her friends sounds unhinged and over 100 texts, plus phone calls etc will only have slowed OP down in the grand scheme of things and is beyond ridiculous. I don't care how anxious someone is; that behaviour is not okay to dump on someone else, especially someone who is being a good enough friend to be travelling internationally with.

It's not the OP's job to cure her friend of her anxiety

I hope she behaves better on the holiday and she hasn't already ruined it with her stressful and unreasonable behaviour.

I wouldn't be going anywhere with her ever again.

You are an experienced traveller, quite the globe trotter I’m sure. That’s great for you .
But she isn’t. Didn’t you know that, when you agreed to go with her.

Can’t you be a bit more understanding and helpful towards her OP?
It surely doesn’t take much to just reassure her and help build her confidence a bit if you are such an old hand at it. Even seasoned travellers make mistakes !

i really don’t think the answer is to pull out altogether and terrify her about having to travel alone. That could easily come across as mean and spiteful.