The Cheap Friend: When $5 Ruins Friendship

Do you have a cheap friend? Are you a cheap friend? I don't think I'm a cheap friend. Most of my adult life, I have taken risks. I've left corporate life, gone back to school and then more school, and then I became a stand-up comedian and done various things in the entertainment industry. 

So I guess, compared to many of my long-time friends, I’m the friend/person who hasn't had the most money. Does it mean that I've also been the least successful? Maybe, but I'm very happy. Am I? Moving on... lol

Regardless, he one thing you cannot say about me is that I am a cheap friend. I am not the cheap friend. I'm hoping this episode will resonate with you. It's a story about a cheap friend my husband and I had a few years ago, before we had a kid.

The Pre-Screening Meal

This story happened when my husband and I were living together, and one of my husband's friend groups had a friend who had recently moved from Vancouver. As a relatively new couple who enjoyed meeting others and welcomed newcomers to the city, we opened ourselves up to a third person. For one night, we invited a guy we'll call "Ray" to the movies with us.

Going to the movies with someone else is quite intimate. My husband and I now go to the movies with either just us or our child. There is no in-between. The other extension of the moving going spectrum is to go with many friends and their kids.

Anyway, the movie we went to see with Ray was "Baby Driver," which I really thought was a great film, especially the music scene and the headphones. Admittedly, I never saw it a second time (it's the kind of movie where once is enough). 

Before the movie, we were going to have dinner at our place first. So, we invited him over to have dinner, and we prepared nice high-end burgers, along with homemade fries. It was not a cheap dinner, and by that, I mean in terms of cost, effort, and thought.  

For context, whenever I make burgers or any barbecue, there are lots of condiments. I'm a condiment person. I want mayo, ketchup, mustard, onions, tomato, and lettuce. We had multiple kinds of cheese, too. I'm just naming condiments and toppings now, but you know what I mean. I’ll even sauté an onion if my guest wants it that way! 

Spare Change, Anyone?

When Ray came over for dinner, he arrived empty-handed. As someone who has attended various social settings, I'm always a little taken aback when someone doesn’t bring something. It's not because I'm greedy, but because it's a part of my social conventions, unless it’s very close family or friends. Also, I had just landed from a 16-hour flight, so I understood if someone was tired, but typically, I think people still bring something. 

This situation made me wonder if gender, culture, or a combination of both influences our social behaviours. 

So, by the time Ray arrived at our place, we were still making dinner. I realized we didn’t have any drinks, and it would be nice to have a cider or a beer since it was a barbecue meal. I asked Ray if he could go to the liquor store nearby. He stood there and said, "Oh, I don’t have any money," which I found odd since credit cards and debit cards exist. 

My husband and I were a little taken aback, but I handed him $5, thinking it was a reasonable gesture. I think I intentionally gave him $5 instead of $10, knowing it was roughly half the cost of a six-pack of beer. I'm not sure how much beer costs anymore, but I gave enough to cover something simple. It wasn’t like we were asking for expensive wine or champagne. 

Instead of solving the problem with a better suggestion, he stood there, looking at the $5 as if it were a piece of garbage or dog crap. He said, “Oh, I don’t think this is enough.” This guy, this little guy (I’m not gonna lie, he was a little guy), just stood there with an attitude that left us both baffled.

Dinner Conversations and Revelations

We thought he was a pretty cool guy up until that point. He worked in a cool, creative tech job, had ear piercings, and rode a motorcycle. My husband said he resembles the character "Rufio," who we think is cool in the movie "Hook." If you haven't seen it, it's a very dated iteration of Peter Pan. 

Anyway, Ray went to the liquor store and came back with maybe four cans of beer, and I don't even remember getting change because I had gone to my piggy bank. I broke open my piggy bank to give him a bunch of toonies, which are $2 coins. I had to act like a child and go over and open my piggy bank to give him more money to fund getting drinks for this dinner that I was now fully hosting and subsidizing, which, again, I don't mind. 

Now, we're having dinner, and we’re chatting. Some of that conversation included what he was up to. One of the things on his mind was that he had just spent thousands of dollars to repair his motorcycle. So that would explain his financial situation partially. And I get it, we all go through hard times, or some of us have different states of mind. 

Anyway, this fucking guy was not poor, okay? He didn't want to go out of his way to get drinks for the people who had invited him over and were serving him a very nice dinner. But I'm surprised he came empty-handed. I'm also surprised he didn’t go the extra mile and buy a couple of beers for us.

A Not-So Cheap Nachos Cheese Combo

We got to the movie theatre, and he bought himself a combo. Despite having no money for beer earlier, he bought himself an $18 combo of nachos with cheese and a giant drink, which cost extra money. He sat there, eating these nachos and his giant drink. And then, when he was almost finished, as in when the cheese went cold, which is such a metaphor, he offered me some of his food, his literal garbage. 

And guess what? I took it. I took it because I love nachos and I love cheese, although I wish I had brought my own little heater. I was eating his leftovers, his garbage. Part of me just ate as many chips as I could because I was ruminating, "You fucking cheapo. I'm going to get my value back from you for this."

The movie eventually ended, and I debriefed with my husband. He remembered another situation where Ray was the cheap friend in the group.

A few years before, my husband and his friends, including Ray, went out for drinks, where they each paid for a round of shots for each other. Maybe four rounds deep, eventually, someone asked, "Is it time for more shots?" This guy, Ray, said to the group, "Nah, I don't want to drink anymore. I'm good," conveniently when it was his turn to buy the next round. That is just cheap.

What would I do? I suspect a lot of decent people, myself included, would do it at that point. When other people have bought you three shots, the decent, not weird thing to do is to say, "You know what, I'm not really feeling this last round of drinks, but let me get you guys a round." Honestly, that is the better thing to do. Even if you're buying one less shot, you are still not showing the rest of the world how cheap and stingy you are. 

Principles of Being a Good Friend

Now, readers, we are no longer friends, not necessarily because of that incident, but because different people go different ways, and also, he's just cheap. I honestly think it was subliminal or subconscious, because I have a tough time with people who are cheap and stingy–that's how we feel about this person. It's not that you have to be overly generous or spend a lot of money, but I think when there’s friendship, there has to be reciprocity. 

I've struggled since childhood with survival mode and things like that, but I think I go the other way, and I'm very generous. Then maybe I'm like, "Oh, fuck, I didn't have that money," which I don't do that as much anymore, and it especially doesn't happen when you have a child to pay for. 

Here's a story I shared earlier about my childhood and my eldest daughter rage.

It's okay if you have no money. I can pay for lunch four times in a row if you're hurting or something bad has happened, or if you make a lot less money, or whatever. Maybe we can make other plans. Except Ray was somebody who had money, but chose to spend it elsewhere, without reciprocating.

Situations When Being "Cheap" Is Okay

We all know people who have been cheap friends, and maybe sometimes they didn't realize it because it was a difficult time. I give a pass in many circumstances, like when I was just out of school. My friends and I used to go clubbing, and we would pre-drink, not only to save money before we went out, but as an excuse to meet up, get ready, and have fun together. 

There was this one friend who would come over with just enough drinks for herself. And again, I forgave this. I want to tell you in advance that I forgave this because we were just out of school and saving up for things like life. At the time, she would bring only enough drinks for herself, like three loose Mike's Hard Lemonade. 

I remember this friend came over once and stayed the night, and I made breakfast the next morning. As she was leaving our sleepover, she grabbed her one leftover Mike's Hard Lemonade bottle and went home with it. But again, when you’re first out there and new, those might be the conventions you're used to, and it's no big deal. If I had done that at her house, she wouldn't have minded. That's just somebody else's normal, and that's okay, too. 

I still have one friend who's doing very well professionally and financially, and I have some friends with whom we go back and forth. I'll buy you lunch, and then you buy me lunch another time. We'll go to a show, and you'll buy drinks this time because I went to the trouble of getting tickets, so you let it go. 

I have a friend who doesn't really let it go. For instance, if they buy something small for my child, when she's with her, I'll say, "Oh, can I pay you back?" And she'll never say, "Oh, don't worry about it." She'll say, "You can get me next time." As in, I can buy her drinks next time, which is fine, because some of us mean "don't worry about it," but maybe we mean it internally, "Oh no, like, I'm tracking it in my head, and next time it will even out." 

You can get it next time, which I think is what's normal, a convention, but what she's doing is a little bit more honest, and I also forgive that. I can see where that comes from, because this is someone who grew up in a fucking war, so it's okay if she doesn't throw money around and leave loose ends when it comes to paying back. It's fine. I might start doing that.

See You Never, Ray

Back to this fucking Ray guy. We are not friends with them anymore. It's because we made a conscious decision. It's just that it's hard to be fucking friends with someone that you don't respect anymore because they're fucking cheap. They spend money on themselves and don't even know how stupid it looks to talk about the thousands of dollars that you spent, or you buy yourself a very expensive snack at the movies when your friends have just made you dinner. That is not friendship. I don't think so.

I hope he's well, as we always say, but don't mean it. I'm sure he's fine with his new life and new friends, his cheap little friends, and all of his savings.