TRIGGER WARNING JUST IN CASE.. NOT FOR FACEBOOK
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I have a friend who is currently going through IVF and I understand it's a troubling, emotional time (I too have been down this path years back).
I want to be supportive as much as I can be and I am there to take phone calls at any given time and to go out to cheer her up etc. However, there's one thing bothering me and I don't know how to approach it or do I just cut her off?
She is using her misfortune to get advantages.
As in, she wanted us to go to a specific restaurant and they had no tables available. So she started pretend crying and saying how she is doing IVF and just wants one nice thing and then when they caved and gave us a table, she smiled and winked at me..
And there's other occasions this has happened too, she rang a place for a booking and said that she was going through IVF and it's been so so hard and can they offer her anything. Or calling and saying she got free stuff because of it and she is all excited about it..
This goes against my morals and I really think there's so many worse off people. The fact she smiled and winked at me shows me she knows she is doing it to get her way.
5 Replies
Oh, I don't think I could tolerate this at all. I couldn't imagine using any of my personal struggles to get my own way or in order to obtain free stuff.
It's manipulative, grossly opportunistic, entitled and absolutely shameless!
I've also worked front of house, I can't tell you the amount of sob stories I've heard from people trying to get a table. It also puts you (the staff memeber) in a really uncomfortable position and you end up feeling like an asshole no matter which way things go.
Like seriously, you wanna eat here? Make a booking like everyone else and stop expecting preferential treatment 🙄
This would be friendship ending stuff for me. I can’t stand this kind of manipulation.
Ewww. This would be a sign to me I didn't want her as a friend. I wouldn't make a big deal, I'd just distance myself until I wasn't around
This upsets me, especially having a close family member who went through IVF, a number of miscarriages and was completely traumatised by the process. What a horrid thing to do and yes I would not want to know this woman.
Yeah theres people going through worse, its not the ivf its the fact she cries and seems on the edge that makes people try to make her world a little better. Id remind her that other people do have it worse and also that people dont voice it often, they carry it. Everyones carrying something. I might even interject and say exactly that over her next time.
To her I would be asking her to pay it forward since she knows how important acts of kindness are to people struggling.