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Hey, you seriously want to end a long-term friendship because of $20 worth misunderstanding? Did he think you will be gone for 5 days, not 3? He wanted to save you more than $20.
He won't change; you probably won't, too. You have a good friend, you enjoy this relationship otherwise, so why bother yourself with periodic (rare) losses of $20-$100? Your employer takes time of you life from you, and probably pays you less than you deserve, so don't cry over small losses. Your friend probably feels you are more secure financially than his other friend, so he takes a bit from you, from time to time. If he was living on your account, it would be different. I don't know about your gas usage, but I would charge him for difference between a regular bill and this huge bill, and that's it.
He's a mooch and that's the price of his friendship with you. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes it's not. You decide. He doesn't act this way with your friend because your friend has a different personality than you.
He's a user. Plain and simple. I've had hem in my life. "The Talk" just goes through one ear and out the other. Either hey act like the aggrieved party, or hey agree make a very superficial promise to change then go back to their user ways.
If you cut off his food supply, he'll go away.
He doesn't understand "give and take". But he has a firm grasp on "take".
You deserve better.
If you want to remain friends, you may want to have a new rule - that you don't do any business with this friend. Tell him you've decided to stop mixing business with pleasure, but would he like to go out to lunch, dutch treat?
I have a friend who used to hint to borrow money from me alot. I never took the bait. I had learned the hard way before i met her, not to lend money or borrow money from friends. I just don't do it.
But, I do hire this same friend to help me move. I used to move a lot. She has no problem taking the money (she doesn't say, "oh no, I'll help you for free - uh uh), but, she's worth every penny to me, as she's very organized and has a truck. We're getting too old to move stuff ourselves anymore, so this last move, I hired her to supervise the movers and figure out how to pack the trailer (she's amazing at figuring out how to pack stuff into spaces). And she hauled a trailer with her pickup, and hauled stuff in the back of the pickup, too.
I prefer not to ask favors of friends, and I don't want them to ask favors of me, either, unless it's rare, and I feel the favors are balanced evenly between us.
So, anyway, with this particular friend, I have been able to keep firm my boundary about lending or borrowing money, and we are still good at negotiating my hiring her occasionally, too.
Your friend doesn't pull the same stuff with the other friend, because the other friend has boundaries that are acknowledged/respected. When he learns you have boundaries, too, he'll learn to respect them or he'll go away. If he goes away, he was never a real friend anyway. He may push the boundaries occasionally, just to see if they're still there. So, stick to your guns.
I learned from a counselor once that I needed a set of "rules." I was bad about boundaries way back when. You need to know what your rules are, in order to enforce them.
When my counselor asked me what my rules were, I was stumped. We came up with my first rule: I don't let people hit me. That was a rule I could always enforce. I came from a violent home, and made that rule right off the bat. When I get out of this house, nobody will be allowed to hit me again. And nobody ever did.
Anyway, I digress. So, work on your own set of rules regarding your friend. You don't have to tell your friend what they are, you just need them in your head. So, if he were to say, for instance, can I stay in your apt while you're out of town? In your head your rule is, nobody stays for free in your apt. So, you say, no, sorry, I don't want anyone to stay in the apt when I'm gone, but thanks for the offer.
Or if he says, can I watch the cat for the same amount of money you pay the cat lady? If your rule is you don't want him to stay in your apt when you're gone, you can just say, no thanks, I prefer to always use the cat lady, but thanks for the offer.
Hope my rambling made sense. I don't think you need to give up on the friendship just yet. You may find you have to later, but I think you should give some new boundaries a shot first.
I've been friends with my best gay friend for 10 years now. We have always had a great friendship except for ONE thing.
First, he's never made that much money. He probably makes just barely enough to survive. He is currently 50 years old. Some of his traits are not getting his rotting teeth repaired yet, he will go spend money on a tattoo. You get the picture.
He has always either NOT had a car, worked odd jobs, lives with roommates. etc. I don't consider him a "moocher" per say but he does has some interesting expectations of me and I don't know if he does this with others.
I will give you some examples.
When I was living on my own, he moved in with me for about 2 months because he had ended a relationship in another part of the state so I wanted him to get back on his feet. He actually ended up staying for nearly a year which was fine because it helped me with the rent. However, he would always use MY shampoo, MY toothpaste. One time, I stayed at my boyfriends house and he took a brand new unburned candle from my room and put it in his room, burned it without asking. Then after a month of living at my boyfriends place, I got a HUGE gas bill. I was never home and he was using it like crazy. We got into a fight over it because I asked him to pay for it as I was not living there. Why would I pay the biggest gas bill I ever had when clearly I wasn't there?! He wanted me to pay for most of it. WTF?
Another example. He helped me move to another state. He drove the truck. I paid for everything which I should, plus his lost wages from not working (he has his own cleaning house business) I paid for meals etc. Which was fine. But then he decided to stay an extra 4-5 days where I moved (he has friends there) and wanted me to give him 100 spending money. I thought, gee, wouldn't this be HIS dime since he decided to stay and party for another 4 days? So, I gave him the money even though I thought it to be a bit out of line.
The last thing, I went traveling, and he came up to my town to visit me and friends. I have since left but he OFFERED to watch my cats at my apartment. When he offered, I said I would pay him the same amount that I pay my cat lady which is 20 bucks. He said "YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY ME" I said, no, let me just give you something for your time. He said "ok, 10 bucks" I said... no problem. He sends me a message the night before the morning that I was leaving "CAN YOU LEAVE ME THE MONEY IN CASH?" I thought, geez, ok, so I walked down to the bank late at night to get him 30 dollars. 10 bucks a day for 3 days. He then sends me a text and says "I thought we agreed to 50 dollars?" So I called him and I said "where did you get that idea?" He said "well, I told you I would do it for 100 bucks but then told you I would do it for half price. WHOA! I said, wait, that's not true and why would I pay you MORE then what I pay my normal lady? Plus, he's staying in my apartment downtown the three days!!!
He said "well, I KNOW what I said"... he said "maybe it was a misunderstanding on my part or yours but that's not what we agreed to. Then he passive aggressive said "well, HAVE A NICE TRIP" and we hung up.
Can someone tell me what's going on here? I know it's not enough to end the friendship but I feel I need to have a down to earth talk with him. How do I go about it and what should I say?
No need to contact him again, he is not really a friend but he certainly is a moocher.
Cut off contact with him and move on.
You can control who does or does not take advantage of you and now is your opportunity to cut this cord and move on.
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