Am I right to be angry?

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lifestream

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So I'm house hunting with my best friend and her boyfriend right now.

Two days ago, my best friend insisted that I go to a viewing at one o'clock the following day, on the southwestern edge of the city where we live, even after I explained to her that I had an important interview that same afternoon which was on the exact opposite side of town from this viewing. She gives me the address, which I promptly memorise, I triple-check it on Google Maps so I don't get lost, make sure to find a bus route that passes by the general vicinity of the address, etc. I knew the timing would be a close thing so I make sure every task that day is strictly choreographed in advance. A military procedure by any definition.

The next morning comes, I walk the thirty minutes I need to walk to catch the bus to get there. She texts me at about half-past eleven, just as I'm arriving at the boarding stop, asking "what's going on?". I explain the situation, me traveling there on my own and meeting them at the place, what have you, and get no reply. I sit through a forty minute bus ride, arrive at the place I'm supposed to be, still no word from her. I walk around the neighbourhood, which is fairly disreputable and has been on the national news several times because of high rates of knife crime, but I can't find the correct road name anywhere. I walk around this neighbourhood for thirty minutes. It's a quarter to one before I hear from her boyfriend explaining that my best friend can't make it (because of a bad period, which seems to be every month with her :/), that she didn't bother to tell him I was travelling out to the viewing on my own, that the address she gave me was somehow incorrect and that he's going to come out on his own but will be late. One o'clock rolls around and I'm still waiting, five minutes past, ten minutes, until he finally shows up at a quarter past... By which point the estate agent has obviously given up the ghost and the house is empty. And we can't even call him because my best friend has the contact details but turned off her phone to go to bed. Her boyfriend makes her excuses for her and generally acts like her publicist, or something. I am not amused by any of this. I leave for my interview immediately, a journey which takes the guts of two hours, taking the time to call another friend and tell them about what happened. This friend is aghast at the situation. And it's hard for me to argue with that reaction.

To clarify, I agreed to do this house hunting thing with them a long time ago, figuring that it would never happen as my friend has always been more of a talker than a doer. It was a nasty shock for me when their current living circumstances changed (due to their own carelessness, I might add) and I was suddenly being pressured into making this massive life change to accommodate them. Now that we're doing it, I find myself marginalised at every turn. Any suggestions I make are promptly disregarded in favour of their own fairly subpar ideas, my needs are tertiary to theirs and yet I'm told again and again and again that I have to compromise. Yesterday is the perfect example of this circumstance. I make a massive effort to meet them halfway and somehow I'm left feeling foolish and embittered.

I am not a demanding person. I try to be unselfish and charitable. I try to make the best of things. I try to be a good friend to the people I love. I try to compromise but I seem to be the only one in this arrangement who's trying, though. I know that I've put myself in this situation, but it's getting to the point where I'm wondering if I've made an even bigger mistake than I'd ever predicted by allowing myself to be drawn into this circumstance with these people.

Do I have any right to be angry, despite putting myself here?
 
Well, you tried to help. They didn't show. If you offer your time and effort again, that's on you. She may insist until pigs grow wings; It doesn't mean you must agree. If she is unrelenting in the future, and flat-out refusing to take no for an answer, then kindly remind her that you've already done this, and you're not too fond to repeat the same disaster.

My only question is, why is it such a nasty shock? If it were such a shock, why even bother? I know someone who is much more of a talker than a doer, and I take what they say with a grain of salt.
 
Well, one of them showed. The person who guilt-tripped me into going couldn't be bothered to turn up, though.

It was such a shock because I genuinely never expected them to break out of their own inertia long enough to make a concerted effort to make this thing happen. As I stated in my original post, if they hadn't messed up their current living situation it would still hold true. This whole process has been under their complete control from the first, and they've made an absolute hames of it.

I may still be writing about it this time next year, at the rate we're going. :D
 
Oh my. I hope they sort it out. And really, don't feel the need to fulfill any future pleas of house-hunting. Showing support is one thing. Being completely disregarded is something else.
 
lifestream I wish I had an easy answer but I don't.

Let me briefly say this: the same type of things happen to me, and then you end up losing friends and being lonely.

But how can anybody put up with this type of thing?

It's a conundrum to be sure. Generally speaking, I find most people completely unappreciative of anything, and that has led to some of my loneliness, because now I know better than to get involved or actually take the trouble to do things for people.

It's something of a catch-22.
 
Oh dearie me. I don't even know how you still put up with these people after all that's happened! :\
 
I have often found that the more you do for someone, the less they appreciate it. They will forget the 99 times you helped them and remember the one time you were unable to.
 
Hey tiina63, lonelydoc and ladyforsaken. Thanks for the replies. :)

tiina63, you've hit the nail on the head - my best friend is extremely quick to forget the times beyond count that I've offered help and support to her over the years, especially when I need something in return. This is why I've stopped asking for anything but the smallest favours.

lonelydoc, I'm very sad to read about your situation, even though I can relate to it completely. I'm also someone whose first instinct is to be kind and giving to people, but find that it's usually a one-way street. To clarify, they're not irredeemable human beings, they're just selfish, careless and generally arrogant.

ladyforsaken, I haven't seen them since the event that I described in my original post. I even skipped two viewings with them yesterday afternoon because I'm still too angry to face them.

The longer this goes on, the more I'm beginning to see that I wasn't asked to participate because of any kind of affection or because I'd be a good housemate, but because they think that I'd be easy to control.

How do I cure them of that notion?
 
I'd tell them that I wasn't a puppet, and that they can go find someone else to lasso if they thought that was the case. They want full control, then they're to get their own house separate from anyone else.
 
I dunno, VanillaCreme. As lonelydoc pointed out, this is a catch-22.

I could do as you suggest; stand my ground and extricate myself from the situation. However, I'd run the very real risk of losing my best friend who, despite the many relevant issues I have with her behaviour, is like a sister to me.

Or I could continue on as normal, standing by and saying nothing while they stumble through this process, until they eventually (and I stress eventually) find a place that meets their requirements, we all move in together and the stress breaks the friendship anyway.

Not exactly pretty choices.
 
I don't get the Catch-22 phrase. For me, I either am or I am not. I was just making a point that you don't have to help them. It's their house. They need to take care of their own. Unless you plan to live with them on your own doing, I really don't see why they'd want anyone else in their business. If you do remove yourself, and she ceases being your friend over something that she probably shouldn't have involved you to begin with (that's not even mentioning that the way you've described the situation, she had no consideration over your feelings or schedule), then perhaps she needs to re-evaluate what a friend really is. A friend is not someone to be used and disposed of. And a friend is not someone you can completely disregard on every level except for what you need them for.

Either way, it's your choice. Those are just my strong opinions. Best of luck to you.
 
I envy you, I find myself drowning in ambiguity more often than not.

A catch-22 is a situation you can't escape from because the rules are stacked against you.

They need me for that most cynical of needs: money.
 
VanillaCreme said:
I don't get the Catch-22 phrase. For me, I either am or I am not. I was just making a point that you don't have to help them. It's their house. They need to take care of their own. Unless you plan to live with them on your own doing, I really don't see why they'd want anyone else in their business. If you do remove yourself, and she ceases being your friend over something that she probably shouldn't have involved you to begin with (that's not even mentioning that the way you've described the situation, she had no consideration over your feelings or schedule), then perhaps she needs to re-evaluate what a friend really is. A friend is not someone to be used and disposed of. And a friend is not someone you can completely disregard on every level except for what you need them for.

Either way, it's your choice. Those are just my strong opinions. Best of luck to you.

+1

I am thinking along the lines of what Nilla said here. Especially what I've bolded up there.
 
lifestream said:
"However, I'd run the very real risk of losing my best friend...."

"....we all move in together and the stress breaks the friendship anyway."

"Not exactly pretty choices."

Seems to me there's a self-fulfilling prophecy lurking....
 
Not a self-fulfilling prophecy, WildernessWildChild, a catch-22. :)

ladyforsaken, I'm inclined to agree with what VanillaCreme said about friendship. If there's even one more incident like the one that happened in my original post, I'm getting out of this whole mess.

My best friend has always been selfish. I've been burned by it on more than one occasion and, as a consequence, I've learned that lowering the bar (sometimes until it's almost floor level :)) can lead to some pleasant surprises, now and then. Lowering my standards in this case is unacceptable, I see that now. There's too much at stake to be passive anymore.
 
She can continue to be selfish. That's fine. But it's not to be at the cost at anyone else. It's not your burden to carry her selfish behavior, and she should know this.
 
UPDATE: we viewed a house today that looks a likely prospect. It's in a nice little nook tucked away in an otherwise questionable suburb but it's big enough for our needs and within budget. The estate agent (or realtor, for those of you on the other side of the Atlantic :)) was quite positive about our chances and will have a preliminary decision for us by tomorrow, at the earliest.

It turns out, though, that my best friend and her boyfriend have once again disregarded me: they've invited a friend of theirs into this arrangement without even consulting me first, after summarily rejecting an identical proposal I made not two months ago. In addition to this, they've inferred that they expect me to take the downstairs bedroom in this house, a single (because I've said in the past that I'm comfortable with sleeping in a single bed), while they and the other person take the other two rooms, which are doubles, and I'll be expected to make the same contribution to the rent that they will every week.

I thought that I would try to make a go of things again after last week's debacle, that I should give them the benefit of the doubt despite my own misgivings, yet here I find myself being played false by them once more. I said in a previous post if there was even one more incident with them that there would be a reckoning soon after. Well, that moment is fast approaching.

It's time I made myself clear on a few points.
 

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