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Sanity check: driving an acquaintance
italianranma
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My little sister will be attending Anime Expo with an acquaintance this Tuesday. She lacks some basic common sense and survival instincts so I questioned her a bit on her plans. The guy she's going with has bought tickets (her ticket was originally for someone else who had to cancel), but doesn't drive and their 'plan' is to ride the bus to LA, which involves 4 hours of transit time and 6 different bus transitions. She just met this guy the week prior and hasn't been able to communicate with him since because he's currently out of the country. She actually doesn't even remember his name (we're working on her social skills). The whole situation is just too many red-flags to me. I don't mind driving her: we attempted to go as a family yesterday but left after seeing the 6-hour line to get in. I'm willing to try again on Tuesday as the entry line is usually a non-issue, and this is a bit of a family tradition. Where the quandary comes in is if I should also offer to drive her I-don't-know-his-name friend.
I'm trying to mentor her: she lived with me for a year and we focused on making friends, learning to drive, cooking, how to study, all the like. When she makes friends she gravitates to others like her: introverted, socially-awkward, and behind the power-curve in life-skills (don't drive, have jobs, also lack common sense etc). I know I'm coming off as super judgemental, but from my perspective she screams out "Victimize me!" with every action, and I'm worried for her ultimate safety. This guy is probably harmless, but I'm urging her to find friends that more mature than she is rather than less. I don't know much about this guy (other than he's in Junior College but doesn't drive), but then again neither does she. I know I'm being controlling here, which is why I'd like a bit of a sanity check from the board.
I don't want her traveling 8-hours by bus on Tuesday. That part is decided. Should I offer to drive this acquaintance of hers as well, knowing that if I don't I'm disrupting a budding friendship (possibly a romantic one?)
I'm trying to mentor her: she lived with me for a year and we focused on making friends, learning to drive, cooking, how to study, all the like. When she makes friends she gravitates to others like her: introverted, socially-awkward, and behind the power-curve in life-skills (don't drive, have jobs, also lack common sense etc). I know I'm coming off as super judgemental, but from my perspective she screams out "Victimize me!" with every action, and I'm worried for her ultimate safety. This guy is probably harmless, but I'm urging her to find friends that more mature than she is rather than less. I don't know much about this guy (other than he's in Junior College but doesn't drive), but then again neither does she. I know I'm being controlling here, which is why I'd like a bit of a sanity check from the board.
I don't want her traveling 8-hours by bus on Tuesday. That part is decided. Should I offer to drive this acquaintance of hers as well, knowing that if I don't I'm disrupting a budding friendship (possibly a romantic one?)
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
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Too many red flags for me to be comfortable with.
Use that to run a felony check.
If he isn't a creep drive him, but pick him up, ask your sister to turn on gps tracking on her phone, for coordination purposes.
Presumably they took a plane?
Sure, drive the person. Piles of red flags though. Being out of the country doesn't make it impossible to communicate, for one thing.
Questions:
- when you say your sister "met" him last week, is this an actual RL meeting?
- how old is your sister?
- how is it "their" plan to ride the bus? Does he live in the same area?
I would at least get a look at the guy. And his name, for fuck's sake how do you plan on spending the day with someone and you don't even know what to call them?
Do not let get go with this guy by herself. I'd say this regardless of gender of either party.
If you want to drive them, make sure he doesn't deviate from the plan, like, "oh, my friends are having a party on their hotel room/back alley/Serbia. Let's go!"
We got the kid's name, she had to look it up. They're in contact via email. I assume he's traveling with his parents. This may be a non-issue at this point. She's getting anxious about going 'with' someone, and like I said I don't want to go out of my way for a total stranger. If they were closer it wouldn't be an issue.
You are coming over as a bit overprotective. Is your sister suffering from a developmental disorder or do you just think she's a bit of an idiot? If she isn't actually disabled, why not teach her to drive?
I couldn't drive until 29, due to being a clumsy sort of person. I still suck at driving.
She's not going to get more mature by being babied. When I was 21 I did things like turn up to roleplaying games with a bunch of randos in a random place, and fortunately never got raped and murdered. It's how I learned to be a person. She might get raped by this anime fan while taking the bus for 6 hours, or she might have the time of her life and get some confidence. And maybe some ideas like "This would be a lot fucking easier if I learned to drive."
(Obviously, if she's autistic or something, this isn't a good idea. Work with her therapist in this case.)
But if she's just a shy little flower, getting out of her comfort zone is good. Insist on at least meeting the guy, big bro. All take a pic together. That way if he's a secret rapist, he will know he's not going to get away with it. If he's a creep, he'll probably vanish on this being suggested. Respect her ideas, and respect her ability to make mistakes. Social skills primarily increase by making mistakes and learning from them.
Yeah uh, I am REALLY skeptical about this whole thing. Not a single bit of it sounds legit. She needs to confirm that he actually has the ticket and actually plans to give it to her. I'm all about learning to be a person, but that's not a life lesson she necessarily needs to learn while stuck at a convention she can't attend. At the very least, she needs to have a solid backup plan and a way to get home if she needs to. There's being sheltered and then there's being taught how to plan.
Yeah I might be a bit overprotective, hence the sanity check. She has Sensory Processing Disorder and takes focus pills for it. Then she takes Prozac to counter the depression she gets. But mainly she's just slow. We'd like her to move into the dorms when she transfers to a 4-year, and hopefully that will be a large and independent enough change for her to grow up.
I actually had her move in with me for a year teaching her to cook and drive and other life skills while she had her first year of Junior College. It's been a challenge finding that balance between sheltering her and letting her flounder. Even after coaching her behind the wheel for 10 months straight she still wasn't ready for her drivers test.
Back to the original issue, we looked online and the feature we both really wanted to see was actually today, so somewhat spur of the moment I decided to go. We talked beforehand so she knew that going today meant I wouldn't be up for driving again tomorrow. She put a lot of thought into it and she's not really into the guy to begin with and in fact isn't really keen on becoming friends with him. On one hand I'm worried that I influence her too much, but in this case my read is that she literally didn't put any thought into this until I questioned it. So dilemma averted aside from the somewhat messy cleanup of having to back out of plans she made. Speaking of...
So I relate this just to give a little more insight. We'd talked about this all of yesterday, and again by 1000 this morning she knew she wasn't going to go with him. She didn't message him to cancel until 2300 this night, and only because I asked about it. She said she tried to but couldn't get a connection for wifi all day at the convention. "Why did you need WiFi to send a text?" I asked. "Well, I've got mobile data turned off." She has 2gb available of mobile data each month and is nowhere near her max. I remember making mistakes like that when I was young, but still what a total lack of consideration. Then we worked through what she was going to write because her original draft was unintentionally crushing. Like I said, I don't know this kid from Adam, but from what I can tell he probably had romantic aspirations and being a young man myself once there's no need to be cruel with how you let someone down.