Cousin asking strangers on the street for directions?

[Anonymous]

I went on vacation with my cousin. I booked the hotels in March. Begged her to make the tentative plans with me. She just said she trusted me. When we arrived at our destination, she wouldn't stop asking strangers on the street for directions. I had everything mapped out, and a strange guy selling newspapers told us to go the wrong way. If the concierge at our hotel recommended a restaurant, she would agree to go, then stop and ask strangers on the street where to go. Then she would complain about the food. I tried using Yelp to reassure her. I tried using mobile apps and GPS for directions to reassure her. I felt like I was watching her have a nervous breakdown the way she would only listen to directions on the street by strangers.

What would you have done in that situation if you were me? I am used to traveling by myself for work as a woman. I like to appear confident and poised and know where I am going and walking.

[Anonymous]

Some people are simply not good travelers. It sounds like you and she are not good travel companions for each other.

If I'd been you in that situation, I'd have let her do her thing and viewed it as an amusing adventure that would later make a great story. "Remember the time we went to Germany and you insisted on following every stranger's directions even when we had GPS that said they were wrong, and we wandered all through Schnitzenblau to get to our dinner?"

[Anonymous]

She seems to have an anxiety disorder.

Now, you could have laughingly remarked: "Hey! You're making me feel as if you don't think much of my planning skills! I know exactly where to go, don't worry."

But I suspect that what she suffers from is too great to be approached in a rational way. There probably should not be a next time.

[Anonymous]

She sounds rather odd. Is she a high anxiety person in general?

[Anonymous]

While it would have been nice if she trusted you, I don't understand the problem with asking for directions. I do this myself. And I work downtown and strangers ask me for directions all the time. What am I missing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went on vacation with my cousin. I booked the hotels in March. Begged her to make the tentative plans with me. She just said she trusted me. When we arrived at our destination, she wouldn't stop asking strangers on the street for directions. I had everything mapped out, and a strange guy selling newspapers told us to go the wrong way. If the concierge at our hotel recommended a restaurant, she would agree to go, then stop and ask strangers on the street where to go. Then she would complain about the food. I tried using Yelp to reassure her. I tried using mobile apps and GPS for directions to reassure her. I felt like I was watching her have a nervous breakdown the way she would only listen to directions on the street by strangers.

What would you have done in that situation if you were me? I am used to traveling by myself for work as a woman. I like to appear confident and poised and know where I am going and walking.

Oh dear, I feel for you. My husband does it, too. I think it is embarrassing and exposes us as non-locals that can be scammed and/or robbed.

[Anonymous]

Uhhh what's wrong with asking for directions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While it would have been nice if she trusted you, I don't understand the problem with asking for directions. I do this myself. And I work downtown and strangers ask me for directions all the time. What am I missing?

It's weird to continually stop and ask for directions to a place you already have directions to. Like, if the concierge tells you to go straight for three blocks and then turn left to get to the restaurant...wouldn't you just go ahead and do that? The cousin sounds really annoying.

[Anonymous]

Asking strangers on the street for directions isn't the worst thing in the world. It sounds like the issue you had was that you did all this prep work and then cousin proceeded to ignore it all by asking strangers for directions and advice.

So yeah, I'd be pretty annoyed. After watching her do it two times, I would have had a conversation with her to try to figure out what was going on:

"So Sadie, before the trip, I mapped out all the directions so we would be able to get around easily. I noticed that you asked strangers on the street for directions 3 different times. We even got lost using a stranger's directions. Why couldn't we use the directions I mapped out? Is there a problem with them?"

[Anonymous]

She just sounds small town minded. Wants to be friends with all. Doesn't understand the risks or redundancy. Will think YOU are paranoid if you try to teach her different.

To each and every street vendor in dc selling umbrellas on a rainy day my visiting sister would stop, make eye contact, loiter and say "no thank you. But thank you so much for thinking of me. That's very kind of you." They'd then start to chat/pick her up and it would go over her head.

And she, to this day thinks she's friendly and special and I'm paranoid and embittered from living on a big city.

*shrug*

[Anonymous]

I like to appear confident and poised when I'm walking in a city environment. But part of being confident and poised is asking for directions when you don't know where you are going (I know that YOU did know where you were going, OP.) I truly don't understand how you would be scammed from merely asking for directions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like to appear confident and poised when I'm walking in a city environment. But part of being confident and poised is asking for directions when you don't know where you are going (I know that YOU did know where you were going, OP.) I truly don't understand how you would be scammed from merely asking for directions.

It wasn't a fear of being scammed. It was annoyance that she refused to simply read a street sign, a small map, go out the correct entrance from the subway so we were on the right side of the street or closer to our destination. And she wouldn't say excuse me to the people she was asking. She looked scared, panicked, and scattered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like to appear confident and poised when I'm walking in a city environment. But part of being confident and poised is asking for directions when you don't know where you are going (I know that YOU did know where you were going, OP.) I truly don't understand how you would be scammed from merely asking for directions.

It wasn't a fear of being scammed. It was annoyance that she refused to simply read a street sign, a small map, go out the correct entrance from the subway so we were on the right side of the street or closer to our destination. And she wouldn't say excuse me to the people she was asking. She looked scared, panicked, and scattered.

OP, if you are close enough to this cousin to want to travel with her (at least, to think you wanted to travel with her before she showed how anxious she is)....If you liked her enough to plan this, and do it, then please follow up and see if you can help her get some help.

Has she traveled much before this, or was it her first real trip outside her own local area for a long time--or ever? Has she had stresses or changes in her life recently (and "recently" might mean the last few years, for her)? In the past, did she perhaps travel with someone else, a spouse or significant other, who is no longer in the picture, but who might have been horrible at travel planning so she trusts no one, even you? Or maybe she has had some bad travel experience of which you were unaware?

There could be a lot of reasons, sad and painful ones, for why she was like this on the trip. If someone you care about is looking "scared, panicked and scattered" on what is supposed to be a pleasant vacation -- she needs support and possibly some professional help. I would try to focus less on my annoyance (and you do indeed have good reason to be annoyed and angry!) and maybe try to step back from your own reaction, justified as it is, and focus more on the idea that she might have emotional issues that are behind the annoying behavior. Yes, she could just be a pain and a bad traveler. But she also could have been just overwhelmed and trying to grasp for some control by asking, asking, asking for directions. Sounds like someone struggling to gain what feels like some control as she begins to panic. And you can't reason with panic, even if you say "I have a map here, I have directions."

Sounds a lot, in fact, like my aunt by marriage who gets like this when she is off her psychiatric medications and starting to crash and become anxious.

[Anonymous]

As my mother always says " you never have to see those people again"

[Anonymous]

I would have kept on walking and left her behind.