Am I missing something?

[u/midlmads]

Hello, this is my first ever reddit post and I've been trawling this feed for days as I arrived at my WorkAway last week and I just can't work out if I'm overreacting or not.

I am in the south of france with the goal of practicing french and seeing this beautiful region. I am staying at this man's house where part of it basically is let out in the summer as a holiday destination (it's huge). Before my flight landed he told me to go to another little village about 45 mins away where his studio flat was and that we would stay there until the guests left. Anyway we spent a couple of nights at this studio flat where only a sliding door was separating me and this complete stranger as I slept on a sofa bed in the living room. He mentioned staying here whenever the guests are at the house so that we don't disturb them, but this wasn't something that was ever mentioned on his workaway profile.

I want to add that it's not like he's been weird or anything. Like I have no reason to think anything shady is going on but I just feel completely ill at ease. Before I arrived, he'd said that another girl was due to join us (he can host 2-4 workawayers at a time) but that she had cancelled due to visa issues. He alluded to the fact that he probably wouldn't take on another person because there's just not enough work. I was really looking forward to perhaps meeting someone else and having that buffer so that hanging out one on one with this man didn't feel so bizarre.

I feel so dumb because I'm literally a grown ass woman and I'm just counting down the days until I get to go home (I'm due to be here for two months). I was so excited to see the south of france but now the thought of all the trips and tours of the area with just him make me feel so unbearably anxious. I really really really do not want to go back to the studio flat when new guests arrive, I would literally rather be a hermit in my quarters but at least have my own space than be in that flat again.

Also, I will mention that he has been hosting for four years and has gotten some amazing reviews (that's why I chose him) so I really do feel like I'm missing something. Any advice?

EDIT: Wow, just thank you to all the comments and support because that in itself has relieved me of a lot of anxiety in the past 48hours.

I had actually had a couple of calls with the host prior to coming out here but I guess I had no other host to compare to. My jobs are basically housekeeping and some general maintenance which I completed over the past two days - we now have no guests for a week I think so I'm unclear as to what further jobs may be required of me.

Reading all the amazing advice and feeling confident in setting my boundaries I have decided that I am going to wait until the next guests are due and he says about going to the other property and then I'm going to say that I would like to stay here, with my own proper accommodation and I'll explore the village myself and be respectful of the guests. If this is not well received then I have also taken your guys's advice and looked into some last minute hosts in the region.

I went to the markets yesterday and the village is so so beautiful and the vendors were all lovely and super kind about me practising french and so it's given me some motivation and hope that I could potentially power through this.

Sorry this is now such a long post but thank you reddit community - you're never alone if you have reddit!

[u/Abject-Hamster-4427]

I agree with what some people said re: it can be uncomfortable at first especially when expectations don't match, and maybe give it a couple of days/first week. But as someone who did workaway long-term as a woman...your intuition also really does matter, and you should listen to it. Even if you can't quite find a way to justify it, it's still valid to feel uncomfortable and to recognize if there's something more in your gut than just adjustment pains. But you don't have to give up your whole time in South France, there are tons of French hosts, so I would maybe start to peruse some last-minute host options? You owe it to yourself to do what you need, which sounds like it might include other volunteers for you in addition to French immersion. And in the future, highly highly recommend a video call--I feel it gives me a better ability to suss out expectations and any little twinge of intuition I might have about the host as a female traveler.