Never Lend to a Friend: Difference between revisions

It's coming up to rent day and [[Alice and Bob|Alice]] is a little short. Bob, on the other hand, has money to spare, and casually offers to lend her the cash - after all, what's a few quid [[The Power of Friendship|between friends]]? No need for collateral or payment deadlines, [[The Power of Trust]] will prevail!

 

* Alice is slow to pay the money back. Bob starts off understanding, but gets more and more annoyed the longer it goes on and the more his own financial pressures build up.

** Bob assumes this will happen and starts pestering Alice for the money unreasonably - she's already paid it out, and can't return it yet, and her good friend has suddenly transmogrified into the [[All Devouring Black Hole Loan Sharks|All Devouring Black Hole Loan Shark]]!

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* In [[George Eliot]]'s ''[[Middlemarch]]'', Fred Vincy casually persuades Mr. Garth to underwrite a debt, assuming that he will easily pay it back from an expected inheritance. When this [[Passed Over Inheritance|doesn't work out as expected]], he tries to scrape up the money owed but comes short, forcing the Garths to give up their life's savings which were earmarked to fund their children's apprenticeship. Fred is guilt-torn, but later, when Mr. Garth's fortunes improve, it's he who gives Fred the means to redeem himself and repay the money.

* In one of [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''Sylvie and Bruno'' books, the Professor tries to explain the meaning of the word 'convenient' with a poem about two men, Peter and Paul, which begins with one deciding as a gesture of friendship to lend the other fifty pounds. Said poem takes this trope to its extreme, as the lender does not find it "convenient" to provide the money until well after the date in which the lendee is forced to ''pay it back''... and after the lendee is reduced to homelessness... and while the lender still hasn't found it convenient to lend the original money at the end of the poem, he has decided in his magnaminosity to lend fifty ''more'' pounds! Which the lendee rejects, exclaiming that "it would not be convenient!"

* ''[[Everybody Loves Raymond]]:'' Ray & Debra lend Robert money after visiting his run-down bachelor pad, but Ray gets upset when Robert goes to Las Vegas.

* ''[[Frasier]]'': Frasier lends Roz some money to help her through single motherhood, but calls her spending into question when he sees luxury items in her shopping bag. Turns out they were all justified expenses (a gift from her mother, a store credit for a return, etc.) apart from one (a bottle of perfume) which she got to treat herself.

* On ''[[Cheers]]'', Diane borrows $500 from Sam to buy a first-edition Hemingway. Sam says he's not going to expect her to pay it back, but then Carla eggs him on by pointing out Diane's expensive clothes, lunches, etc. Finally Diane gives Sam the book as collateral; [[Broken Treasure|he drops it in the bathtub while reading it]]. A buyer offers Diane $1200 for the book, and Sam is forced to outbid him.

** Another ''[[Cheers]]'' example: Norm suddenly comes into money and Sam starts harping on him about his bar tab. When Norm buys a boat with the money, Sam loses it and starts yelling at Norm. Norm reveals that the boat is for Sam for being such a good and patient friend.