Friends are the choices that shape your life. The wrong crowd robs you of time, energy, money, and even your sense of self.
I could list a dozen good traits in a friend: kind, loyal, considerate, respectful. But there’s one deal-breaker: stinginess. Not just with money, but with words. The type who can’t give a compliment without a barb and peppers every conversation with snark. Being around them is like someone giving you multiple micro paper cuts that you’re told not to make a fuss about, until you realise you’re bleeding.
It starts in the schoolyard. First, a sip of your iced chocolate. Then your whole lunch. They take and take, subtle at first, then relentless. That’s not a friend; it’s a leech. Rip it off, let it sting, and keep walking. The skin will heal, I promise, but the mind remembers. The scars aren’t on your hands, they’re on your heart.
Left unchecked, the pattern follows you into adulthood and leaves you open to exploitation. Better an empty table than a bottomless cup. It felt like being nicked a thousand times, but I grew numb until the piggy bank shattered. When you’re young, she pockets your pearl necklace, swaps it for a plastic bracelet, and calls it a fair deal. When you’re older, she trades you lemonade scones for your king crab.
I finally cut off the spongers. A great 21st-century philosopher said it best in one of her many nuggets of wisdom: “Never be so kind you forget to be clever,” Taylor Swift writes in Marjorie.
Here’s what I’d tell my teenage self: you’re not stuck. You can leave. Real friends make you feel safe, seen, loved. Don’t let anyone treat your goodwill like an open bar tab. The worst kind of person is tight-fisted with theirs and greedy with yours. You don’t owe anyone for your good fortune. You never have to feel guilty about it, and anything you choose to share is a gift, not an obligation.
In the end, money wasn’t the knife. Three decades of cheap shots bled me dry and killed the friendship.