YOU CHOOSE: Your friends… or your financial security?
Can't buy yourself friends, oh no.
It is sad that our attitudes to moolah should change so much between childhood and adulthood. For some of us, the few things that money cannot buy aren’t worth having anyway. At least Jessie thinks so, and when she had had enough of a couple of her friends freeloading off her, she told them in no unsimple terms to take a hike.
“Of course, they started accusing me of being a lousy friend,” says Jessie, 24. “They said I was selfish. Can you believe that? After all those buffet lunches and Starbucks treats!”
Some of you may be jumping at her injustice right now, agreeing with Jessie’s friends: if she’s keeping count of those treats, then she isn’t sincere anyway. But Jessie argues that she didn’t really care about the money. Rather, she was upset at the way they did it: they would ask her out, and expect her to pay. Jessie didn’t mind at first — their boldness was endearing. But then, when she had to turn them down on a couple of occasions because of other appointments, they accused her of being tight-fisted. And that’s what really ticked her off.
“I think that that was when I realised that I was a friend of convenience,” Jessie says. “As long as I could treat them, I could be their friend. Otherwise, our friendship meant nothing.”
Loading ...Such ‘useful’ alliances are not uncommon, especially in the city. People are always befriending other folk because they think they might get something out of it — a useful career contact, maybe. Help with the authorities. Business opportunities. No one can honestly say that they are not guilty of at least trying to get close to someone for their advantage at some point in their life. But if both parties know what the score is, then no one gets hurt. It’s when one party believes that she really has a true-blue friendship going that things can go sour.
Michael Wano, author of Refill for Life
“The Beatles once sang, ‘Money Can’t Buy Me Love,’ and how right they were,” says Mr Wano. “If your friends are freeloading, they may also short-change the love and care you deserve. And you should never short-change yourself.”
Bill Cottringer, author of You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, agrees, but thinks there is a little more to it: “People generally don’t like to talk about money matters, especially when they need to most,” he says. “You should approach this uncomfortable issue directly and assertively, sharing your values and inability to finance someone else, as you may be having a difficult enough time taking care of yourself!”
Can’t buy you friends, either
Money and friends.
But what if the friendship is sincere, but the circumstances too demanding? Although friendships between two people of vastly different income brackets are rare, they do exist. Carol was best-friends with the wealthiest girl in her form throughout school. But when they started going to college, things got difficult. Zafina dined at posh lunch venues. Her make-up was Mac, and her shoes were Manolo’s. She could afford shopping every other day, and never went home without buying at least one new blouse.
Carol tried as best she could to keep with Zafina’s spending habits, but she soon found herself reduced to Chinese takeouts three times a day just one week after she got her monthly allowance. Every second week, she was forced to call her poor dad to ask him for more money. She is embarrassed to admit it, but she thinks that it was only then, at nineteen, when she really learned the value of money.
“Zafina was disappointed when I started having to turn down her extravagant proposals towards the middle of every month,” recalls Carol. “She went shopping with other rich girls, and I remember feeling very hurt about that. But she never ditched me.”
It turns out that their friendship was stronger than that. Although Carol did accept Zafina’s treats occasionally, she refrained from becoming the freeloader that Jessie’s friends were, and paid her back in kind whenever she could. Zafina soon learned to appreciate cheap breakfasts, found that she could do without a new blouse every week. All in all, she discovered the joys of the simpler things in life… all thanks to Carol.
“If your friends cannot see and enjoy the beauty of little things, all of the wealth in the world will still leave them empty,” says Mr Wano. “Memories are not material. When we think about the joyous times in our lives, more often than not, they are about the people we were with rather than where we were or what we were doing. Friendship is paid for with caring and love. Not money.”
A girl’s best friend
Carol says that there is no price on the friendship she shares with Zafina. It is one that has weathered many complications like this, precisely because they come from such different backgrounds. She is smart enough to recognise that whereas any most rich kids would have dumped her in favour of someone more their equal (financially, that is), Zafina didn’t. And there is no way you can put a price on that kind of loyalty.
“There will probably be more tests of our friendship in the future,” says Carol hesitantly. “But I hope we’ve passed the worst, and I’m very glad that she’s stuck by me.”
Not all stories like Carol’s end so happily, of course. In fact, if we put our minds to it, we can probably all remember being subtly rejected by someone who thought we’d never be able to live the life they do. Dealing with this rejection is especially hard when you know that it’s not really your fault you were not born wealthy — it makes it seem all the more unfair. But, putting things into perspective, those rich kids didn’t ask to be born wealthy, either.
In an ideal world, being a girl’s best-friend should have nothing to do with money. But history, culture and society combine to make us aware of the obvious cost of poor friendships, blinding us to their hidden value.
Michelle Casto
“Friends are good for you,” writes Michelle Casto, a WholeLife Coach and author of the GetSmart! (www.getsmartseries.com) series of books. “They make you laugh, give you hope and encouragement, and lighten the load of your life.”
Admittedly, some friendships are probably not worth a cent. But they still cost nothing to foster, making them one of the best things life has to offer.
“Friendship is free for the creating,” continues Ms Casto. “All you have to do to get a friend is to be one. And that special bond of friendship makes for a wonderful life.”
