For the past 1.5 years, I've been driving alone from Rohini to Noida in my Hyundai Creta. I go to the office three days a week (Mon-Wed) and WFH the other two days. Every week it's the same route, same traffic, and honestly, I never really thought much about all the empty seats in my car.

Around two months ago, I started thinking about trying carpooling. If I'm already travelling on the same route anyway, why not help someone who's commuting in the same direction?

I had heard about BlaBlaCar before but always assumed it was some kind of cheap taxi app. Then a few friends told me it's actually meant for personal car owners travelling on an existing route, not commercial taxis. That genuinely sounded like a nice idea.

So around three weeks ago, I installed the app and started publishing both my onward and return rides.

Got a request literally on Day 1 itself... and had to decline because some office work came up and I was leaving much later than planned.

Ngl, I actually felt guilty. 😂

I know it sounds stupid, but I genuinely like helping strangers. I get this weird dopamine from helping people, as long as they don't start taking advantage of it.

Anyway, after that I kept posting rides almost every office day.

And then... absolutely nothing.

For the next two weeks, I didn't get a single request. Every morning I'd publish a ride, every evening I'd publish another one, and nothing happened.

I was honestly a little disappointed but still kept posting.

This week too, I published rides for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday nothing. Tuesday nothing. By Wednesday I had already accepted that maybe nobody really uses BlaBlaCar on this route.

Then, while I was literally taking a shower before leaving for office, I got another request.

Obviously I wasn't checking my phone, so the request timed out. 😭

Thankfully, the guy had left me a message. I replied asking for his pickup and drop locations, and then we ran into another problem. BlaBlaCar wouldn't let either of us send phone numbers because it kept flagging them.

So this guy literally sent his phone number two digits at a time. 😂

Peak jugaad.

I called him, confirmed everything and picked him up.

Honestly? 10/10 passenger.

I hardly waited two minutes. The poor guy came running over the Foot Over Bridge completely out of breath because he didn't want to make me wait. I actually had to tell him to relax for a minute first.

Near his office, he asked if I could just drop him near a red light because his office was within walking distance from there.

Lowkey, I wanted to insist on dropping him all the way to his office because it wasn't a big deal for me... but my introvert brain won and I couldn't. 😅

Then he said he'd transfer ₹100 on GPay.

I had honestly forgotten that payment was even a thing.

My one-way fuel cost itself is around ₹500, so ₹100 wasn't really the point. I was just happy that I had helped someone. I reached the office thinking, okay... this app is actually pretty wholesome.

Then came the return journey.

Around 7 PM, I got a ride request from a girl. I messaged asking for the pickup and drop locations but got no reply.

My ride timing was 7:20 PM, and Wednesday basically feels like Friday for me because I only go to the office Mon-Wed. I just wanted to leave on time, reach home and mentally switch off for the week.

Still, I accepted the ride hoping they would call me.

Around 7:10 PM, I got a call from a guy saying:

"Mere bhaiya aur bhabhi hain, inko bhi le jana."

I told him I was already about to leave and asked him to share their location. Instead, he asked for my office location and said they'd come there.

Fine.

I shared it.

He said they'd reach in 10-15 minutes max.

They arrived around 45 minutes later.

I was just sitting there waiting in the office parking.

Tbh, I should've probably cancelled and left after 15-20 minutes. But I didn't because I didn't want them to be stranded there, and once I've committed to something, I find it very difficult to back out.

When they finally arrived, I noticed that the husband had a plaster on his leg because of a fracture.

I thought, chalo bechara injured hai, thoda adjust kar leta hu.

Looking back, that was probably my first mistake.

Both of them sat in the back row. I took my bag from the back seat and kept it on the front passenger seat, and we started driving.

A few minutes later, the woman suddenly said:

"Rithala drop kar dena."

I politely refused because Rithala wasn't on my route at all.

I had already told the guy on the phone that I could only drop them at GTK Bypass, and he had agreed. I explained that I take the highway specifically to avoid that traffic and going towards Rithala would take me completely off my normal route.

But she kept insisting that I had already agreed to Rithala.

I hadn't.

I explained again.

Then she said her husband had a fractured leg and they wouldn't be able to manage from GTK Bypass.

Tbh, I didn't want to argue anymore.

I thought maybe if I were in their situation, I'd also hope someone would help me.

So I agreed.

A little later, the husband tried talking to me, and that's when I realised he was heavily drunk.

Like... properly drunk.

He could barely speak clearly.

I just avoided the conversation and kept driving. After some time, he completely lay down on the back seat and started snoring loudly. 😭

At that point I genuinely didn't know what to do.

This was literally my second successful BlaBlaCar ride and I was already questioning my life choices.

After almost an hour, when around 20 minutes of the journey were left, he woke up and started asking me what I do for work, which car this is, how much it costs and all that.

I answered politely because... that's just how I am.

Then I overheard him telling his wife that I probably do this as a part-time job.

That's when I realised they genuinely thought I was some sort of cab driver.

I didn't even bother correcting them.

By then I was mentally done. I just wanted to drop them and go home.

When we finally reached, they asked how much they had to pay.

I said ₹200, as shown on the app. ₹100 for each passenger.

He asked for a QR code, so I told him he could just transfer it to my phone number. Even typing the number was difficult for him because he was that drunk, but eventually the payment came through.

And honestly, what bothered me wasn't the money.

Not even slightly.

What bothered me was that they made me wait 45 minutes, asked me to change the destination only after sitting in the car, made me drive completely off-route, travelled while one of them was heavily drunk, apparently assumed I was a cab driver...

...and after all that, they didn't even say a simple "sorry" for making me wait.

Not even a "thank you" before leaving.

They just got down and walked away like all of this was expected.

When I finally reached home, I realised I had wasted almost 1.5 hours because of one ride. Around 45 minutes waiting outside my office, and another 40-45 minutes because I ended up taking a completely different route.

I was honestly just sitting in my car for a minute after parking, thinking...

Was it even worth it?

The funny thing is, I didn't even tell my wife about any of this. 😂

I already knew exactly what she'd say:

"Dekha? Isi liye bolti hu dusre logo ke liye itna mat socha karo."

And honestly, I wasn't in the mood for that lecture because somewhere I knew she'd probably have a point.

Maybe I'm ranting over nothing, but I genuinely want to understand how BlaBlaCar is supposed to work.

I thought the whole idea was that if a driver is already travelling from Point A to Point B, passengers going in roughly the same direction can join the ride, contribute towards fuel and everyone benefits.

Basically, the driver continues on their existing route and the passenger adjusts a little because they're joining a journey that was already happening anyway.

Or is it actually more like a customer-service relationship where passengers expect drivers to pick them up, wait for them and drop them exactly where they want?

Are passengers generally supposed to adjust according to the driver's existing route, or is the driver expected to adjust according to the passengers?

I'd genuinely like to hear from people who regularly use BlaBlaCar because this was literally only my second successful ride.

My intention isn't to earn money from this. I'm already spending around ₹1,000 on fuel for every round trip, so ₹100-200 genuinely doesn't make much difference to me.

I just wanted to make someone's commute easier, maybe meet interesting people along the way, maybe even make a few friends, and make better use of the empty seats in my car.

I'm still going to keep publishing rides because I don't want one bad experience to ruin the whole thing.

The first ride genuinely restored my faith in the app.

The second one completely confused me.

So, people who've been using BlaBlaCar for a while... am I expecting the wrong things from the platform, or did I just get extremely unlucky with this ride?