I wanted to share a story about the most shameless mooch I’ve ever met. I’ll call her Brittany.
I met Brittany, a sophomore at my then college, during my senior year. She struck up a conversation with me as I was walking to my dorm, carrying a brownie I’d just bought. Apparently, my acquaintance had told her that I was really good at physics. (I’m not.) She was struggling in her physics class. Alas and woe! If only she had someone to tutor her! If only some kind soul, perhaps someone who was really good at physics, could tutor her for free!
I knew exactly what she was getting at and tried to express sympathy without committing to anything, but eventually she straight-up asked me if I could tutor her. At that point, I felt kind of bad for her and decided it couldn’t hurt to help her out. “I’m busy this weekend,” I told her, “..but we can set up a time next Tuesday and I’ll see if I can help you out.”
She thanked me profusely. Moments later, she noticed the brownie I was holding. “Can I have some of that?” she asked. “I want to try all the treats from the cafeteria, but I don’t want to spend my dining dollars.” Apparently my dining dollars were fair game. Right after I’d agreed to do her a favor, no less. I handed her a piece of the brownie, wondering if I’d made a mistake in humoring her.
The following Saturday morning, I was woken up by the sound of someone banging on my door and yelling my name. Surprise–it was Brittany. “I need you to help me with my homework!”, she yelled through the locked door. Hadn’t I told her I wasn’t up for that over the weekend? Blame it on being half-asleep and just wanting her to go away, but I told her to come back in a couple of hours and I’d see what I could do.
The tutoring session itself was time-consuming and deeply frustrating, although I can’t blame that on her manners. It did make me aware that I wasn’t exactly doing her a trivial favor. Why exactly had I agreed to do this for free?
Monday was the last straw. Brittany found me working in the library and plopped down in the seat next to me, looking distressed. “Can I have some money?”, she asked. “I spent all of mine and now I can’t afford toothpaste.” Once I’d picked my jaw up off the floor, I told her I wasn’t comfortable with giving money to someone I’d just met that week. I decided then and there that I’d go through with the Tuesday tutoring session I’d promised her, but after that I was cutting her off. Otherwise, she’d probably be asking me for a kidney next.
Come Tuesday, I explained to her that I didn’t plan to tutor her again. I reminded her that I’d met her only four days ago, and every interaction since then had involved her asking me for a favor. I told her that she hadn’t given me any indication that she was interested in getting to know me, that I felt used, and that I wasn’t going to play along anymore.
She looked disappointed and embarrassed, and for a minute I felt bad. The poor kid probably just didn’t have good social skills. I knew what that was like. Hopefully she’d learn from this experience that it isn’t appropriate to ask for large or numerous favors from near-strangers, and– “So if I get to know you as a person and become your friend, then you’ll
tutor me?”Yeah, her takeaway was that as long as she pretended to actually like me and went through the motions of conversation, I’d be at her beck and call again. I told her that wasn’t going to happen, and I haven’t seen her since. 0725-14
Tag: A Polite Spine
Anatomy Of A Polite Spine
I have a very hostile relationship with my aunt. At first, she didn’t like me and I grew to dislike her. On the other hand as a teenager, I babysat all my cousins, including her sons, with great pleasure, whenever I could. As time went on, we only met at Christmas so I didn’t get to know her sons as well as my other cousins.
Other things happened between us but the one that takes the cake is this. One day, she, my uncle and my cousins moved to my part of the world (about a 10 minutes drive). I was deliriously happy and invited them to dinner and lunch repeatedly but they never agreed.
Eight months later, it was the day before my fiancé’s birthday, I got a phone-call from her. She explained to me that my cousins never saw me (ok) and a bunch of other sentimental things, then explained that the next day my 17-year-old cousin was taking a train at the station the next evening and I should go there and keep him company until he got it. I had spent many hours in station waiting for trains alone when I was his age but I still understood her concern. I refused nonetheless – it was exactly the same time as the dinner reservation my FIL had made for my fiance’s birthday celebration with my MIL and SIL (well all soon-to-be, of course) so, for the first time since she knew me, and to my own astonishment, I told her no, I couldn’t, explained why and stood my point until she hung up. She tried guilt-tripping me for her lack of planning, but to me it didn’t feel like an emergency, rather a demand.
A few months after that, they moved away. Two years later, I met my uncle at a family function and he told me that she had finally “forgiven” me for that… 0622-14
And this is what a polite spine looks like.
The Doormat Awards Needed
My husband and I got married a couple of months ago, it was a very small wedding with only close friends. We went away the week after for our honeymoon and after we arrived back my friend came over to visit us. And didn’t leave for about 3 weeks.
This friend was at the wedding, she split up with her ex in December and had since been living at her parents’ house, rent free, and they paid off her debts. So basically she had over 3 months to save up money to find her own place.
Whilst staying with us she borrowed money from me, managed to quit her job, fell out with her parents, went about bitching about me (not my husband). We did not invite her to stay with us – she moaned to a mutual friend that she thought it was inappropriate that me and my husband cuddled on the couch to watch TV in the evening, her words were, “I don’t need to see that, they should have more respect for me when I am a guest in their home.”
She left my house one night and sent me a bitchy text about the way I apparently spoke to her. I apologized and found out while she was away she had told a lie that caused trouble between my BIL and his flat mate. I stopped answering her calls because I was too angry to speak to her and she sent me a text telling me I had to “justify” myself to her. I replied that she had crossed a line and she told me I would regret speaking to her that way. She also Facebooked my mum to ask her about me.
Whilst talking to a mutual friend (who has had a fallen out with her due to her borrowing her car, lying about insuring it for her to use and drink driving in it) I suddenly pieced together why she was staying with me – it wasn’t for me, it was for my husband. She had taken sneaky photos of him and even started referring to him by a pet name I use for him!
She owes me about £200, should I just write that off or ask for it back? 0425-14
OP, you and your husband are doormats and everything that has happened to you is due entirely to your lack of a spine of any kind. You have “Walk All Over Me” written in invisible ink on your foreheads. When this “friend” tried to overstay her welcome on her first visit to see you after you arrived home from the honeymoon, you should have politely but firmly shown her the door while yawning uncontrollably. Under no circumstances should her luggage have walked through the door without an incredulous, “What is that?”, followed by an equally incredulous, “You are doing what in our house?”
Boundaries are a good thing. Ponder and consider your personal and married boundaries and then enforce the boundaries. Not caving in to an uninvited house guests, no lending money to deadbeats, no photos of us in our home, would be a good start to the list of boundary lines. Forget the $200 since trying to retrieve it would involve interacting with a loon and give fodder for more drama. Some things in life just aren’t worth the price of the theatrical drama. Chalk it up to the price of a lesson learned.
Dear readers, is there anyone out there who can make me a custom image of an Ehell doormat? I really, really need one because it is submitted stories such as this that are just screaming to receive an official Ehell Doormat Award. In the interim, I’ll just have to link to these images…..
When The Problems Are Bigger Than Your Solutions
I am part of an activity on my college campus that involves working with a group of people (about 15) extremely closely for many, many hours. As such, whether you like it or not, you get to know everyone very well. There’s a girl in our group who rather annoys me. She doesn’t act maliciously, but tends to try to cling on to people and want friendship right away, which is rather off-putting to me. I have no bad intentions toward her but have chosen to try to limit the amount of time I spend with her during our shared activity as much as reasonably possible, and do not spend time with her outside of it.
She was recently diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. I myself have been living with symptoms of a similar illness for more than a quarter of my life. While I don’t advertise my problems, I am honest and candid about my experiences, because I believe that part of the stigma around mental illness is that it is so rarely talked about, which makes things harder for those of us affected to communicate our needs and abilities to others. She has started to seek out my advice whenever we’re together. While I sincerely wish her the best in her recovery, I feel uncomfortable because I don’t wish to be forced into intimate conversations about her personal life when I know that by doing so I am only encouraging her to seek me out more. Additionally, I’m not a counselor and taking the time to talk to her about this is emotionally draining for me. I’m happy to to talk to her about the resources I know of (the school counseling services, her primary caregiver, her family, etc), but I can’t fix her issues. I’m not even completely over my own problems.
I’m in kind of an awkward position, because I certainly don’t want to dismiss her concerns and have her think that her problems are unique to her (aka she’s completely alone), because I do know how that feels and it is scary and unhealthy. On the other hand, I am not her friend or counselor and I don’t want to be forced into either position. I’m trying my best to be firm but supportive, but would appreciate any advice you have for me.
Thank you! 1110-13
I’ve been somewhat in the position the OP describes, i.e. when you realize you lack the qualifications to help someone who truly needs help. To dismiss them would be heartless but at the same time you know you are not equipped to offer true assistance. My suggestion would be to kindly tell her you are not an expert with the training to help her, that this is out of your comfort zone to offer advice and suggest several campus or local support groups that would be a better fit for her. Comments readers?
Teaching Your Child To Not Be The Victim
My daughter Em is in 5th grade at a fairly small private school. We moved to the area three years ago, and quickly realized that the girls in her class are exceptionally clique-y. She has done a good job of making friends since second grade, and feels comfortable with her classmates, but the dynamic hasn’t changed much, especially for new students.
Last year, a new little girl came to the school and apparently had a very hard time making friends. We will call her Lizzie. I encouraged Em to try and be friendly with Lizzie, knowing that it can be hard for ‘the new kid.’ Em would routinely come home with stories of Lizzie getting into loud, vicious arguments with basically everyone in the class, and said she wasn’t comfortable pursuing a friendship with her because she wasn’t nice. I let it go, and told Em that as long as she wasn’t actively being mean to anyone, she didn’t have to hang out with Lizzie.
At the beginning of this year, I was at Back to School Night and met a woman who turned out to be Lizzie’s mom. She launched into long, complicated tale of how she moved here to escape Lizzie’s abusive father and to get medical treatment for Lizzie’s rare cancer at the children’s hospital in the city. She told me that Lizzie had a hard time in fourth grade but all she really wanted was a friend, and that she was really very sweet but scared and sick and that manifested itself as her being aggressive. She gave me her phone number and asked if we could try to get the girls together.
I went home and had a long talk with Em about Lizzie, and we suggested that maybe she would be nicer if she had some close friends to spend time with, that she probably felt like an outsider and was just hostile because she had a hard life. Em resolved to try to be her friend, and I was privately very proud that she had decided to show compassion and kindness to someone who was not particularly nice to her without my prompting.
Well, that was two months ago, and I cannot even begin to describe what an absolute disaster it’s been. Lizzie is by turns outright cruel to Em, ignores her, obsessively calls her and follows her around, and then the cycle begins again. She will send her a nasty text messages saying that Em is a stupid loser and that she is embarrassed to be seen with her, and then she will call her an hour later and invite her stay the night. The next week at school, Em will say hi to her, and she will tell her that in school they shouldn’t speak because she only wants to talk to ‘popular’ kids. She has pulled her chair out from under Em at lunch, and accused her of stealing from her desk, and been generally terrible. Em has decided that she is just going to ignore her, and I agree.
Unfortunately, Lizzie’s mom still texts or calls frequently to get the girls together, and I am torn whether to just sort of give her the brush off, or to actually tell her how Lizzie is acting and because of that, Em doesn’t wish to be her friend.
I have contacted the school, and they are no help, they ‘make it their policy not to get involved in playground disputes.’ So it’s basically up to me to either ignore this woman, which I don’t feel is right, or to add to her already significant burden by telling her that her sick daughter is acting improperly. It’s my opinion that those who seem the least lovable are the most in need of love, but I don’t want to teach my daughter to be a doormat. Help! 1103-13
I know some parents will try to use other children to address behavioral issues with their own….BTDT. Years ago a mother told me how much she loved when our DSs got together because mine was such a good influence on hers and she proceeded to tell me of her son’s problems. Hmmmm…… I wasn’t aware there were behavior issues with the other boy and subsequently began to scale back the amount of time the boys were together in the belief that it is not my pre-teen kid’s job to be a supervisor, cop, teacher or in any way responsible for training another person’s child.
Lizzie needs professional counseling because she is profoundly angry at the world for dealing her a harsh hand. Her father is abusive and she must deal with the stress of cancer which is hard enough as an adult, let alone by a child. Lizzie cannot control much about her life so she is being manipulative to control other people’s emotions and lives. It’s sad and she needs help.* Lizzie’s mother needs to be made aware of what it looks like from the “friend of my daughter” perspective and why her daughter is having such a hard time making friends. You are not doing Lizzie or her mother any favors by being discreet regarding Lizzie’s behavior.
Train your daughter to recognize the source of certain behaviors and how to confront bad behavior from alleged “friends” because Lizzie will not be the last manipulative person Em will encounter in her life. Lizzie is the type of manipulative person who tells two different narratives which confuses the intended victim. Lizzie is exercising power over Em by jerking her back and forth emotionally. Em needs to learn to recognize when this happens and basically call the manipulative bluff by forcing Lizzie to be honest to one narrative only. For example, being invited for a stay over hours after receiving a nasty text message….Em can respond as follows, “Lizzie, you are being manipulative and I am not playing this game. I won’t be jerked around by you this way. You texted me that you were embarrassed to be seen with me and I am taking you at your word that this is how you view our relationship so I am declining your insincere offer to stay over tonight.” Ditto for the “shouldn’t speak (to me) because she only wants to talk to ‘popular’ kids” scenario. Once Lizzie has played this manipulative card, Em can rebuff future friendly overtures as both insincere and yet another avenue to manipulate her emotionally. Em takes control of her life back and learns how to be the one who determines the outcome of a difficult manipulation attempt.
*Suggest to Lizzie’s mom that she look into a therapeutic horseback riding program. It’s not just for people with physical disabilities. There is something about handling a 1000+pound animal that is good for the soul of a troubled child. It is a large, powerful creature that can be controlled when everything else feels out of control. Horses are very honest and will give you exactly what you input into them, i.e. try to be manipulative by asking the horse to go forward with the legs but not go forward with the reins and you’ll likely get bucked off because that is exactly what you told the horse to do. You’ve commanded it to move in the only direction it can…up. Kids learn to respect the horse as a partner and that partnership can yield wonderful results.