12-17-2004, 05:41 PM
Many of these stories are similar to the "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." It goes the same for loaning things and trusting people.
Being nice does not involve letting yourself be a doormat to be trampled on. And friends who abuse your trust may not be as good a friend as first thought.
An experience I had several years ago: A roomate of mine was short one month for a partial portion of the bills so I loaned him a bit that month. Later in the month I asked him for the money back (I knew his payday). He told me that one of our mutual friends owed him some money so I would have to talk to them for payment. Of course I never got the money. I then quit buying food for the apartment (an advantage to working in a 24 hour restaurant was I could eat there at an employee discount) and stopped using the kitchen in the apartment all together. I didn't eat there so I didn't provide food and I didn't have to clean up. This was deemed unreasonable by my roomate because "he didn't owe me any money, our mutual friend did." He couldn't see the difference between me loaning him the money and me loaning our friend money.
Just to clarify, I had spotted my roomate money in the past and he had always made good on his debts. I would never have loaned our mutual friend money, I knew his history.
Being nice does not involve letting yourself be a doormat to be trampled on. And friends who abuse your trust may not be as good a friend as first thought.
An experience I had several years ago: A roomate of mine was short one month for a partial portion of the bills so I loaned him a bit that month. Later in the month I asked him for the money back (I knew his payday). He told me that one of our mutual friends owed him some money so I would have to talk to them for payment. Of course I never got the money. I then quit buying food for the apartment (an advantage to working in a 24 hour restaurant was I could eat there at an employee discount) and stopped using the kitchen in the apartment all together. I didn't eat there so I didn't provide food and I didn't have to clean up. This was deemed unreasonable by my roomate because "he didn't owe me any money, our mutual friend did." He couldn't see the difference between me loaning him the money and me loaning our friend money.
Just to clarify, I had spotted my roomate money in the past and he had always made good on his debts. I would never have loaned our mutual friend money, I knew his history.
The Bill of No Rights
The United States has become a place where entertainers and professional athletes are mistaken for people of importance. Robert A. Heinlein
The United States has become a place where entertainers and professional athletes are mistaken for people of importance. Robert A. Heinlein