I once visited
a friend of mine in Aberdeen. I was living in Swansea at the time (2003 I think). I only knew her through the internet and had never met her. But she was going through a rough patch, and was rather scarily talking about suicide.

I told her "Right, that's it, I'm coming up there. DO NOT KILL YOURSELF BEFORE I GET THERE." and booked tickets for the earliest I could possibly manage - about a month later. Flying on a Friday morning, Cardiff airport to Glasgow, then train to Aberdeen, staying there for the weekend and coming back by the same route on Sunday. Overall it cost about £250, which is a lot to pay for someone I'd never met, but I felt it was worth the price if it helped her get through her problems.

In the meantime she got herself a boyfriend and a job so when I did actually get up there she wasn't in such a bad state after all. But we still enjoyed ourselves, nice meals, pubs and things and it was a cool trip which I felt good about, and I like to think my original intervention showed her that someone cared enough to stop her doing something stupid.

It was on the way back that everything started screwing up big-time. I thought my (pre-booked) train was 15.08 from Aberdeen station. We turned up there a few minutes beforehand to watch the 15.00 pulling out of the station.

My flights were at about 6.30 pm from Glasgow airport. The next train from Aberdeen was two hours later, and would get to Glasgow at 7. "Shit" I thought. I was not enamoured with the prospect of being stuck in Scotland in January. I enquired after the cost of a taxi.

"£180 mate"
"...oh, er, in that case maybe not. thanks anyway"

I had to get a coach instead at the cost of a mere £55. Left at 4 and would get to Glasgow at around 6, supposedly. Which was cutting it fine anyway, but when we broke down twice on the way, that was the end of my hopes of catching my flight, and now I was not only stuck in Scotland, I was stuck in Glasgow without anywhere to stay.

I went to the train station, where I found the next train was the 12-something sleeper train to Euston, arriving at 6.45am at a cost of £80, and without even getting a bed. I had no other choice though, so I bought a ticket and sat in the cold for the next five hours waiting for my train, followed by another six hours sitting bolt upright, tired and poor. When I did get to London I surprised my parents by turning up at 8am on their doorstep and going to bed for the day. I eventually got the train from Paddington to Swansea that evening for another additional cost of £65. A normally three-hour journey took five because some dickheads threw a brick into the windscreen of the train as we were coming into Cardiff.

I arrived at my home in Swansea 39 hours after leaving Aberdeen and having spent somewhere between £450 and £500 on one weekend, just to try to help a friend out.

In the following years she firstly came down to visit me, met a friend of mine and got together with him, moved down to Swansea and enrolled on a uni course she didn't finish, following by cheating on him, breaking his heart and moving to Cardiff with the guy she'd cheated on him with, starting another uni course which she didn't finish, before deciding she had some kind of mental problems which meant she couldn't work but was perfectly fine to smoke weed and play bass guitar in a band. Eventually he broke up with her and she moved back up to Aberdeen, eventually getting her old job back something like 5 years after she left it. At all these points she ignored any advice I gave her. I even have a log of an MSN conversation where I typed in the middle of it "You don't read a single thing I say, do you?" and received no reply.

I would not really call her a friend any more.
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Thu 13 May 2010, 14:35, 4 replies)

It's probably an age thing (i'm 33)...
but I wouldn't have called her a friend from the start. Words on a computer screen is what I would have called her.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 13 May 2010, 14:46, closed)

well
yes, in that I was young and foolish. Would not buy again F----
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Thu 13 May 2010, 15:46, closed)

Poor Cypherspace
Sucked in to playing white knight for an attention seeking, drama-queen...
And the whole brick thing. Stupid, stupid chavdregs of society. Make my blood boil!
(Happybara The jungle came alive and took him, Thu 13 May 2010, 15:38, closed)

A month? Seriously?
I can get from where I am (Northern England) to Swansea and then to Aberdeen in a day at the cost of a rental car and a few tanks of petrol.
I know trains aren't cheap but you'd have got a cheaper deal in that time also.
I'm confused as to why it takes you a month to travel a few hundred miles.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 19 May 2010, 18:10, closed)