I met with a friend for lunch and one of her friends came to join us just as were about to finish. In fact we had already paid but this friend, let’s call her Thief, rang to say she was joining us after we paid so we order a coffee while we waited. I had meet the Thief before, but only at 2 events since I did 10 years before, last one a month before when she spent the night behaving as a cheap tart and saying I was a good girl and that she was scaring me. She didn’t scare me but I found her conversation about using men for free dinners or the descriptions of her sex life very tasteless to the point of being offensive.
Anyhow, she shows up at the restaurant when we are about to finish our coffees. She apologises for being late an orders a starter, a main, a desert, a glass of wine and a coffee, we continued talking while she had all that, then she says “oh is getting late as I have date tonight, shall we split the bill? We said we already paid so she pays her bill and ask us if we want to join her for a bit of shopping as she had a voucher from x store. So we said we would go as I also wanted to go to the shop.
We arrive to the shop, she finds something she likes but asks me if I would agree to pay our stuff together as the voucher is only valid if you spend more than £20. I said that is ok, we get to the cashier, the things are charged together and then she says she cannot find the voucher on her phone. I have an account in the store so I go into my emails to see if I could find it, she then accuses me of trying to use “her” voucher to save mine. So I tell her It is ok to cancel the purchase and I will pay my stuff separately.
She then changes from nasty bitch to sweet little panda personality, apologises and says she has just found the voucher. Then she asks if I can pay with my card as she doesn’t want to add too much money to hers. I said to her I have enough cash to pay her straight away, she says that she would prefer to give me her cash instead, as the queue is getting longer and longer I agree.
We come out of the store and she says “I’ll pay you another day” I said that is not what we agreed (after all I have only seen her three times in 10 years). She then accuses me of trying to take advantage of her voucher and demands to pay less than the price of her item as she wanted the £3 discount I got on mine.
I normally wouldn’t be minding a £20 expense but I have dealt with plenty CFs in my life to entertain this. All this conversation is taking place out of the earshot of my other friend, but when she approaches, she turns again into sweet little panda personality and says she would pay at another time as she doesn’t have the cash.
I remind her there is a cash point a few steps from where we are, she looks at the other friend and with a lot of fake surprise says “we don’t behave like this towards friends”. Fine, she is not my friend, so I ask her again about walking to the cash point to get the money. She then decides that probably it is a good idea to get a coffee from Costa before we go. I’m already finding the situation quite funny so I agree (but pay for my coffee separately just in case) my friend... totally oblivious to what is going on.
We sit for the coffee and she starts telling us all these stories of CF who have left her to pay the bill (probably after she tried to sponge them off and failed)I look at my watch convinced she is waiting for the time to be close to school pick up time so we need to leave in a hurry, and yes at 3 sharp she exclaims “oh my god, is 3 already! You are getting late to pick up your kids!!!” We both reply they take the bus since they started secondary school.
She says she needs to leave as she is getting late to get ready for her “date“. But asks for my bank account number so she can pay by bank transfer, I give her the number and wait for her to do the transfer on her phone, but she then says she would prefer to do it from her computer at home, I said I would be happy if she does it on her phone straight away. She says she doesn’t consider her phone safe enough, so I remind her it is actually easier and much faster to walk to the cash point next door, so finally she agrees to walk of it acting as if she is being treated sooo unfairly and reluctantly she hands the money to me. I returned her the £3 pounds I got as a discount, she then gets in the higher horse saying that that is not necessary, I tell her that I don’t want to steal from her.
Anyhow, I was taken quite aback with the situation and talked to my friend after that, who confirmed that many in their group had been wondering if she was not paying her way as every time they were out with her the split of the bill didn’t seem correct. She also said she had not noticed that she had paid for her in three occasions and the thief had not yet paid her back.
I would really like to say I pity the woman, but I cannot bring my self to pity her, I feel utter disgust for her, you cannot get through life sponging people who are friendly to you.