There are a few experiences that make you go “Never Again”.

I drove a two-wheeler back in 2007 and I crashed. That was it. I decided that day I won’t ever drive again. It has been 19 years since and I still use public transport.

I took Srilankan Airlines once in 2023. There was a huge delay in Colombo. Flight cancellations and delays are acceptable. But the way the ground staff handled it and how they behaved like they were doing us a favor was pretty bad experience. And that day I decided I will never fly Sri Lankan Airlines.

I had a terrible experience with Airbnb in 2022. I decided I would book hotels going forward. Since they I just use hotels. It doesn’t matter whether the hotels are more expensive or not. Just the fact that I don’t have to worry about crazy hosts and crazy charges and I could leave the room however I wanted to, was worth all the extra money.

I booked a ticket using booking.com. It was a stopover itinerary. Both the first leg and the second leg were with the same airline and this meant the transit is protected. But booking.com instead of booking them together, booked them with separate PNR. The first leg flight got delayed. The intimation came a day earlier, that it will be delayed. I called up booking.com and they said they couldn’t do anything about it because they decided to book separate PNRs. The airline was willing to help but they said they could do so if and only if it was same PNR. In the end I had to rebook new flights and Booking didn’t do anything. And in fact were rude about it. I was stressed about the flights that I had to take in a few hours and they were like making me run around. That day I decided I would always buy my flight tickets from the airline website itself and never from these middlemen. Even if I had to pay much more, it was much better than having to go through that experience again.

There are many such things where I have had a terrible experience and I just never did it. Adding to that list very recently is visiting a particular close relatives’ house.

People are living in such silos these days, they don’t even know how to host people. The job of the host is to make the guest comfortable. But I felt ultra awkward the whole time and I couldn’t help but think, man a hotel for a day would have cost like a $100 and would have been immensely better experience.