The doctor’s appointment is 1-ish hour away depending on traffic, it is also 40 minutes for me to drive to her place from mine. We live in a major city that’s always congested.
Now her procedure (colonoscopy) will take anywhere between 2-4 hours so I will have to wait around the area until it is finished to pick her up. She is saying the clinic needs to see I will be her escort so I “need” to be there to drop her off rather than just a pickup which would be much easier for me.
I would say we are friends and hang out regularly, but not “besties”. She did not offer me anything for doing this (gas, lunch, etc) so I am off out by that. No family to ask, not sure about other friends, but I do have a car and free time due to WFH.
Feeling 50/50 about AITA.
Edit: I’d be taking off work for this. This is not a free day but I can easily take the day off.
i am not sure if you’re the AH but you are definitely _not_ this person’s _friend._
edit to add, i think you can probably divide the answers here by age. i sincerely hope those of you who think this is such a huge ask are never in a position to need something like this.
This is a huge ask for someone who isn’t really close. At least three hours of driving and several hours of hanging out waiting for them. OP is going to spend a bunch on gas and probably a meal while waiting for the casual friend. The fact that this casual friend hasn’t offered to pay for that stuff, at a minimum, makes me wonder if they truly appreciate the five to seven hours they are expecting OP to invest in this thing.
\[Edit:\] I could imagine doing this for an acquaintance in a tough spot, but this is a huge favor.
imagine how it would feel on the other side to need a procedure like this, have no one to ask, think you have a friend who might be willing to help, only to find out there was not enough intrinsic reward in the transaction for the friend to be bothered.
yikes.
Yeah, totally. As I said, I’d do it for someone else.
But the fact that the person requesting this big favor doesn’t seem to regard it as a huge favor has me kind of worried.
As someone who has done this for three people I disagree. This helping someone who needs help. It is not a huge favor.
At least not a close friend. There’s only a handful of people I would give up an entire day waiting at a hospital for them as a favor.
Dudes I’d give my brand new neighbor my day off of work if he needed it for a medical procedure.
If you want a village, you’ve got to be a villager.
I understand completely. Sometimes a person has to ask for an inconvenient favor. Your friend may have asked others before you, but they couldn’t do it. Think of it this way one day you might find yourself in the same situation where your best friends can’t bail you out . How would you feel if the last person that you could ask says no
For me, this is just the kind of thing a friend and a decent human does. I have spent whole days taking single friends to medical procedures. My friend took me to a procedure and brought her lap top and worked from the waiting area. My male coworker asked me to take him for shoulder surgery because his wife chose to go to Son’s high school basketball tournament. I didn’t hesitate to say yes, because he was my friend. Thats what friends do. (yes thats what spouses do too but whatever)
Your friendship sounds like it is based on your convenience.
This is a great example of no, you’re not technically wrong, and you don’t have to say yes but this really depends on whether you expect to be part of a community. “If you want to have a village, you have to be a villager”, so to speak. Being part of ccmmunity means sometimes you do things that are annoying and inconvenient without asking for something in return because that’s what community does. Do you have to do this? No. But if you aren’t willing to do things like this for your friends, you don’t get to act shocked when people don’t show up for you.
NAH but I’d think about the kind of person you want to be,
I agree with your statement “if you want to have a village, be a villager”. I had a friend mention once they needed to schedule a colonoscopy but had no one to drive them, and a table of six women IMMEDIATELY said they would be available to help and were shocked she hadn’t even asked. She “didn’t want to bother anyone” and we were all appalled that she felt that way about a medical procedure. I live by the mantra of “if someone asks for help, they need it” and if I can help, I will. This woman is someone she considers a friend and immediately she jumps to what do I get from doing you this favor? At the end of the day, I need a village, so I am happy to be a villager!
I am the type of person where if I could, I would. I would do it for my neighbor if I had the time off to do so or the means. People are so self centered these days, it is actually astounding. “She did not offer me anything for doing this (gas, lunch, etc) so I am off out by that. No family to ask, not sure about other friends, but I do have a car and free time due to WFH.” Sounds like she really needs help and you are evaluating what you will gain from it? How about the knowledge you helped someone out? Someone who clearly is in a difficult situation. Please try, for once, to imagine being alone in a place with no close family nearby or a lot of friends and needing a medical procedure that requires someone else to help you?? Imagine how scary that can be to ask someone for assistance in this situation.
I wouldn’t go as far as call you an AH for it but I do think sometimes in life, we need to suck it up and just be there for someone else. What if it was you who needed the help? People want a village but they don’t want to be a villager.
Help the person out, jeez.
Probably shouldn’t use the word “friend” if this is not something you are willing to do. Damn, I would do this for just about anyone that asked, obviously she didn’t have other options.