Can I stop my friend sponging off me?
DEAR BEL,
A FRIEND moved away a few years ago and since then comes to visit me two or three times a year.
She invites herself and every time she leaves, she gives me the dates of her next visit.
She is a kind, gentle woman, and I am quite fond of her. The friendship began when she started to work for me by helping to clean my house.
What is now starting to irritate me is the lack of any financial contribution when she stays. There is no bunch of flowers, no paying for a coffee when we go out, no offering to pay for parking or petrol... just being very tight with her money.
She comes by train so I feel I need to entertain her with shopping, sightseeing etc. We are both widows, but the truth is, she is the better off. Quite well off, in fact!
After I had an operation she came to take care of me for a week, for which I paid her. It was my choice and she accepted it.
I have run out of excuses for why she can’t come and she has now announced her next visit. How can I make her pay for a bottle of wine, say, which she loves to drink when I offer it?
I know this sounds a little petty, and if she was poor I would gladly spoil her. But her total lack of kindness is beginning to make me resent her. How can you make a person more generous without upsetting them?
Please help me with your common sense. ISLA
MaYBe one or two readers who have written with dire problems of the heart (and I can tell you that choosing ones to publish is not easy) will regard your letter as relatively trivial. Yet I don’t believe it is, as friendship is very important. Our friends prop us up, make us laugh, mop our tears, listen and advise. On the other hand, they can also disappoint, annoy and wound. a disloyal friend is like an unreachable splinter, hurting like hell and sometimes infecting the blood.
When my best friend and her wonderful husband come to stay, they always bring a bottle of champagne, wine, flowers. This is normal behaviour. If a friend stays for a week (that’s a long time!) she/he should always arrive with a gift, wash up, or offer to pay for a restaurant meal.
The next visit should never be taken for granted, but suggested by email or telephone much later, well after the thank-you card has been received.
It shocks me that your surprising offer to pay (why?) this lady to look after you should have been accepted. even if she were skint, I wouldn’t approve, since staying under your roof costs her nothing. What does friendship mean if it has to be paid for?
Sadly, it doesn’t sound as if you can make her more generous, but you can try to stop her taking without giving anything back. Frankly, I think you should cancel her next visit not far ahead, because (you say) you’ve made plans with other chums.
You still seem to want to protect her, but I suggest a wee bit of ‘upset’ may be needed. Why should you go on nurturing somebody so selfish? ‘Kind and gentle’ she may be — but not to you.
When she does come to visit, I suggest there’s no wine to offer, so you take her to a supermarket and suggest she chooses a couple of bottles she likes.
an injured finger (very large plaster, dear!) will make cooking hard, so part of her very own supermarket shop should be meals she selects to cook for you. You have to be tough, or she will never learn.
Remind yourself that the lesson will be for her own good. I’m afraid I don’t understand tight people.