...M'kay.
Posted on 07/29/2012 5:51:06 PM PDT by Lazamataz
I encourage people to define the roles they play and expect others to play in life, and that each person have only one role.
Sometimes this is obvious: a man’s daughter, for instance, should not also be his lover; the trash man should not be consulted for legal advice; a doctor should not loan money to his patient. In each such case, there are obviously better options to fill those roles.
Trouble enters especially in some of life’s more poorly defined roles. Our anything-goes society these days has deemed it uptight to define roles clearly, but with great damage to many people. The role of “friend,” and roles within a family, have become so murky as to lose all meaning. People get upset when a “friend” - a role well defined by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, IMO - will not also act as a chauffeur, or a banker, or a liquor store for them. Grown offspring believe they are entitled to have their parents act as free, on-demand babysitters, benefactors, landlords, friends, bail bondsmen, etc, etc, etc.
Show me someone with poorly defined relationship roles, and I’ll show you a great deal of unnecessary unhappiness.
It’s like lending money my dad told me. don’t expect to get it back. Only a member of my family has returned a small portion of what they owe. The rest suddenly got lost.
The last few years have made me way more skeptable and ‘sucks to be you.’ And for no particular reason. Maybe just getting old and cranky.
A harrowing experience and good advice.
Damn, what a harrowing experience. I’m glad you realized that you had to think like a junkie to con the guy into returning the car, and that you were successful in doing so.
When I left ‘the life’ (a long, long time ago), I got myself far outside my former circle of fellow screw ups. I was very young, but I knew that if I had any contact with them, that I’d wind up reverting, or coming to grief in some way.
Over the years, I eventually befriended people who were battling substance addiction and other self-destructive habits, but I never trusted them as far as I could throw them. I never loaned them money, cars, house keys, or anything like that. I never let them maneuver me into any position where they could take advantage of me, because I know what rules them.
It’s a policy that I keep to this very day.
You were very smart to lure him with the cash. Read many thrillers? You think like a thriller writer. And for whatever other reasons there may be . . . you have been rescued! So glad.
You were clever and courageous in remedying your mistake — and in sharing the experience.
If you loan someone $20 and never see them again, it was probably worth it. That’s an old saying I saw somewhere.
Got burned by a co-worker for $100. He had just done me a favor, so I loaned him the money. Made excuses for the next two months till he was fired for attendance.
I never in a million years, would have guessed she’d sell out our friendship over a hundred bucks, but she did.
A hundred dollars buys something like three or four sacks of groceries today, so a little perspective might be a good thing here.
You might be amazed at how liberating it is to simply shift your consideration of that loan in your own mind, and decide that it was a gift to a friend in dire need. Just turn it around completely and let the ill will go.
You might also get a friend back if you communicate that to her. Who knows...one day, she may be the one person who moves heaven and earth to help you.
I can definitely understand that.
My kids are bashful about asking to borrow my car. An old junkie acquaintance..? Uh.. no. Not in a million years.
Just my girlfriend. hehehe
I sensed that. Either that, or my money, car, and probably my cell phone would be gone.
That's what stunned me too.
Wow, Laz.
Glad everything turned out ok for you.
Actually, it was the cop who informed me of my legal jeopardy. I retained my attorney, and he agreed I was in serious jeopardy. Check out the statute, it specifically mentions rental property: GA 16-8-4
...M'kay.
It was NOT the money, nor does it matter how much or little 100 dollars will buy.
The fact that she snubbed me, refuse to return my calls and simply did not say to me “I am sorry, I can’t pay you back.”
That I would understand.
Treating me like dirt, I cannot.
I let it go long ago.
It was simply brought up as a lesson in money lending.
Like you, I never made any effort to recover the money, but I was stunned that apparently that meant more to my so called friends than my friendship.
Vee’s too soon olde, und too late schmart!
;0)
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