19 Jul 2021

Why do I feel like I'm the bad guy when I ask for my dosh to be paid back? You might be thinking that it's easy to dodge this bullet - Just don't lend your money in the first place!

What about the Airbnb's you book for a group of friends. Or dinners where you can't split the bill. Or concert tickets that are selling quickly! It's inevitable that you'll owe your mates and that they'll end up owing you.

Unfortunately, half my pals must think I'm the Monopoly man, a cane in one hand and a sack of money in the other. The other half must mistake me for a bank, giving out loans left, right and centre. 

At least banks get interest! All I get is a dent in my bank account, a dent that should have gone towards next week's rent.

Just the other night, I had four amigos over. Since it was my house, the responsibility of dinner fell on my shoulders so we ordered Mexican and I was $90 poorer (we got waaaay too many nachos, truth be told). The next day, I popped my bank deets in our group chat... Just one of them paid me back.

See, I'm easy-breezy. I genuinely do not mind being the one that volunteers to pay for dinner. But I think with that territory, my friends assumed that paying me back wasn't necessary. "I'll just shout you drinks next time", they'd say... Sometimes they'd remember. Most of the time they'd forget. As if I wanna be the person that, three weeks later is like "you can pay since you still owe me". Yikes. I don't wanna seem like a stinge.

But it got to the point where I had to create a notes file on my phone to record how much everyone owed me. $10 here and there became $100 really quickly. 

I also hate confrontation, so if I messaged asking for them to pay me back and they never did, I didn't follow through. No one wants to be that guy that bugs them AGAIN, so they must have just assumed that I really didn't care.

I wish I didn't have to care. I wish I could shout my friends things 24/7 but I can hardly afford to shout myself things... But as my notes recordings grew and grew, bitterness started to boil through my blood. I kept thinking things like "here I am working three jobs to pay for rent, bills and groceries and here they are living at home, online shopping until the cows come home and still too slack to pay me back". 

I didn't wanna be bitter! I didn't wanna be passive-aggressive with them! So I stopped being a doormat, bit the bullet and messaged my mates once and for all. I kept things lighthearted and fun, but was also completely honest, sharing that I couldn't afford to wait for them to pay me back! 

Friendship is about trust, and if you can't trust them to pay you back twenty dollarydoos, what can you trust them with?

My mates were all so apologetic. They didn't realise what they were doing. They also hadn't realised that I was grinding and couldn't afford for them to all... sorry not sorry... leech from me. 

A weight was lifted from my shoulders. Honesty really is the best policy (even though, for people like me who DESPISE confrontation).

All I'll say is this. You're not the Monopoly man, so don't let your mates treat you as such!