Feeling a bit humiliated by tactless friend

[bagpuss90]

This friend very kindly offered to lend me some money -when I had some lockdown cash flow problems. I’m self employed . I’d agreed to pay her back earlier this week . We were going to another friends house to sit in the garden I said Id slip her the money in an envelope then when we got a minute on our own which we would have done at some point . Six of us were there-all doing the social distancing thing. I did offer to do a bank transfer but she said she wanted cash-fair enough. Anyway we’d been there less than half an hour when she said”have you got the money you owe me please” ? This was in front of four other people -it all went quiet . I gave her the money in an envelope .
It might sound silly but I felt about “so big”. I hadn’t dragged my heels re paying it. I was paying it back bang on the time we’d agreed . We hadn’t been there hours and I’m sure I could have slipped in to her in the envelope I’d put it in at some point. Am I wrong in thinking this was at best bloody tactless and at worst slightly nasty ?

She was either worried that you were trying to get out of paying as you didn’t give her the money immediately, or she wanted the other friends to know what she had done. Impossible to say which without knowing the people involved, I reckon.

She was very very rude. The others wouldn't know how much it was or why you owed her so don't think too much about it now.

Some people only do nice things for others so they feel they are owed a favour forever. Yes it was nice of her to lend you some money when you needed it, but it sounds like she probably did it for the wrong reasons i.e. to make herself feel big. If she really did just want to help she would have been much more sensitive about it than that. I would stop spending time with her.

I think you’re right. It was at least tactless, perhaps being nasty.

I would think she thought you'd forgotten as you'd been sat chatting and not mentioned it. She any have been worried that you didn't have it with you to pay it back.

I suppose she could have expected you to pay her straight away?

Idk though, I would have thought that if either of you were to leave before the other she could have discreetly asked then.

She didn't need the cash during the meet up, did she?

Why do you feel humiliated though? She offered to do a nice thing at a time you needed help through no fault of your own, so why the need for shame and secrecy?
I agree she was a bit tactless but only you can make yourself feel humiliated.

Bit odd but as a PP said, she was kind enough to loan you the money in the first place so maybe her asking for it back in such a way was merely a faux pas and not her trying to be nasty in any way.

Bit rude maybe - but maybe if you'd handed the envelope over at the first encounter would have been avoided - but as PPs have said, you clearly had the money ready to return to her, so I wouldn't worry about it.
Maybe she didn't get the need for discretion (in the same way that I don;t get her need for cash over a bank transfer)
'She did help you out when you needed it - ghosting he as others have suggested seems very unkind.

Glad that you're in a better place financially to be repaying the loan, hope things are more straightforward now.

Interesting that some posters think she thought you had forgotten, and some think she was point scoring (the more paranoid?)

If I owed someone some money I wouldn't have gone for the cloak and dagger approach. I would just have given her the money as soon as I had arrived. I don't understand why it is considered embarrassing on mumsnet to pay back some money to someone

I'm inclined to think that the lender wasn't point scoring, and she just thought you had forgotten.

Totally tactless and she wanted to look good in front of her friends and make sure they knew you had taken up on her offer of some money! What a cow : you were going to pay her back as agreed.
I'd be upset too.

I agree that if she was trying to embarrass you it failed miserably. You didn’t stutter and make excuses or have to scrape around in your handbag. You clearly had the money all ready and waiting for her. Any silence that fell after her comment is as likely to have been shock at her rudeness as a judgement on you.

I’d be inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt here and say it was just tactlessness. She was a good enough friend to lend you money when you needed it so I would hope she is also a good enough friend to not deliberately embarrass you.

She did it to make you look small
Make herself look generous
So, she could gossip about you to the other friends
She could've had a BACS transfer
She could've pulled you aside
Text you saying she wanted it now
But she said it front of an audience
Hopefully the other friends know not to go to her for help
How much was it out of interest? A large amount that she wanted to show off about?

She was tactless/rude. However I would have handed it over straight away. Tricky when everyone is social distancing though as these things are inevitably more obvious.

There are only 3 reason people want cash
To hide their income
To pretend they were never paid
Or, to make a show

i hope you gat a receipt.

It seems an unnecessarily bitchy thing to do - as you say you hadn't had a moment to yourselves when you could do it discreetly.

If she was worried she could even have said "Have you go that stuff I left at yours, for me?" She could have pretended she'd dropped a letter out of her bag when she was at your house. She didn't have to make it obvious it was money.

I don't think it's tactless - it's the sort of thing that everyone in my group of friends might casually say.

Your other friends are not to know if the money you owe her is a couple of quid for a coffee, a tenner for something she bought you because you asked her to you or thousands. And tbh, they are more likely to think it's a small amount of money. Slipping the envelope to her (surely hard to do if you are SD!) would have made more of a deal of it.

Don't understand why you didn't just give her the money as soon as you saw her. She probably thought you'd forgotten.

How to ruin a kind act in one blow. If I was a friend who witnessed that, I wouldn’t think very highly of her.

With out a doubt she set this up so she could look like the big person. Why wouldn't she want the money transferred to her bank? All shops are encouraging card payments at the moment.

People are always so funny about money.

You just have two different attitudes to money that is all. You are someone who thinks money is a private matter, and she isn't. If you had wanted to keep it private, you should have made that clear, she is not a mind reader

@FeelLiedTo

She did it to make you look small Make herself look generous So, she could gossip about you to the other friends She could've had a BACS transfer She could've pulled you aside Text you saying she wanted it now But she said it front of an audience Hopefully the other friends know not to go to her for help How much was it out of interest? A large amount that she wanted to show off about?

I agree with this. She did it to make herself the big shot.

Wow. Your friend lent you money and you didn't like that she asked for it back

You should have given it to her straight away. You need to swallow your silly pride and be thankful she helped you out.

It's a bit inconsiderate of her. Maybe she quite regularly lends and borrows money and doesn't see it as a big deal or understand why other people would feel a little sensitive about it.

I dont actually see this as a big deal at all - but maybe that's because me and my friends have lent each other money in the past on a semi regular basis when one has gotten into a tight spot so noone would even raise an eyebrow and it coming up in front of them. it's nothing to be embarrassed by - so many people had a rough time during lockdown.