Friend acted like a complete arse on holiday

[lorettalemon]

I have just got back from a long weekend with a friend who I've known about a year. I don't know what happened! At home she'd seemed very nice, she had a bit of a tendency to find things to complain about but not to the point it was excessive.
I was really looking forward to this holiday but the first evening, as soon as I got there, we went out for dinner she was being absolutely obnoxious. Everything I said, she seemed to try and argue with or put down. Examples would be I'd said I was looking forward to seeing the boats in the harbour, she said "I hate boats," (but then went on a boat trip by herself when she went awol the next day. I said I was looking forward to my visit to a car museum in Monaco when I'm near there for a wedding a couple of months and she said "I absolutely hate Monaco," I said I wanted to learn to do something and she said "I've never had any interest in doing that whatsoever." Everywhere I said I'd love to go she said she'd been and hated, everything I said I liked she said she disliked. She made a lot of personal criticisms, like of my choices in men and kept saying I attract arseholes and she knows loads of absolutely lovely single men (she hasn't managed to find a partner though, even though she wants one!) She was talking rubbish because I've had one EA marriage and I'd mentioned a friend was struggling because of a death in the family and I was worried about her, so she started telling me I attract crazy people.
She complained and ranted about things non stop - even a 10 minute angry outburst about hating the fact they put 4 pillows on the bed in the hotel and how she'd left a ratty note for the housekeeping staff to tell them to stop putting them there! She endlessly found fault with the hotel (it was lovely!) which is chosen - nothing was good enough.
She acted really haughty and got annoyed when they didn't have a table available with no notice at a restaurant with a €150 set menu (without asking me if the price was ok). By complete coincidence some people I knew were staying in the same hotel. When I waved and they came to say hello she was giving them dirty looks and didn't say much to them.
Luckily I don't mind being on my own because she completely vanished on me every day (that was fine with me and I avoided her for most of the trip anyway - fortunately we had separate rooms).
I suppose my question is what on earth happened?!! And how did I miss what she was like? I've spent a whole day at a time with her before and she seemed fine. Yet she was rude to me, rude about my friends and parents, complained incessantly and just couldn't seem to enjoy anything. I think the only thing I could have picked up on was she didn't seem to have any other friends (but it's not fair to judge people for that). Needless to say I won't be seeing her again but I'm feeling a bit stupid now as I question whether I just have awful judgment in people! Can anyone tell me if they've ever had an experience where they've been on holiday with someone who had unexpectedly behaved like an absolute prat?!

Oho, you've uncovered a narcissist. Clearly she felt it was time to let her mask slip. She maybe thought you would excuse her behaviour as holiday stress.

It isn't insecurity, it isn't jealousy IT is a narcissist. Just be glad she dropped the mask all at once, not bit by bit as some do.

Had a friend like her who was totally fine for a year and then over the next two years, turned into the frenemy from hell. I probably should have cottoned on in year two but i was oblivious and made so many excuses for her as she had been fine the first year. Second year was also when she moved in with me so I guess she started to let the mask slip because I appeared to totally trust her.

You're 'friend' is testing your boundaries to see how much nastiness she can get away with. Get shot of her, normal people don't act like that.

Warning: this is very very long but thanks to anyone who takes the time to read it


Back in my early 20’s I went with a friend to USA for 2 wks to stay at her family home due to her having a job interview. She asked me to come with her. This friend had lots of other mates but she asked me to come along , I was flattered and excited. I was very shy and timid and found it hard to make friends and she was my only friend.

From day one when we got off the plane she was putting me down making digs, I thought she was just be tired from the travelling as she was never that horrid before, But Throughout the holiday she spoke to me condensing and putting me down and told me she spoke to me like that as i was stupid, immature and “ I was such a child “

She was controlling as well. When using the house phone and a phone card to contact mum in the U.K. ( this was 90s) she had to sit there and she had to set up the phone card, I wasn’t allowed to do it myself and she sat in the room listening to my conversation.

She criticised my make up, my clothes, my figure, told me my big boobs (which are natural) are too big for my petite frame and weigh me down, and that my arms are too long for my torso! The boob comment was definitely jealously because she told me before she wanted a boob job previously. She said lots of mean and rude things about my appearance including my dark Indian skin tone being ugly. She herself was light skin Indian.

She would embarrass me in front of her family. Her cousin would laugh at the horrible things she would say to me. One time I walked into the room where she was bitching about me to her cousin, to which friend responded by just giving me a dirty look to me.

We both were getting off at the same train station after the airport, and her dad was collecting her, I asked her if “It was ok for her dad to drop me home as-well as I have heavy luggage” it was only another 5 min drive.
My friend refused to let her dad help me and laid into me, this after my parents gave her lots of lifts in the past, but when I needed help she was a bitch about it, maybe she didn’t want her dad to help me, which is fine I didn’t mind, but I only asked for help if it was possible and she could of told me no In a polite way but she told me off and spoke to me in a rude disrespectful manner about it.

She criticised the tv shows/ music /clothes etc I liked, she told me that when we were out at clubs back in the U.K.she would try to set me up with the “hot guys that like her”, but they say I’m ugly and the hot guy friends that are less attractive tend to like me instead.

She was so boring on this holiday all she wanted to do was go shopping every day to the local small boring mall.
Her uncle offered to drive us to New York for us to have a day trip as it was only 30 min drive from were we stayed but she refused, she only wanted to go shopping to the boring local mall every day! once we went to a Washington bus tour ride I never got to see the White House cos she had to get off the bus for a fag and I had to get off with her.

She also lacked empathy, she said “shy timid ppl like me should just get over themselves and get some confidence” amongst other unkind unemphatic things about other issues.

The list of what a horror she was on holiday goes on but I written a lot already !

The saddest thing of all after this? When we got back to the U.K. I kept the friendship due to her literally being my only friend at the time. When we got back in the U.K. she was notified she didn’t get the USA job, so she remains in the U.K.

But I secretly hated her after the treatment she gave me after that holiday and was only friends with her as I didn’t want to be completely friendless, but after that holiday I realised what a nasty piece of work she was

I don’t speak to her anymore due to when I had my first child she couldn’t be bothered with me as I wasn’t at her beck and call and not going out clubbing anymore. She still on my fb but gladly not real life friends.

Well OP she sounds like a complete psycho and thank goodness you have dumped her.
I went on holiday with my best friend of more than 20years(the one and only time) who turned into a complete idiot on holiday. It's a long time ago and we are no longer friends...not related to this holiday debacle.

She was screaming hysterical the moment we got into the room because there was a gecko on the wall near the patio door. Frightened the life out of me as I was in the bathroom and she sounded like she was being murdered, god knows what the neighbours thought as we hadn't got to our room until 2am!

We went down to breakfast and there was a gay male couple holding hands across their table. She threw a hissy fit about people will be thinking we are gay because we are 2 females on holiday(turns out she was and still is totally homophobic). I told her she needs to get a bloody grip, and don't flatter yourself as not everyone on the planet actually fancies you and stop being such a bitch.

That night we went into the nearest town to one of the bars and within 10minutes she's copped off with a total stranger and wants to go off with him for the night...she didn't even know his name..ffs!
I wasn't even surprised by her behaviour because she was always one for disappearing with a bloke at the end of the night when used to go clubbing and I would go and get a taxi home on my own which I was more than happy to do. I would usually get a call the following day to pick her up from somewhere within a 10mile radius!
So I got a taxi back to the hotel and she turned up the following afternoon....Sounds like a scene from the movie "Shirley Valentine"!

Then we go to sit by the pool on two sun loungers she puts all her stuff on the sun lounger between me and her so we are not sat together as she is still paranoid that people think we are a couple!
I'm in the pool swimming while she's faffing with the sun loungers building a barricade! Theshe gets bit by some big flying insect on the back of her leg and is hopping about screaming...fair enough it must have hurt.
So I say let me have a look how bad it is as she can't see it as it's on the back of her thigh. ...She shouts "NO.NO don't you come near me stay away"!!!
At this point I thought "fuck this shit" and went back to the room and got ready and went and had dinner in the restaurant on my own and ended up chatting to some really nice people including the gay couple in the bar which actually made the nightmare holiday more enjoyable and I agreed to meet ups with them the next night
Friend got a taxi and went into town and copped off with same guy as the previous night so didn't see her till the following afternoon.

She asked me if I was going down to the pool with her and that's when I told her that I would not be spending anymore time with her for the rest of the holiday.
I told her that I was meeting some people in the restaurant and that she would not be welcome because it included the gay couple. So we ended having an argument about how I had purposely upset her by making arrangements to see these people.

I told her that she had over stepped the mark with her behaviour by the pool and that was the last straw for me and she can spend the rest of the holiday doing whatever the hell she wants but it won't be with me.

So we went our separate ways half for the rest of the holiday and I had a great time with the people I met in the restaurant and we went out in the evenings.
She carried on going out with the fella she met the first night and tbh I did not spend the time being upset with her. I was just glad that I had met some really nice people who were not giving me a hard time at every opportunity.

Oh heck that was a lot longer post than I thought...sorry!

This woman has major problems. Ii's not on your to-do-list to fix them. Ditch her to get on with her miserable life & enjoy the fantastic life you have ahead, being open to so much.

Wow, op. What an awkward and draining experience.
Your post reminds me of a friend of mine. She found the apartment (it was beachfront) and her friend complained about everything, down to the fact the crashing of the waves kept her awake at night. Some people refuse to be pleased.

Hopefully you can treat yourself to somewhere nice in the near future to recover!

I never ever go on holiday with friends now. Years ago we went on holiday with my best friend and her husband (lets call him Dick) You know how you have a friend who you get on really well with but they have a knob as a partner - well that was my friend. We decided to rent a villa in Ibiza and hired a car to drive around island in. I should have known how things would pan out because her husband hated flying and started to look a bit green when we got on the plane. As the plane took off he had to hold hands with me and her (true I'm afraid) When we arrived at our lovely villa he had to have the best room with a view so I gave in for an easy life. The first day we went to the beach where he kept moaning that he was burning and she had to keep rubbing sun tan lotion on him. I felt like telling him to rub his own lotion on and stop acting like a child all the time. The second day things got worse, we picked up the hire car and suddenly he decided he didn't want to share the driving and insisted my husband drove everywhere with him sitting in the passenger seat telling him how to drive etc. The third day I said that my husband and I wanted to visit Ibiza town to do some shopping but he pulled a face saying he wanted to visit a beach on the other side of the island so I told him to take the car and drive there and we would get taxi. Then he started to sulk and pull faces to be honest he ruined our holiday. Since then I never take holidays with friends.

I bet you a pound to a penny she’ll send you a message soon saying what a fab time she had, or it’ll be all over SM what a great holiday you both had

Narcissist or sociopath. She had you trapped on holiday with her and couldn't resist the opportunity to let the nastiness out. They have a pathological need to do this. You almost can't believe it when they strike but it's their nature, which they are also good at hiding. No friends is a definite red flag. Never get in touch again. Prepare for her to badmouth you after you cut her off. Sorry she was so awful on what should have been a great holiday.

I wanted to let everyone who said she'd send a message that read like it had been a great holiday - you were all right!! Oh and she claimed that on the last day (on which I entirely avoided her) that she met some "really lovely people" who invited her for dinner with them and she had the best food of the holiday (complained about all the food we had together). Absolutely typical! It's funny how she tells me what nice people she meets literally everywhere she goes (even the train ride to the airport!) yet no-one has ever spoken to her in front of me and none of them seem to have stayed in touch and everything she's done when I'm not there has been marvellous, but when I'm present there just seem to be endless things to criticise....too coincidental for words 🙄

@WhoKnewBeefStew - I owe you!! You were totally right!

@Windmillwhirl that's ridiculous and similar to this - she said she didn't see the point in booking a sea view room as we were near the sea, I booked one because I like to sit and look out of the window at it, then she complained her view wasn't of the sea and her room wasn't as nice...!

I had a similar experience - with my own family!

Went on holiday with my adult children and my then OH. Turns out that they thought a holiday consisted of sleeping in, some swimming and then drinking ALL of the alcohol to enable the next day's sleeping in. I wanted to go and visit places, see some history, go on some trips, etc.

We managed equably enough and nobody fell out over it, but I did a LOT of lone reading by the pool waiting for everyone to wake up (and if you don't know your own kids really well, then who do you know?)

She thinks DV victims are to blame? That alone would make me ditch her

Could she be having a hard time? Sometimes, if I’m being honest, I behave like a twat when I’m down/miserable or depressed...hopefully not anywhere near that extreme but it happens! Could you ask her what is triggering her being so mean?

@whateverheather - that's absolutely awful what you experienced, I'm so sorry. Your post reminded me that she couldn't help but comment on how bad and so much worse my skin condition on my legs looked (she knew perfectly well that id put loads of fake tan on my legs so whilst they looked a bit orange, it concealed the red marks quite well)

@Spinderellacutituponetime - she has said she wants to leave her job because she claims she's really good at it and everyone else is so thick (except these lovely men she says she works with) but it bores her and she doesn't get the recognition she deserves. She actually told me (other final straw) that she wants a payout from them so she's going to go to a doctor and convince them she has work related stress and anxiety because she's being bullied due to being female and of an ethnic minority, when I said that was awful (the bullying on those grounds) she specifically told me she knew that those things weren't the case but it would make them more likely to pay her to go away. I was disgusted

I had an ex do much the same! Our first and only holiday was to Cornwall and he started complaining the minute we set off. It was too far too drive (he had offered) petrol was too expensive (I was paying) the hotel was a rip off (I was paying for that too)
The food wasn't as good as in London
The sea was too far away
Nobody would understand him if he spoke to them so I had to do the talking everywhere (It was St Ives, where they have a good grasp of the English language)
The beer upset his stomach, because they don't know how to make beer in Cornwall (He was drinking bloody Fosters)
He ordered hot chicken wings and sent them back because he didn't like spicy food (Don't bloody order it then, dickhead)

The relationship lasted until he'd dropped me off at home! I think it's a control thing- they've got a captive audience on holiday and they can see how far they can push you.

I think a lot of posters are right about if you're on holiday with someone who isn't very nice they think they've got you trapped and they take the mask off and see how far they can push you.

Does anyone know - if I block her number (I think she's the type to take it badly if I don't want to know her any more) will her texts send and she'll just think I haven't replied or will they not send and she'll know she's been blocked or think my number has been cut off?

Not sure about that but I'm sure she'd figure it out either way. And I'm sure she will take it badly, but do it anyway. Sometimes you think 'oh I'll just try and back away slowly' with these sorts but then they cotton on and go completely nuts. Best to just block all contact and if they try to get in touch again, block them there too. They have a six sense for when people are backing off slow as they've caused it so many times before. Don't feel the need to explain anything either, just block. Do you have any mutual ties? Like other mutual friends?

She is a narc - boiling with rage and envy. No friends is such a red flag.
I made friends with a closet narc a couple of years ago. I only noticed there was something wrong when I realised I was apologising all the time. I tiptoed quietly away.

Luckily we don't have any mutual acquaintances. There's a very slim chance that she might occasionally be somewhere I go but it's unlikely. I'd obviously like to tell her what I think of her but it would be completely pointless and I don't want to deal with the drama/abuse/denial that would inevitably follow.

Perhaps realising what people like this really are all about is just a matter of time - they can keep up the nice act for various amounts of time but at some point they'll act out

Yeah just delete and block, without mutual friends ect she hopefully has no avenue in which to harass you with.

She sounds like a bad one, I'm surprised she kept the mask up for that long! Is there anything looking back on it now you think was a red flag before the holiday? Like getting to close to you too fast or anything? How did the holiday come about?

Holidays can be such a flashpoint. We once went to the south of France for a long weekend with a couple we got on with terribly well. Or so we thought. However they dropped us like a hot potato as soon as we got back home and to this day I am at a loss to realise what we did wrong. There was one awkward dinner where the husband (who prided himself on his French) insisted on ordering for all of us but my husband wanted to order for himself because he wanted to ask the waiter some questions before deciding. So my husband asked politely for other husband to let him order his own food. On one day the other wife said she was ill and her husband said he would stay at the hotel with her. We asked if they wanted us to stay behind too. They said no, we had hired a car and someone may as well get the use of it. So we went out for the day, but telephoned every couple of hours to see how she was when he said she was feeling better we offered to drive back to the hotel and pick them up so they could have some sort of an outing. They declined. Those honestly were the only awkward moments of the weekend.

When we got home they dropped us, as I said, and stopped coming in to our local. I sent them the odd email and then out of the blue they agreed to come out for a meal with us. So we met up at a bar, they spent 10 mins talking about the weather and then she said she felt ill and they left, never to speak to us again.