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I was hoping someone could tell me how to handle a particular situation and get some opinions on whether I’m wrong or not. The setup is pretty long, but if you could hang in there I’d appreciate it!
I’m supposed to be going on a trip to Disney World with 2 friends at the end of February. I have terminal colon cancer, and this may be the last trip I’ll ever take, although I’m sure it’ll definitely be the last one I’ll ever take with them. It was supposed to be a fun thing that I’d hoped would bring us closer together, but we’re already butting heads about a number of issues, and this could end up threatening our friendship.
I saw an ad for cheap flights to Orlando, which is what started the whole thing. I couldn’t get in touch with my one friend (my best friend - I’ll call her Denise) before the offer ran out, so I made the decision to buy her a ticket, later telling her that I’d pay for her flight. She said she couldn’t come up with enough money for the rest of the trip, though (park tickets, hotel, etc), so I told her that I’d pay for everything except food b/c I really wanted her to go. I don’t make a lot of money, but I figured I could sell my keyboard for about $300, and that would take care of her park tickets. However, it turned out the keyboard doesn’t work anymore (long story on why I didn’t know it didn’t work), and now I’m in a financial bind. So I’ve been arranging everything and making payments when I can, denying myself heat in my apartment and even skipping certain doctor’s appointments b/c of high copays.
In one of the updates I sent my friends I asked if they could allow me to have my own bed since I’m paying for the hotel myself. My other friend agreed immediately (I'll call her Sue), but Denise was very against this and said that we should just alternate partners each night, so this way we could each have one night with a bed to ourselves. Apparently she feels that I shouldn’t be asking for anything special just b/c I’m paying, that if I want to take her it should be out of the goodness of my heart and I shouldn’t expect anything in return (she didn’t exactly say any of that; I’m just paraphrasing what I think she means). But I didn’t WANT to pay for her, I just wanted her to go, and the only way to enable her to go was to pay for her. So it wasn’t like a gift or anything; in fact, I’ve been hinting that I’d like her to try to kick in some money sicne it’s so difficult for me to pay for it, but she hasn’t offered anything as of yet.
Another issue I’m upset about is restaurants. I had said that out of fairness we should each get to pick a restaurant we want, and we could decide together on the fourth one. Denise didn’t like this idea and said that we should decide on all four restaurants together – which really turned out to mean that Denise got to pick out all four restaurants. She is very, very picky, and will only eat two things at table-service restaurants – chicken parm and steak. So we had to limit our choices to only those restaurants that serve these two menu items. Actually, some of the restaurants I wanted to go to had steak, but they came with fancy sauces and sides that she didn’t like, so these were nixed. I wound up agreeing to some pretty crappy choices just so we could go ahead and make the dining reservations – otherwise we might never have decided (or more accurately, Denise would never have agreed to anything). Sue barely had any input in the restaurant choices and is not happy either, although she’s pretty picky as well (but not nearly to the degree of Denise, and is at least willing to be somewhat open to trying new things).
So I feel like I’m getting pretty screwed in all this, and I’m the one paying almost $1600 for this trip! Sue is putting out almost $600, and Denise is only paying a little over $200, and she’s the one who’s putting up the biggest stink. I’d love to be forthcoming and have it out with her before the trip, but the problem is we’re both pretty non-confrontational and usually don’t have big arguments – and I tend to avoid them with her anyway b/c she’s not the most rational person to try to argue with and is very black-and-white in how she sees things.
I don’t know what to do – should I just accept it and be happy that they’re coming with me at all, or should I start something? It’s truly blowing my mind that Denise is so comfortable with me paying for her that she could act the way she is and make so many demands! I keep wondering what she'd do if the situation were reversed - if she was the one paying and I was putting all these restrictions on her. Honestly, I’m at the point in which I’m thinking of canceling the whole thing. Am I wrong????
Last edited by kmsmith111; Nov 21, 2014 at 03:24 PM.
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