There is a lot I can say about this “friend” who has done questionable things. But of all the “misunderstandings” this one takes the cake. Let’s call my “friend” Angel (since he believes he was my guardian angel).

In August I got fired (long story. Not really my fault). So I left town for September, October, half of November, all of December. In this time I left town and tried to move to San Francisco (unsuccessfully 😭). Around October I realized it wasn’t gonna happen and bounced around between PNW and Colorado. Keep in mind I’m in the same city as my ex-friend for a total of 2 weeks in November. Then I went home for the holidays. I start working again in Seattle 1/2/2025. I got my first check three weeks later. Then it was my birthday first week of February. I also made it my New Year’s resolution to visit a place I’d always dreamed of visiting since I was 10, Myanmar. So I hopped online found Pay Later Travel and set up a payment plan (this is about to come up - ALSO, great service BTW!).

So mind you most of my first couple checks are paying my parents back, deposit, rent and airbnbs till I secured a reasonable apartment. Paying off bills that racked up. Including paying back Angel.

So I definitely racked up a bill with Angel and he was happy to pay to allow us to have fun while out. I told him I would pay him back. The way I remember the conversation going is that I would pay him back in the same manner that he gave to me. We would go out and I would just pay for stuff and fork over some cash here and there just like he did for me.

Fast forward and he comes at me the first time about needing to pay him back and I said I literally did pay him back. For Valentine’s Day I definitely paid for everything. That night alone was at least $400 spent. So that’s $200 toward the bill of about $400-$600 (depends on the day). Then I sent him a couple other payments like $70 here and $60 there. Went out and paid for everything during another outing. So then we get to St. Patrick’s Day. At no point did I ever tell Angel that I was done paying him back. But to say I hadn’t made any progress towards paying him back was insane to me. That day I showed up with car bombs. Paid or tab at three different bars. Paid him $70 since he got us a sweet industry discount. And paid my half at the restaurant. Then we were on the light rail and he starts talking about how I haven’t paid him. And also that I think a meal and a couple dollars here and there are gonna be enough then I’ve got another thing coming. I thought he was just drunk but nope.

I texted him about it later just explaining that I think he’s frustrated because of the money he paid for an emergency family situation and maybe that was triggering all of this. Nope. He doubled down on what he said and told me that I lost my “last friend”.

At this point I decided I’m cool never speaking to him again. But I did want to get other perspectives because I spoke to my friends and they’re all on my side. Basically it’s not like I came up to him and said “Can you help me with $600 right now?” It was cumulative and maybe the repayment agreement wasn’t clear. And neither of us has a clear idea of what is owed to him. I just know that this year he’s received $380 from me plus food and drink.

So now I’m asking, AITAH? I did feel a gap between us when I returned simply because I don’t want to live the same lifestyle as him anymore. But there were better ways for us to take space than this.