'Friend' and £10!

[LadyofDunedin]

First post AIBU! Be nice, please!

So two weeks ago I travelled to a nearby town with who I thought a friend. We went for a lovely day out shopping, lunching, afternoon drinks and dinner.

We were having a lovely day and proceeded to a wine bar in the afternoon. When the check came I paid on my cars and we said we would sort later etc - it really wasn't a big deal. Although I should add she wasn't forthcoming to pay!

Anyway , evening dinner came and went and check came again. She told me to put less in as I got the wine in the avo - fair enough. She did the math and I put my share in. I did question if I paid enough once the waiter had left the table and she said 'oh actually, you still owe me a tenner'. I said I would square up next I saw her (I had no cash on me). I didn't think it a big deal and it was her bad math!

Anyway , she was slightly weird after but I had forgotten about it and a little squiffy in honesty until on the Monday at work I had a huge text with her sort code and account number asking I transfer the £10 ASAP! Omg !

I called DM in horror (after immediately transferring the money - I was mortified- she obv went away thinking all about this and probably bitching me to her husband) and DM reminded me only last month after her HUGE birthday party I stayed behind for 3 hours to help her and husband with all the dishes and tidying up while her parents watched!

So, AIBU to be pissed off? DM reckons I'll never hear again, and even if I do I should ignore?

spindarella did you mean to sound so unpleasant?

TangledUp, but why 'avoid this friend in future'?

Surely all friends show annoying traits sometimes, but it doesn't mean the friendship has to end over something so little.
The OP now knows that if out with this friend to make sure she always pays exactly her share,not avoid things like this in future. She might not like to operate like this and be a bit more laid back about money, but the friend doesn't so she can just adjust her behaviour a bit, as we do when anyone has slightly different approaches to ourselves. They can still be friends.

Or do you mean that every time a friend of yours does something a bit different to the way you do it, or annoys you a bit, you then avoid them and end the friendship?

This is my point, that people seem to take or advocate rather drastic action over what was a bit annoying and rude, but not worth the end of a friendship

DaisyChain, I don't think Spinerella was being unpleasant, but realistic in what she said.
The OP was rather 'princessy' in her reaction to the text. Okay the text wasn't very pleasant, but it didn't warrant the OMG reaction and texting DM about it all.

If you start a thread about these things, you need to be prepared to hear different views, rather than just those that agree with you. If you can't bear to hear this, or your skin is so thin, then an open forum probably isn't the right place to be. Both the OP and other posters need to be willing to hear different views without taking offense..........and ironically, the underlying problem in the relationship between OP and her friend, is taking offense very easily.

Oh I wish I had seen this earlier to support the OP.

YANBU OP.

YABU purely for the over dramatic nature of your posts and the over use of exclamation marks.

Thanks to all who have posted and offered thoughts. Clearly the situation is not clear cut.

I take on board where people think I was overly dramatic in texting DM, I was just genuinely shocked and incredulous at her text . I contacted DM not as I'm a baby, but because she was fairly impartial and was the most likely to tell me if I WBU - ironically!

For those who are interested in an update, I decided the way it made me feel was unpleasant, I was and am insulted and shan't be putting myself through that 'friendship' further. So for these reasons, I have blocked her. I know some of you will jump on the bandwagon and call this dramatic and OTT, but I just don't need this kind of behaviour in my life. She's no friend of mine, and it's a pity.

lady no argument from me! I would have backed off from the friendship too. Hope you aren't too upset by this so-called 'friend'.

lady no argument from me either. I'm not surprised you feel insulted. Some 'friend' she was.

Oh well, I'm not surprised that is what you decided to do.
I hope you will be a bit more tolerant of any 'errors' your other friends might make, or I suspect you will be getting through friends rather quickly.

Your friend's text was certainly rude and lacking social skills. However it just makes you aware too, that people have different attitudes towards money.

Not OTT at all. Her actions shout she doesn't trust you to pay her back and that is no friendship.

I probably wouldn't dump a nice friendship over this, I'd just make sure to never loan or borrow between each other anything.

If you are the type who says when, someone mentions owing you something, "Oh that's fine" in a 'don't worry about it' way, then you would find someone saying "I want that money right now" crass and shocking.

Maybe she has always been that way with her money and you just never owed her any before, so you didn't know!
At least she didn't charge you interest!

Hate people who add up every item on a bill instead of just splitting by number of friends. Ruins the meal

Why on earth should someone who only has the money for for example one course and a soft drink help pay for someone elses 3 courses and alcohol?? I dislike people with your attitude, that would ruin the meal for me.

OP YANBU. Has she contacted you again?

money and food.....just remembered the time when someone insisted we went halves on a bowl of chips I'd ordered at the airport waiting for our flight..ok, fine by me if you want....then, amidst getting out her miserly purse and notebook to write down the amount she'd spent, counted out about 2/3 of her share-because she'd been watching and I'd been eating the longer ones And this was the beginning of a long week's holiday.

You couldn't make it up, could you? And, I promise you, I didn't.

Why on earth should someone who only has the money for for example one course and a soft drink help pay for someone elses 3 courses and alcohol?? I dislike people with your attitude, that would ruin the meal for me.

It's one thing if A has a salad and an orange juice while B has double lobster and champagne. It's quite another if A has steak and a pint of John Smiths and B has steak and a pint of Stella - quibbling over the 30p or so difference seems tight to me.

I also hate going to restaurants with people who barely order anything. For example, ordering just a plate of fried rice and a glass of tap water would embarrass me.

OP I think your friend was ridiculously OTT in just texting your her account details like that.

Well I don't think YABU either.
I can't imagine this situation with my friends.
It's usually 6 of one 1/2 dozen of the other.
It evens itself out over the various meet ups.
I would just insist on buying the first couple of rounds next time we went out.
Or put more into the kitty the next time.
This is weird behaviour from your 'friend'
Not sure I would block her but wouldn't be rushing to go out with her again.

YANBU, OP. This happened on the Saturday, she is texting you on Monday as if you were about to emigrate without paying. Unless you had spent all day Sunday with her as well then you had barely had time to get the money to her. I also think that as she had made the mistake with the maths in the first place, then the OP did not really 'owe' her, it was an adjustment that could have been sorted out at a later date (if at all, I personally would have been mortified at my lack of maths skills, and not said anything!)

All those saying that the OP should be tolerant of her friends different POV, well that works both ways, the friend was not tolerant of the OP when she sent a text saying she could not stop thinking about the £10, after less than 48 hours! I would also be wary of seeing this 'friend' again for that reason.

You weren't OTT at all to talk about it with your mum. If I'm sufficiently scandalised by something (and that situation would have definitely set me off!), I tell everybody...

I can't seethe silently at all; got to get other perspectives in case there's something the red mist in front of my eyes is blinding me to.
I'm intrigued at your friend spending the rest of the weekend not being able to stop thinking about the tenner, though. Does she have some sort of anxiety disorder, or something? It's such an extreme reaction, and not something you'd generally be happy to admit to, I wouldn't have thought?

Biker mouse, oh dear!

I'm with you OP on the basis that you know her and her finances and she clearly is not struggling. She doesn't NEED that £10 within a certain timescale, and if she did she should have said.

Her text implies she does not believe you will give her the tenner when you next see her. She did not speak up at the time that this arrangement was not ok. She is acting as though you will try and pull a fast one and 'steal' her precious tenner.

Mean people like this are annoying and can be insulting. And also tend to be very well off. Well no wonder really.

Jesus bikermouse, I bet that was a long holiday.

I think your friend was unnecessarily rude in her way of approaching this, and she could have asked for the money in a much less offensive way.

However, remembering back to a time when I was abjectly poor, £10 was the difference between a comfortable week and a very difficult one. It was worth more to me back then than £100 would be now. When things are godawfully tight, the slightest financial hiccup can mean real suffering.

Perhaps she is struggling with money more than you think?

RTFT like this at some of the nasty replies you've had. YANBU! And as for posters moaning about you "bitching" to your DM and even some saying "wtaf is DM???" it's just goady bollocks.

I also understood where you were coming from when you mentioned that you'd helped her clear up after her party...I took it to mean that you were a loyal, supportive pal not that you thought you were "owed" something for it.

I fully understand why you've blocked her and ended the friendship, mean spirited crap like this is unnecessary in your life, you do right to move on without her in it.

Tightness to the point of cheese-paring, grasping like this is usually indicative of other unpleasant traits in a person that are to be avoided.

I've been in similar situations. I once had a woman ring me the morning after a night out where I'd taken two bottles of very good wine to the hosts home and she had taken nothing...I said she could say one of them was from her. We got a taxi home together and I got out first, giving her a tenner towards the fare on the meter..she rang me at 7am to tell me I owed her £2. I stuck 2 £1 coins to a piece of white card and mailed it to her with no message and I never socialised with her again.

I like that this has evolved into "Great Stinginess I have Known" - some of the examples are awful!

Can I chuck in a uni housemate's phone bill divvying up? Phone bill was in her name & itemised. She once spent 2 hours allocating the phonecalls from an entire quarter, relucantly sharing the local taxi numbers as no-one could remember who had dialled them 3 months earlier. The difference in bills for the four of us was 1. Now I've been skint and she certainly wasn't but even at my skintest I'd have taken the hit on paying an extra 25p rather than spend TWO HOURS allocating phonecalls. I do have a memory of her saying "now none of the calls made on a Wednesday night can be mine as I have an evening lecture..."

...agree...the stingey takes are pretty entertaining!