I recently had to end a friendship because it was costing me too much to continue being this woman's friend. Here's what happened. She would do me a small favor ,like buy me a cup of coffee and then ask to borrow something like my vacuum cleaner and then never return it. Or she would come over for a visit and then leave with the toilet paper from my bathroom, 3 cans of soda and a bottle of olive oil. After all was said and done, she had borrowed my vacuum cleaner, rolling suitcase, blender, alarm clock, baking pan, Santoku knife, angle broom, and several books and DVDs. Not to mention all the various little food items she lifted from my kitchen. I realized that she would do little things like buying me coffee as a kind of social currency to make me think she cared about me and then shop through my stuff to find things she wanted. I basically told her "Your friendship is too expensive. I can't afford to have you in my life. It wrecks my budget when I have to replace things that you take." Have you ever had to cut loose a narcissist or user because you saw them for what they were and realized that friendship was draining your wallet?
Oh my. No, I've never dealt with that before!! I can understand borrowing things and sometimes forgetting to return them sooner....but to take your toilet paper, olive oil, etc? That's just flat out theft and she clearly wasn't much of a friend to you anyway!
Wow, I have never heard of anything like that before, and I can't imagine it. I mean you bought those things with your hard earned money she shouldn't have been taking them. I would have done the same thing that you did. I mean the things that she was taking is more expensive then the coffee that she was buying you. I mean those things you had to keep replacing take a lot from your budget each month, and that's not fair.
Sounds truly insane, but while I haven't heard of someone abusing the way such neighbor was abusing @ACSAPA, certainly there are times when your "friends" do something nice for you with the sole intention to get paid back with something they will later ask for. Wouldn't be a big deal if that something wouldn't be often a thing that otherwise would not concede if it wasn't due to feeling obliged to correspond. Then the choice is left up to you, concede or cut the friendship off.
I’ve ended friendships for other reasons, like saving my sanity (and it did end up saving me money, not going out all the time), but I can’t say I’ve done that. Wow. That’s awful, what that woman did! Good for you for cutting it off; like @Jessi said, that’s pure theft and no one should have to stand for it.
I wouldn't say that I have ever ended a friendship to save on money, but I feel like I am going to have to cut off a particular family member soon enough, because the first person that they contact when they want to borrow money is me. Soon enough I am not going to have enough money to keep lending them money. I have to keep chasing them up for the money that they owe me too. It is exhausting.
I had to leave a city because I no longer could be friends with all the selfish folks who called themselves good friends and neighbors. One person owed me more than $500 bucks and any time I asked her to pay back the money she'd weave a sob story and ask me to give her a little bit more time. When I moved, to have some peace I no longer was interested in fancy friendships. I live alone, have no friends but my life has never been better.
It's amazing that you had to actually leave town because of all the users that you encountered. I'm glad to hear that you're more at peace now. Sometimes I wish I could just start over in a new city. Maybe I will after my kid graduates. @DreekLass Just tell them that you lost your job and you're broke now. It might be embarrassing but it gives you a solid excuse to not lend them a single pound.
I have some friends who just used me. He borrowed big amount of money but never return it. Many people will come to our lives, we need to be smart in choosing the right person we want to keep. People who will not take us for granted or will not use us for their gain. Sad to say that sometimes even some relatives and family do thesame.
I learned one thing from all this though. No matter how pretty a place might be if the people who are supposed to be your friends prove themselves to be "wolves in sheep skins" you won't notice the beauty of your city any more. Once that happens you just must leave. Patience. When you are ready to move, think of this . . . small towns can be great.
Yes, I have done this before now. It is a great shame, but I honestly believe that it had to happen because I was just wasting far too much money by being in the friendship. He was always wanting to go out and do things, and would be nasty if I said I didn't have the money to do it. So I said that he was going to either have to put up with the way I wanted to do things, or stop being friends - and shockingly he chose the latter. I wasn't best pleased about that, and I did miss him a little bit, but I soon found that I was much more free to do what I wanted, which was a good thing really.
That person wasn't a real friend and I haven't ended friendships that have been one sided, but let them drift and stall. I had friends that would always come and stay with me in London when they worked and they would buy a bottle of wine for me. However when it came to other things like parties or other events they never invited me and it was never reciprocated. I do have a friend who used to expect me to buy all the time when we went out, he thought I was well off because i owned my property and anyone who struggles to pay a mortgage knows renters can be better off at times. He used to order drinks and then tell me to pay because I was the one with most money, so I stopped going out or I would leave early.
You are nice ACSAPA, if I were you, I would say that, "My vacuum cleaner is still in your place and you are borrowing again without returning it first?". Let's see what she will say. How did she react when you told her that you don't want to be her friend anymore? I had that happen to me too, I became blunt when a very close friend tried to steal my DVD set by ignoring me when I was asking for it and she pretended to be busy on the pc. I called her name 15 to 20 times as I was asking for it and I was beside her! In my head I was thinking, "Man, it can't be any more obvious than that, she doesn't want to return it!" Of course she had no choice but to give it to me since she can't ignore me forever, so I got my DVD's back, but they were badly scratched. It's a shame because she earns a lot, and holds a high position at that time, take note. So that incident was the trigger that slowly detoriorated our friendship, and now, she's out of my life when I told her that she has the tendency to mooch off of people. I can't stand freeloaders.
I've had to gradually cut people off before now because they were constantly asking to borrow money. Making excuses all the time got pretty tiresome. I wouldn't have minded if it was an emergency but it never was.
It is sad that this person used friendship as a form to use you. I have a friend that will help me out when I am a little low on money and food but I take her out to a full meal lunch to say thanks. We get each other coffee about once a week but I do not think I am taking advantage of her or she of me.
You did the right thing. All she was doing was using you, and she obviously didn't have a high opinion of you or any respect for you if she was doing things like that. She saw you as gullible, and felt entitled to your stuff. Good riddance. I ended a friendship a couple years ago with someone I had been friends with for over 20 years for similar reasons. He's always been a total tightwad - mainly because he's lazy and tries to get by on the bare minimum of "work". But he had it down to an art form how he would mooch off of everyone around him. We both worked together at a couple restaurants, and I won't even get started on how much stuff he stole from those places for years - everything from gift cards to glasses, plates and silverware, to booze to entire cases of meats, other server's tips, etc... But even outside of work, among his circle of "friends" he stole from *everybody* on a regular basis. If he was at your house/apartment, you could be guaranteed he was walking out with stolen stuff - every. single. time. When we would go out as a group to bars, he would always find a way to weasel a drink off of each of us - and end up not paying for any of his drinks the entire night. The straw that broke the camels back though was how belligerent and mean he would get when drinking. He would get insanely jealous of any of us if we treated ourselves to anything - some new outfits, some cologne, bought a new car, went out to dinner some place nice, got some new jewelry, etc... He's never pursued any real career and can never afford any of this stuff as a result, so therefore in his eyes anyone who does work full time is a "snob" to him. When we would all get together and were having drinks, not only would he show up empty handed and expect to get hammered on everyone else's dime, the drunker he got he would start "lecturing" us about everything under the sun. He was always starting fights with everyone and trying to pit some of us against each other. He's basically miserable with himself and takes it out on everyone else. I finally had enough of his crap and just blocked him from calling me or emailing me ever again.
@Pat It is weird because many people don't set up friendships just so that they an use you for money. It is usually the other way around, in that because they are your friend and you are their friend, they sort of expect more leniency from you, which can be damaging, dangerous, and a annoying. If there is one thing that I hate, it is being taken advantage of.
OMG that woman doesn't sounds very pleasant. In fact, I'd go so far as to say she was a leech. I'm glad you were able to find the courage to stand firm and get rid of her. I mean, was she not even embarrassed?! Luckily for me, I've never had a person of that type among my friends. I'd nip it in the bud as soon as it reared its ugly head.
At first she made noises like "You should return the new vacuum you bought to the store, since I'm retuning your vacuum. You should trust me instead of replacing things." But weeks have gone by and she hasn't returned the vacuum that she borrowed in June, so I think she's lying to me again. I'm done with her and I've already opened the new vacuum and used it because I know she won't bring back the one I loaned her.
