Family is fate. Friends are the choice that shapes your life. The wrong crowd robs you of time, energy, money, even your sense of self. I could list a dozen good traits in a friend: kindness, loyalty, humour, respect. 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.
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.
It felt like being nicked a thousand times, but I stayed blind to their stinginess until the piggy bank shattered. When you’re young, they pocket your pearl necklace, hand you a plastic bracelet, and call it a fair deal. When you’re older, they bake you lemonade scones in exchange for your king crab. You gift your baby things, only to have them quietly flip them for profit. That’s when you learn some people aren’t thrifty; they’re extractive.
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.
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.
Ultimately, it was the cheap shots over three decades that bled me dry. It was never about the money; it was about the disrespect.