I need to let off some steam about money issues and "friends"

[Saiyaman]

Man, there have been a lot of things getting on my nerves for a while but the most of them involve Ray, who used to be my best friend.

For years Ray and me were tight, we could call upon each other in hours of need, were in bands together and graduated high school together.

But lately I have more and more things about him that drive me up the wall. Thanks to a low life that stole his scooter, he has lost his primary transport and constantly has been calling upon me to get him to wherever he needs to be going, without ever compensating the fuel costs.

He always says "You don't know what it's like to support a family, you can spend your money on whatever you please." and that's far from the case, I have at least 300 euro a month in keeping my car in running order, of which most of it is in fuel alone, then I have the rent of my place, the costs of keeping myself fed, you get the idea.

His daughter now resides in a child care home in the north of the country until the battle over custody between him and his ex-wife has been resolved (which is very unlikely to ever happen) and it has become a very frequent thing for him to phone me up with the request of me having to drive him there.

I also noticed that at parties and get togethers, he has become quite close with my younger brother, with whom he's constantly what's-apping. So when I'm there, I'm not really there, he simply doesn't speak with me or even acknowledging I'm there, it's only when he needs something to be done that he addresses me.

The best example of that?

Scope this: Ray, my brother and me were in my car driving to yet another errand and Ray goes "Say Pete, when you see Walt, could you tell him that he..." and I'm sitting NEXT TO HIM!

This week, I sold a guitar so I could have a little extra cash, because I'm saving up for another trip to the UK. I put half of it in my tank expecting it to last me the remainder of the week. But when I got home, my brother called me up and said that he'd received a phone call from Ray if we felt like coming over, since his current wife was babysitting and he was bored and alone.

We went there and he was "Glad to have some company, oh Walt, could you do me a favor and drive me to to Voerendaal (the place where his wife was babysitting) so I can retrieve our dog?" I'm normally a very mellow guy but I couldn't help myself and I said "Not that you're giving me a lot of choice do you?"

The friendly get together was more of him and my brother chatting with each other and me sitting there with nothing to do. After we retrieved the dog and dropped ray off and went home I told my brother that as far as I'm concerned, I would have been better off if I just sat in an empty room.

Yesterday I went to my work, I had a tight schedule of work on the repair of an upright bass, my boss trusts me well enough to leave me to it and getting a job well done when I finished it. I love such jobs, I can concentrate, work and have my head empty from all that's bothering me.

I also never take my cellphone with me, because I simply don't want to be "available" all of the time. My brother is the opposite, I almost never see him without his I-phone, constantly trading messages with god knows who.

So after I did what my boss told me to do on that bass, I decided to work some extra hours getting the frets leveled, crowned and polished of a self made Les Paul Junior which I left unfinished for a while because of not getting around to do so earlier, making it a playable instrument.

So I arrived home and my brother went "Dude, for Pete's sakes, take your cellphone with you, we've been trying to contact you all day today." turns out that Ray's grandma is on her deathbed and he needed me to drive to whatever town she resides, so he could see her the final time.

Then I was told that he got another mutual buddy, Vince, to drive him there. Knowing Ray, there would be no compensation for Vince, after all "Friends help each other out."

Maybe so but I'm going broke getting myself involved in his personal issues and I'm stuffed to the teeth with it. Ray once asked me why I don't get myself an I-phone, I would be able to be reached every time of the day." I told him " Because I don't WANT to be in reach every time of the day." a concept that's apparently completely alien to him.

It's been a long time coming but a change will come and he better be a man about it.

 

[MSTarot]

you got a yard? I think it's time some yard work got done. The car needs washed, the house needs painted.

"Oh you don't have the time" big humph "But I thought... friends... helped each other out."

Next time he calls "Can you come get me and drive me here, there, and everywhere?"

"Sorry dude, cars out of gas and I'm broke."

You just have to put about a third your normal gas in the tank and save the gas money so you don't run out. That way when he looks at the dash he sees you are about out of gas.

I had friends like these. I managed to break them of this, so can you. The bonus is you don't even have to be rude.

 

[lovecraft68]

Classic and I mean classic case of a psychic vampire.

Lose him.

 

[PennLady]

Friends do help friends, but not to their own detriment -- a real friend wouldn't let that happen. Real friends reciprocate when they can, or at least make an effort to. It does sound like you're better off without him. If you tell him directly and he asks, then you tell him why. It probably won't sink in, though.

 

[Handley_Page]

Less a definition of a 'friend'; more a definition of a 'Leach'.

Lay it on the line for him.

 

[Acktion]

Let me check my understanding by relating something from my own life and you tell me if I'm close or if I still don't quite grasp the enormity.

I fell ill and as a result lost my job. Within three months, my wife also became unable to work (which we had seen coming due to injuries when she was younger and been trying to prepare for). We now had zero income and were living out of savings while we scrambled from doctors appointments to social service appointments trying to determine what could be done.

Two of my students showed up out of the blue to check on me. I was thrilled that they thought so much of their old teacher that they would do that.

And, they volunteered to help out taking us to whatever Doctor appointments and whatever we needed to do. Doesn't that sound just fantastic? Maybe even a little too good to be true? You're smarter than I am if it does because I was completely fooled.

Nine months later, I looked up and realized they were in our pocket for $25,000 dollars.

1) Rather than continue to pay taxes and insurance on a car neither of us was able to drive any more, I decided to sell it to them for the cost of transfer of title. Effectively, giving it to them.

2) I detailed two of the five computers we had for their use when they were visiting. (Somehow when the female lost her temper with the wife, those computers became theirs and walked out the front door with them the last time, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

3) Not to be ugly, but these were BIG people. Quite literally, they would put away the same amount of food and drink in one sitting that would have lasted my wife and I for 3 days. And nothing in the house suited them. Nope, we had to go out and pick up drive though from someplace.

4) And then, oddly, the gas light would somehow always come on during that trip to get food. And of course they didn't have any money to either put gas in the tank OR pay for the food.

5) They came over almost every single day and stayed for 8 hours. Yet, somehow they were only around exactly three times that one or the other of us had an appointment. And strangely enough, they needed help with a phone that had been cut off or something else when that happened.

The final straw for me was when they took the computers and a couple of other things that I oddly seemed to remember paying for and putting them in the car, which I oddly had to pay the cost to transfer the title of, and driving off.

They appeared exactly twice more after that and I could just sense that they were working their way up to money. I told them in no uncertain terms that this bank was closed. Period.

No money for gas or anything else. And if they were hungry we had a can of soup and some crackers they could have.

And no, I wasn't going anywhere with them.

And no, I didn't have anyplace I needed them to take me either. (Cab ride = $10. Paying for their food when they went through the drive through on the way home = $50.)

I am abso-fucking-lutely ecstatic to say that they took the hint and moved on to someone else to fleece and I have not seen, heard or smelled them since.

Friends DO help friends out when they can. A REAL friend will understand when a friend can't and continue to be friends anyway. Not to put too fine a point on it, tell him you didn't take him to raise as a child and watch what happens. If he disappears, then he never was your FRIEND.

 

[Neonurotic]

Let Ray and Pete be BFF's and go do your own thing--literally, don't be so available.

 

[Tsotha]

Friendship is one of those things for which everyone has a different definition... But let's see.

To me, a friend is like an ally. If you are climbing a wall, and your friend has managed to climb up before you, he will give you a hand getting up rather than just watching or pushing you off.

What "Ray" is doing is much like asking you to push him up the wall before you climb. It is a sacrifice, and if I understand correctly, without any up front agreement for how long it will last (which is bad).

Friends give when they can, and you can ask a friend to go out of his way to help you. Asking doesn't hurt, and there is no obligation to accept. And sometimes a friend will make a sacrifice, willingly, though it's for them to decide when/whether to do it. But your friend is *demanding* a sacrifice from you, and to make it worse, he seems to make little of your efforts ("you can pay for fuel").

You should have a talk with this "friend", either to set some boundaries or to negotiate this free taxi deal you have going. If he is going to ask a favor, he needs to define it, define for how long he will need it. And he needs to stop making fun of your good nature. As lovecraft68 said, he is acting like a psychic vampire.

 

[jomar]

His scooter?

 

[Saiyaman]

His scooter?

Not one of these...
http://techniekm1.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/step.jpg

One of THESE
http://zeeland.blog.nl/files/2014/01/scooter-zwart-blog.jpg

 

[LadyCypris]

It kinda sounds like you guys just need to have a real talk. I might be wrong but it doesn't sound as though he's aware he's being such a burden to you.

Work something out with him - enlist his help with a few chores like MSTarot suggested, or at the very least ask him to chip in a little with the gas money. I don't think that's unreasonable, given that you sound like you're somewhat strapped for cash yourself. Just maybe wait a few weeks before bringing it up if you still value his friendship - you don't want to be the arsehole extorting his best friend the week his grandma died. (Not saying that's the case, just that's how he'll remember it.)