New Tales of Mooching Parasites

[TheGrimSqueaker]

It's been a long time since we've had a new Shame and Comedy thread, and I've noticed that some of our best ongoing discussions (or rants) have been about parasitic people. Sometimes they're relatives. Other times they're friends, neighbors, co-workers, or roommates. Madame Bovary, Dotty La Twat, Jack the Deer Tick, and others have entertained us in various forums, and a few have their own threads.

Surely someone has an account of a moocher whose outsized expectations led to egregious behavior, and could stand to vent a bit.

[JAYSLOL]

My boundaries go up pretty quickly at the slightest sign of mooching behaviour. I do actually try to be generous with my time and money, but when there’s a slight hint of entitlement, Im on the alert and ready to back away. Also, my close family just doesn’t have those traits, so it’s easier to nip things in the bud when it’s friends and colleagues rather than family. So I don’t really have any insane stories because I don’t let anything get very far, but definitely following.

[Bobo629]

My boundaries go up pretty quickly at the slightest sign of mooching behaviour. I do actually try to be generous with my time and money, but when there’s a slight hint of entitlement, Im on the alert and ready to back away. Also, my close family just doesn’t have those traits, so it’s easier to nip things in the bud when it’s friends and colleagues rather than family. So I don’t really have any insane stories because I don’t let anything get very far, but definitely following.

I live in CA but a friend from college days, who also qualifies as MegaMooch, lives in a remote village in Alaska. I've seen him once in the past 25 years when he was doing a Lower 48 tour on his own, in which we put him up at our house, fed him, paid for everything if we went out to eat or to see a moving picture and, just like at university, MegaMooch didn't offer even once to assist financially at any time for any cost. I didn't expect him to, and actually I was glad to see him for five days knowing that I'd probably not see him again. From what I gathered, his Lower 48 tour was financed by everyone that he visited. I marvel at his life and lifestyle. He drives one of two cabs in his little village, lives with a woman who has 2 children at home and in school and who works as an RN, and basically has the most carefree life of anyone I've ever known.

[G-dog]

My boundaries go up pretty quickly at the slightest sign of mooching behaviour. I do actually try to be generous with my time and money, but when there’s a slight hint of entitlement, Im on the alert and ready to back away. Also, my close family just doesn’t have those traits, so it’s easier to nip things in the bud when it’s friends and colleagues rather than family. So I don’t really have any insane stories because I don’t let anything get very far, but definitely following.

I live in CA but a friend from college days, who also qualifies as MegaMooch, lives in a remote village in Alaska. I've seen him once in the past 25 years when he was doing a Lower 48 tour on his own, in which we put him up at our house, fed him, paid for everything if we went out to eat or to see a moving picture and, just like at university, MegaMooch didn't offer even once to assist financially at any time for any cost. I didn't expect him to, and actually I was glad to see him for five days knowing that I'd probably not see him again. From what I gathered, his Lower 48 tour was financed by everyone that he visited. I marvel at his life and lifestyle. He drives one of two cabs in his little village, lives with a woman who has 2 children at home and in school and who works as an RN, and basically has the most carefree life of anyone I've ever known.

Isn’t that one of the most irritating things about a skillful mooch?  How they blithely just keep taking from people without a care, stress-free and happy.

I see so many mooches / grifters on Nextdoor - always with their hand out and a sob story.

[glacio09]

I don't have any personal experiences, but I've been fascinated by the rise of the term hobosexual. I've understood it was a thing but being able to pull together all these stories of how people are able to mooch off of partners is like watching a train wreck.

[Purple_Crayon]

I have two long-term mooches in my life. I love them both, and I've known them since childhood.

Mooch number one -- let's call him Fairweather -- has been a difficult person for mutual friends and significant others to tolerate. This is because not only is he a mooch, but he expects repayment for any niceties he performs. But I still like him. One never knows if his tendencies are rooted in what he simply sees as transactions, social obliviousness, or something else entirely. Here are a few details of his own expectations and his moochiness:

• In high school, at a time when we piled in one another's shitty cars on the way to whatever trouble we were getting into, Fairweather often found that he was riding alone. This was a result of never being willing to give anyone a ride in his car without calculating mileage and demanding repayment. This expectation was often only aired after the ride occurred.
• After graduation, he lived in my GF's parents' house for $100 per month because they felt bad for him. They said he could stay for one month. He stayed for six, and never apologized for or spoke to the one-month offer.
• In our early twenties, Fairweather asked me if he could "take me to a concert for my birthday." I said sure. We went. Afterward, he sent me what I owed him for the ticket.
• At a party a bit ago, a mutual friend mentioned she was going to Uber home. Fairweather asked where she lived. When shared, Fairweather remarked that she lived a block or two from his house and he could take her home since it's on his way. She agreed. He then started his Uber app (he himself drives), and asked her to request a ride and make sure they matched. Onlookers were blown away.
• Fairweather rented my basement for $375/month for 4 years. During this time, I was never able to use my garage because of all of his crap that he stored there, nor did he ever feel obligated to move it.
• Fairweather currently keeps a running total of what he "owes" me (it's at like $7k). This is from a semester of college I paid for, various times he asked to borrow money, and his cell phone I have paid for for the last 8 years. Last year, upon receiving a $4k tax return (and telling me about the unexpected $4k he now had), he made an unsolicited one-time repayment to me of $250.
• He went with a group of four of us to Ireland in 2019. He expected people to pay for every one of his meals, and never offered once otherwise. He has been banned from traveling by a lot of our mutual friends.
• When he lost his job a few years ago, he came over to my house, and shared all of his finances with me. He asked what he should do. I told him to downsize/sell his car, downsize his apartment, get a second job, etc., all of which he said he was unwilling to do. I then told him that I love him, and that I could once again make all of his problems go away, but that I specifically couldn't because I love him, and that he simply was going to have to dig himself out if he's ever going to learn. I'd be there to support him throughout, but I couldn't throw money at it this time.

Mooch number two is PunkRocker. I've known him since I was ten years old. Here are a few things about him.

• PunkRocker only hangs out when there is an incentive. Unless lunch is offered, he never leaves his house. He has never paid for a lunch of mine (in 30 years).
• When PunkRocker and I went to Europe for a month when we were 20, eight days into the trip, he let me know he had already spent his entire budget, and that he couldn't contribute to hotels, gas, etc. for the rest of the month-long stay.
• When PunkRocker got his first car, I questioned how he was able to get approved for a loan. He showed me the terms the dealership gave him. 27% interest -- a rate I had never dreamed someone would accept. I co-signed on a replacement loan, dropping it to 7%. I got called four separate times about late payments, and when he got married, his wife suggested they should start fresh by both declaring bankruptcy as they entered their union. When he mentioned I was co-signed, she said "You're married to me, not him."
• When our band recorded an album, he let us know he couldn't contribute to any recording costs. So the other three of us paid. He then went to the studio without us on an off day to record a few songs "just for his GF" and put it on our tab.
• PunkRocker asked me to sign things that I knew to be untrue to get welfare money. I told him not only would I not sign, but that if I found out he got money, I'd turn him in.
• PunkRocker got in a rollover accident. I watched him struggle to find his lost neck brace every time he had to go to a meeting to continue his disability payments. He used the money to buy a van, some tattoos, and a shit ton of weed.
• PunkRocker used student loans to buy multiple guitars, lots of nights at the bar, a leather jacket, and a car. He never graduated. The loans were forgiven.

Again -- I love both of these people as humans and long-term friends. But they also make no sense to me and I want to shake the shit out of them constantly.

[SunnyDays]

^^^^^
You say you love these people.  What do you love about them?  Certainly not their honesty, fairness or integrity.  What magic do they possess?

As I like to remind people, there’s a difference between personality and character.

[Dave1442397]

^^^^^
You say you love these people.  What do you love about them?  Certainly not their honesty, fairness or integrity.  What magic do they possess?

As I like to remind people, there’s a difference between personality and character.

No kidding. People like that might get over on me once if I don't know them well, but they're one and done.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

^^^^^
You say you love these people.  What do you love about them?  Certainly not their honesty, fairness or integrity.  What magic do they possess?

As I like to remind people, there’s a difference between personality and character.

I've had some one-way street experiences. I find that the people who like to take advantage of others really know how to sing for their supper: they're extroverted, charming, interesting, accomplished in some way, and usually very talented in some way. Also, they have a good tragic back story that makes people excuse how badly they treat others. They also have an almost preternatural ability to detect when it's time to do the minimum necessary to maintain the relationship. They aren't consistent one-way streets: they will help you in your time of extreme need, and coast on your gratitude for months or years afterward.

[JGS1980]

PTF

[Purple_Crayon]

^^^^^
You say you love these people.  What do you love about them?  Certainly not their honesty, fairness or integrity.  What magic do they possess?

As I like to remind people, there’s a difference between personality and character.

I definitely cannot blame anyone for this reaction. It's the one my DW has always had toward them. She met them both in their mid-to-late twenties.

I've known PunkRocker since I was ten. He was my closest friend for the ten years afterward. We played in bands together for 14 years. We spent countless hours writing music together, reading one another's fiction (we were aspiring novelists), talking philosophically about many subjects. But yes, he is entitled, guiltless, and shitty with money and resources.

I've known Fairweather since I was 14. I was thrown out of my parents' house at 16, and was roommates with Fairweather on and off for 8 years. He got me a job at a warehouse he worked at when I was still essentially homeless. Again, I've spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours, in conversations with him about every topic one could imagine. But again, yes, he is entitled, guiltless, and shitty with money and resources.

DW has brought up many times that, just because I was friends with them when we were kids doesn't mean we have anything in common as adults. This is true. But I also have told her that I'm never put out by them on the rare occasions I still see them. Sure, I never see PunkRocker if I don't pay for his meal -- but I still like seeing that he's doing okay. I try in both of these friendships to be enabling as little as I can, but if one argued I was still enabling to a degree, they may have a point.

I definitely think their behavior is baffling, or else I wouldn't have shared. Your (and my DW's) reactions are totally warranted in being raised. I've attempted to mentor them at points in our lives. I guess I just have a very low expectation of most humans when it comes to money, resources, and what they will do to ease their own discomfort, especially when feeling desperate or when feeling like they got an unfair shake (or that the game is rigged against their type). I personally feel that 99% of people are terrible with money, resources, instant gratification, discomfort, etc., and if a person only permitted those into their life that are good at navigating all of those things, their pool of potential friends would be, like, a dozen people (exaggerating for effect).

Their behavior is ridiculous though -- I still can't understand it, and when egregious, I still can't help but to tell them how much it amounts to bullshit. But yeah, I admit I still hope they're healthy and happy, even if they are entitled and shitty.

[G-dog]

These aren’t friends, these are dependents.  If you don’t see them unless they want something or they are paying, they view you as an ATM, not a friend.

What would you tell your kid if you saw they had “friends” like this?  Being kicked out of your house when you were 16 yo suggests you had a tough childhood.  You might have a trauma bond with these two.

It sounds like you’ve become stable and successful despite your rough start, but I do think you are giving these guys credit for having more humanity than they possess.  Users are extremely adept at identifying their marks.  That initial “help” (money or just a listening ear’) is their way of creating a lifelong sense of indebtedness in you.

Maybe we define friend differently, and that’s fine.  You are an adult and get to make your own choices, but if your wife feels you are giving these two knuckleheads money to the detriment of your own family, you should listen. 

[Tasse]

Sounds to me like nowadays the only thing these moochers get is occasionally treated to dinner. And that Purple_Crayon is treating them with eyes wide open about the odds of that ever being reciprocated. To me that seems like a fairly reasonable approach to occasionally catching up with people you were close to in childhood. And it also sounds like those boundaries were hard-won through some lending mistakes.

[six-car-habit]

 "Fairweather currently keeps a running total of what he "owes" me (it's at like $7k). This is from a semester of college I paid for, various times he asked to borrow money, and his cell phone I have paid for for the last 8 years. Last year, upon receiving a $4k tax return (and telling me about the unexpected $4k he now had), he made an unsolicited one-time repayment to me of $250. "

  Why are you paying for a grown man's cellphone for the past 8 years??   -   it is no surprise wife is annoyed.

[Captain FIRE]

Did he declare bankruptcy and leave you with the bill in the end??

[ATtiny85]

PTF

Thread mooch

[iluvzbeach]

^^^^^
You say you love these people.  What do you love about them?  Certainly not their honesty, fairness or integrity.  What magic do they possess?

As I like to remind people, there’s a difference between personality and character.

I've had some one-way street experiences. I find that the people who like to take advantage of others really know how to sing for their supper: they're extroverted, charming, interesting, accomplished in some way, and usually very talented in some way. Also, they have a good tragic back story that makes people excuse how badly they treat others. They also have an almost preternatural ability to detect when it's time to do the minimum necessary to maintain the relationship. They aren't consistent one-way streets: they will help you in your time of extreme need, and coast on your gratitude for months or years afterward.

Yep, my experience as well! You nailed it, TGS.

[Bobo629]

I have two long-term mooches in my life. I love them both, and I've known them since childhood.

Mooch number one -- let's call him Fairweather -- has been a difficult person for mutual friends and significant others to tolerate. This is because not only is he a mooch, but he expects repayment for any niceties he performs. But I still like him. One never knows if his tendencies are rooted in what he simply sees as transactions, social obliviousness, or something else entirely. Here are a few details of his own expectations and his moochiness:

• In high school, at a time when we piled in one another's shitty cars on the way to whatever trouble we were getting into, Fairweather often found that he was riding alone. This was a result of never being willing to give anyone a ride in his car without calculating mileage and demanding repayment. This expectation was often only aired after the ride occurred.
• After graduation, he lived in my GF's parents' house for $100 per month because they felt bad for him. They said he could stay for one month. He stayed for six, and never apologized for or spoke to the one-month offer.
• In our early twenties, Fairweather asked me if he could "take me to a concert for my birthday." I said sure. We went. Afterward, he sent me what I owed him for the ticket.
• At a party a bit ago, a mutual friend mentioned she was going to Uber home. Fairweather asked where she lived. When shared, Fairweather remarked that she lived a block or two from his house and he could take her home since it's on his way. She agreed. He then started his Uber app (he himself drives), and asked her to request a ride and make sure they matched. Onlookers were blown away.
• Fairweather rented my basement for $375/month for 4 years. During this time, I was never able to use my garage because of all of his crap that he stored there, nor did he ever feel obligated to move it.
• Fairweather currently keeps a running total of what he "owes" me (it's at like $7k). This is from a semester of college I paid for, various times he asked to borrow money, and his cell phone I have paid for for the last 8 years. Last year, upon receiving a $4k tax return (and telling me about the unexpected $4k he now had), he made an unsolicited one-time repayment to me of $250.
• He went with a group of four of us to Ireland in 2019. He expected people to pay for every one of his meals, and never offered once otherwise. He has been banned from traveling by a lot of our mutual friends.
• When he lost his job a few years ago, he came over to my house, and shared all of his finances with me. He asked what he should do. I told him to downsize/sell his car, downsize his apartment, get a second job, etc., all of which he said he was unwilling to do. I then told him that I love him, and that I could once again make all of his problems go away, but that I specifically couldn't because I love him, and that he simply was going to have to dig himself out if he's ever going to learn. I'd be there to support him throughout, but I couldn't throw money at it this time.

Mooch number two is PunkRocker. I've known him since I was ten years old. Here are a few things about him.

• PunkRocker only hangs out when there is an incentive. Unless lunch is offered, he never leaves his house. He has never paid for a lunch of mine (in 30 years).
• When PunkRocker and I went to Europe for a month when we were 20, eight days into the trip, he let me know he had already spent his entire budget, and that he couldn't contribute to hotels, gas, etc. for the rest of the month-long stay.
• When PunkRocker got his first car, I questioned how he was able to get approved for a loan. He showed me the terms the dealership gave him. 27% interest -- a rate I had never dreamed someone would accept. I co-signed on a replacement loan, dropping it to 7%. I got called four separate times about late payments, and when he got married, his wife suggested they should start fresh by both declaring bankruptcy as they entered their union. When he mentioned I was co-signed, she said "You're married to me, not him."
• When our band recorded an album, he let us know he couldn't contribute to any recording costs. So the other three of us paid. He then went to the studio without us on an off day to record a few songs "just for his GF" and put it on our tab.
• PunkRocker asked me to sign things that I knew to be untrue to get welfare money. I told him not only would I not sign, but that if I found out he got money, I'd turn him in.
• PunkRocker got in a rollover accident. I watched him struggle to find his lost neck brace every time he had to go to a meeting to continue his disability payments. He used the money to buy a van, some tattoos, and a shit ton of weed.
• PunkRocker used student loans to buy multiple guitars, lots of nights at the bar, a leather jacket, and a car. He never graduated. The loans were forgiven.

Again -- I love both of these people as humans and long-term friends. But they also make no sense to me and I want to shake the shit out of them constantly.

All this makes any moochers that I know seem like mere shadows, vapor, non-existent. I have never, ever encountered anyone like these two. Wow. Just...wow. Is this sociopathic behavior. How could there be no internal red flags after decades?

[Tasse]

Is this sociopathic behavior. How could there be no internal red flags after decades?

If people around you treat your behavior as acceptable, why would you question it? Especially when questioning it might lead you to uncomfortable places...

[Freedomin5]

Oftentimes, the people who allow mooches to mooch off them are at the same level of emotional health as the mooches themselves.

Case in point…my SIL is in her 50s and has been unemployed for decades. She has been living in her parents’ condo, which they bought for their own retirement. Her son, in his early 20s and also unemployed, lives in his grandparents’ other condo which they bought as an investment. MIL also grocery shops for them and gave them a car. And MIL feels so guilty about their situation that she has set aside a pot of money to continue generating income for them once she passes…that is, if they don’t spend it all first. Unless SIL’s brothers put the money in an account inaccessible to SIL, I’m pretty sure that money will be gone in a few years.

MIL feels like she owes it to SIL because she behaved poorly towards SIL over four decades ago when SIL was growing up. In reality, she owes nothing to SIL. She’s paid for her “sins of the past” many times over and now simply can’t set healthy boundaries.

It sounds the same with Purple Crayon, who feels like they owe it to their moocher friends because decades ago, those friends helped them out during a tough period. In reality, Purple Crayon has already repaid those friends many times over.

[dividendman]

Mooching a few hundred off of family and friends and you're a bad loser in society. Mooching billions in bailouts from the government and the CEOs are upstanding citizens to be looked up to and admired.

[iris lily]

My boundaries go up pretty quickly at the slightest sign of mooching behaviour. I do actually try to be generous with my time and money, but when there’s a slight hint of entitlement, Im on the alert and ready to back away. Also, my close family just doesn’t have those traits, so it’s easier to nip things in the bud when it’s friends and colleagues rather than family. So I don’t really have any insane stories because I don’t let anything get very far, but definitely following.

I could’ve written this. It’s been so long since I ran into a moocher. Our family members, both those from my family and DH‘s family, don’t mooch. I enjoy the stories of moochers, though, because I’m so far away from it. I suppose if I regularly had to put up boundaries, the stories might make me tired.

[Purple_Crayon]

Did he declare bankruptcy and leave you with the bill in the end??

He did not. To his credit, that was a mooch too far.

Also -- DW has no issues with any money I have ever given them. The only comments she has ever made were about time, kindness, labor, etc. She thinks I give too much in general, but has never specifically mentioned that she was bothered by the money in any way.

[Sibley]

Did he declare bankruptcy and leave you with the bill in the end??

He did not. To his credit, that was a mooch too far.

Also -- DW has no issues with any money I have ever given them. The only comments she has ever made were about time, kindness, labor, etc. She thinks I give too much in general, but has never specifically mentioned that she was bothered by the money in any way.

Have you explicitly asked her if she has a problem with the money?

[G-dog]

Did he declare bankruptcy and leave you with the bill in the end??

He did not. To his credit, that was a mooch too far.

Also -- DW has no issues with any money I have ever given them. The only comments she has ever made were about time, kindness, labor, etc. She thinks I give too much in general, but has never specifically mentioned that she was bothered by the money in any way.

In some ways I am impressed that you can still consider these two friends, I could not be that generous with my feelings or my money.  It works for you, your DW isn’t concerned about the money (but maybe concerned about your feelings?), so it works for you all.

[Purple_Crayon]

Did he declare bankruptcy and leave you with the bill in the end??

He did not. To his credit, that was a mooch too far.

Also -- DW has no issues with any money I have ever given them. The only comments she has ever made were about time, kindness, labor, etc. She thinks I give too much in general, but has never specifically mentioned that she was bothered by the money in any way.

Have you explicitly asked her if she has a problem with the money?

I have. I'm on this forum, so we definitely talk about money a lot. I assure you that doesn't bother her at all.

Oftentimes, the people who allow mooches to mooch off them are at the same level of emotional health as the mooches themselves.

Case in point…my SIL is in her 50s and has been unemployed for decades. She has been living in her parents’ condo, which they bought for their own retirement. Her son, in his early 20s and also unemployed, lives in his grandparents’ other condo which they bought as an investment. MIL also grocery shops for them and gave them a car. And MIL feels so guilty about their situation that she has set aside a pot of money to continue generating income for them once she passes…that is, if they don’t spend it all first. Unless SIL’s brothers put the money in an account inaccessible to SIL, I’m pretty sure that money will be gone in a few years.

MIL feels like she owes it to SIL because she behaved poorly towards SIL over four decades ago when SIL was growing up. In reality, she owes nothing to SIL. She’s paid for her “sins of the past” many times over and now simply can’t set healthy boundaries.

It sounds the same with Purple Crayon, who feels like they owe it to their moocher friends because decades ago, those friends helped them out during a tough period. In reality, Purple Crayon has already repaid those friends many times over.

Definitely don't feel feel obligated in any way whatsoever. The vast majority of this took place 15 to 20 years ago, or impacted mutual friends other than me. I genuinely enjoy seeing PunkRocker once a year, and the meal is a non-issue -- but I am aware of it. Most importantly, any of our money that has entered into any of this in the last decade is negligible, and has no economic impact on me or DW's situation whatsoever, nor has it ever put any pressure on my situation even when I was single. Likely why I don't feel burdened in any way, and can feel the way I feel about these two, despite their mooching ways.

My original post was to point out their moochiness -- not their impact on us personally, of which there really isn't any. It just leads to us shaking our heads in disbelief a lot.

Mostly just baffled that I know so many people like them. I tend to think it's because I grew up in such a poor area, with prevalent community drug issues (my brother is currently locked up for this), and such a high occurrence of not finishing high school. Perhaps if one grows up funded by community resources, it doesn't feel as much like mooching when they apply it to others situations?

Case in point, my dad's three older sisters make those two look like they are novices. All three got pregnant as teenagers, currently live in a row of trailers on my cousin's land (not that there's anything wrong with living in a trailer, which FairWeather did), and have given birth to 30 children between the three of them.

His oldest sister (13 kids) has had her rent and food paid for by the local church for well over ten years. The church itself even encouraged her to get (and paid for) a tubal ligation. She has never once expressed that she felt guilty about the help because "that's what it's there for -- people who need it." Next sister (10 kids) could have her own tv show. She has three sons in jail (nicknamed Toady, Buddy, and Boo), legally changes her name every time she gets into trouble, and legitimately married her (and my dad's) first cousin. I have a distinct memory as a kid of driving home from dinner at their house, listening to my mom cry because aunt #2 was complaining about having "too much lobster" when we subsisted off of what mom thought of as minimal. Apparently, the issue when you have 10 kids but no income (at least in the '80s), is that you get a LOT of money in food stamps and the like. Aunt #2 had purchased a second floor freezer and filled it with food whose excess she thought she could sell to her neighbors -- primarily lobster. She was struggling to sell her supply and was complaining to my mom about running out of freezer space. After she and her husband (cousin) divorced, he lived in a motorhome in my parents' driveway for 3 years, until mom said "enough". Aunt #3 had her first kid (and got married) at fifteen. Her husband's dad gifted them a house as a wedding present. They lived off of his dad's credit card until dad died, and quickly thereafter lost the house and moved into her current home next to her sisters.

Every time we see any of my extended family (for Christmas, for example), DW spends the whole drive home telling me she can't believe I am the way I am or asks me how I "escaped" to which I just laugh.

Where are everyone else's moochy people stories?

[charis]

This this fascinating.  I've known of some folks who have also been supported by their church while making poor decisions related to finances and staying under/un employed.  I can't understand the mindset of being okay with being dependent on others.

[blue_green_sparks]

The ex-in-law would book a one-way flight from colder climates every year. Taxi pulls up with 6 suitcases. I was the cook in the family. My kitchen got completely rearranged while I was at work. OK, fine. Oh, you are gonna do the cooking now? What's this? boiled chicken? On top of that, nothing was up to par. Like an emotional black hole entered to house. Zero tolerance for any negotiations. Just one way out of all of that.

The one time I flew north for a short Xmas visit I was handed a paint brush and a can of paint on day 2, LOL. Cousin Eddie presented a better situation for Clark W Griswald than I had going.

[dividend]

My husband and I have, over the years, taken his sister with us on multiple vacations, just because he wanted her around.  We do some CC travel hacking, so we've always gifted her a plane ticket, and she started out taking care of her own accommodations and spending money.  Over the years, she's become increasingly irresponsible financially, but has never been able to let us know ahead of time if she can't afford to come.  One year, my husband booked her hotel, but she didn't come with a credit card, and she didn't have enough in her bank account to cover the hotel hold.  So he just paid for it because otherwise they weren't going to let her stay.  But she also came with about $100 total for five days in Hawaii.  Guess who had to pay for all her meals and activities?
It's about that time that we kind of just stopped expecting to split anything when we'd go out.  She never offers, and certainly never picks up even the occasional tab.  And we don't ask her to, because she's family and he likes having her around.  I am getting tired of always paying for her, even though it doesn't materially impact our budget.
The next year, she had committed to some other friends to go on an Alaskan cruise.  To be sensitive to her budget, they booked cheaper inside rooms and allowed her to pay them back before going.  When the time came for the cruise, she didn't have the money, so they ended up paying for her cruise.
Now, she's been unemployed for almost a year.  A group of our best friends are going to a destination wedding in the Caribbean this fall.  We told her we'd pay for her plane ticket.  She can't afford to pay for the resort.  So she wants me to book it for her, and she would "just funnel me some cash for it at some point."  That's a hard no.
She is embarrassed to admit to anyone how bad her financial situation is by turning down invites she clearly cannot afford.  But she is not too embarrassed to try to get people to pay for her to be included, or let it happen when she shows up with no money.  And it's always the fun stuff, never necessary important things.  When her car died completely right after she lost her job, I offered her my car and then I would by a new-to-me car.  She refused.  My car is an 18 year old manual transmission that still runs great.  But she was too embarrassed to take "charity", so somehow she got a car loan with no job for a better vehicle.  When I found out she had no health insurance while unemployed, I offered via text message to pay for 6 months of premiums, all she had to do was research her marketplace options and sit down with me to do it.  She was too embarrassed to admit that she "couldn't handle everything on her own" so she never even responded to my offer, and continues to be uninsured.  She only texted me to ask if I would help her book the hotel for the Caribbean wedding.  I hear through the grapevine that I "make her feel bad" when we talk about this stuff.  Like, girl, you should feel bad. 

[SunnyDays]

My husband and I have, over the years, taken his sister with us on multiple vacations, just because he wanted her around.  We do some CC travel hacking, so we've always gifted her a plane ticket, and she started out taking care of her own accommodations and spending money.  Over the years, she's become increasingly irresponsible financially, but has never been able to let us know ahead of time if she can't afford to come.  One year, my husband booked her hotel, but she didn't come with a credit card, and she didn't have enough in her bank account to cover the hotel hold.  So he just paid for it because otherwise they weren't going to let her stay.  But she also came with about $100 total for five days in Hawaii.  Guess who had to pay for all her meals and activities?
It's about that time that we kind of just stopped expecting to split anything when we'd go out.  She never offers, and certainly never picks up even the occasional tab.  And we don't ask her to, because she's family and he likes having her around.  I am getting tired of always paying for her, even though it doesn't materially impact our budget.
The next year, she had committed to some other friends to go on an Alaskan cruise.  To be sensitive to her budget, they booked cheaper inside rooms and allowed her to pay them back before going.  When the time came for the cruise, she didn't have the money, so they ended up paying for her cruise.
Now, she's been unemployed for almost a year.  A group of our best friends are going to a destination wedding in the Caribbean this fall.  We told her we'd pay for her plane ticket.  She can't afford to pay for the resort.  So she wants me to book it for her, and she would "just funnel me some cash for it at some point."  That's a hard no.
She is embarrassed to admit to anyone how bad her financial situation is by turning down invites she clearly cannot afford.  But she is not too embarrassed to try to get people to pay for her to be included, or let it happen when she shows up with no money.  And it's always the fun stuff, never necessary important things.  When her car died completely right after she lost her job, I offered her my car and then I would by a new-to-me car.  She refused.  My car is an 18 year old manual transmission that still runs great.  But she was too embarrassed to take "charity", so somehow she got a car loan with no job for a better vehicle.  When I found out she had no health insurance while unemployed, I offered via text message to pay for 6 months of premiums, all she had to do was research her marketplace options and sit down with me to do it.  She was too embarrassed to admit that she "couldn't handle everything on her own" so she never even responded to my offer, and continues to be uninsured.  She only texted me to ask if I would help her book the hotel for the Caribbean wedding.  I hear through the grapevine that I "make her feel bad" when we talk about this stuff.  Like, girl, you should feel bad. 

Wow, your husband must find her company to be spectacular to put up with all that!

(She is one self-centered mooch who deserves to be cut off completely.)

[AMandM]

Fascinating. I can see a weird sort of logic in your SIL's attitude. Accepting other people's help with necessities like a car or medical insurance means admitting you are too poor to pay for your own needs, and it embarrasses her to take "charity" like that. But not being able to pay for a trip to Hawaii doesn't carry the same feeling of shame, because of course nobody normal has that much spare cash lying around. So it makes sense for abnormal people (such as dividend and Mr. dividend), who clearly have way more money than they need, to pay for her.

[solon]

If I don't personally know any mooching parasites.... AM I the mooching parasite?

[G-dog]

If I don't personally know any mooching parasites.... AM I the mooching parasite?

Possible, but doubtful.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

(snip)
I hear through the grapevine that I "make her feel bad" when we talk about this stuff.  Like, girl, you should feel bad.

Yes, "feeling bad" in the form of discomfort is a normal reaction to being held accountable.

It sounds like she's a reasonably able-bodied adult of reasonably sound mind who wants the benefits and privileges of adulthood without putting forth the necessary effort to function as an adult. When an adult in a healthy community slacks off, the other adults typically hold him or her accountable.

Accountability is extremely uncomfortable to those not raised in it. A few respond to the discomfort not by changing themselves but by trying to change others. They do whatever it takes to make the healthy person just shut up and enable. This usually takes the form of withdrawing from the healthy person and enlisting the aid of the community in forcing the healthy person to toe the line and kowtow properly. When this is successful, what you now have is an unhealthy community wherein some individuals are allowed a free ride, enjoying unearned privileges and exemption from negative consequences for negative behavior. Others are treated in the opposite way, with unreasonably high expectations, lack of access to the benefits of their own labor, lack of protection from the predatory or abusive behavior of others, and disproportionate punishment for any drop in productivity or effort to evade bad treatment.

The evidence suggests that your husband's family is unhealthy in this way. His sister is so comfortable in her role of non-functioning charity recipient that she feels entitled to complain about you to other family members if you don't enable her hard enough. Each time you fail to kiss her butt with quite enough tongue, or behave like a normal adult and hold her accountable by offering meaningful help, she reacts. She tells people you "make her feel bad". The other family members truly believe that her tender fee-fees make her exempt from accountability. They are willing to listen to those complaints and criticisms about you when you're not present to defend yourself, so her sense of entitlement has a basis in fact.

Be careful with your generosity because you aren't dealing with a normal human being. A normal human being responds to occasional generosity by understanding that they're being given to, and that it's the exception and not the rule. So they don't ask or cadge. If you give to a self-entitled person some of the time, he or she interprets it as an intermittent reward which is more compelling than a consistent one.

A pigeon who learns that pecking at a button yields a treat all the time will stop pecking that button after a few tries when the machine stops dispensing a treat, and concludes that the treats have run out. The same pigeon, if it learns that pecking a different button will *sometimes* yield a treat, will keep pecking that button almost indefinitely before giving up. The only defense with a self-entitled, cadging, manipulating person is to treat them like a lab pigeon. You can still be kind, but you have to explicitly state that the gifts are dialing down to zero, and then follow through. Expect all variety of tantrums and emotional reactions, but if you don't cut off the entire relationship, the respect will begin when the tantrum stops.

[AerynLee]

SIL would likely be an epic moocher if anyone would let her. She's had 4 kids and lost custody of all of them (two sets of two 10 years apart). But her ex is worse. He's baby daddy of 3 of the kids and made no effort to help keep them when the state was terminating rights. At some point she was gifted a small, rundown house (I think by his family, though I don't know for sure, but it was gifted to her and not him). They never paid property taxes on it though and she was on the verge of losing it. By this point she was sick of him since he refused to work at all and somehow managed to get the stimulus money for the kids they had at the time and used it for his own entertainment (video games and whatnot). So she sold the house for enough to cover the property taxes and a little bit of pocket money and left him. He not only refused to leave the house until forced, but then tried to sue SIL for "abandoning a dependent". He's 20 years older than her and not disabled

His ex-wife (that he cheated on with SIL) started a Go Fund Me to pay for a storage unit for his crap when he was forced out of the house. Oddly enough, no one donated to it

[rosarugosa]

Did he declare bankruptcy and leave you with the bill in the end??

He did not. To his credit, that was a mooch too far.

Also -- DW has no issues with any money I have ever given them. The only comments she has ever made were about time, kindness, labor, etc. She thinks I give too much in general, but has never specifically mentioned that she was bothered by the money in any way.

Have you explicitly asked her if she has a problem with the money?

I have. I'm on this forum, so we definitely talk about money a lot. I assure you that doesn't bother her at all.

Oftentimes, the people who allow mooches to mooch off them are at the same level of emotional health as the mooches themselves.

Case in point…my SIL is in her 50s and has been unemployed for decades. She has been living in her parents’ condo, which they bought for their own retirement. Her son, in his early 20s and also unemployed, lives in his grandparents’ other condo which they bought as an investment. MIL also grocery shops for them and gave them a car. And MIL feels so guilty about their situation that she has set aside a pot of money to continue generating income for them once she passes…that is, if they don’t spend it all first. Unless SIL’s brothers put the money in an account inaccessible to SIL, I’m pretty sure that money will be gone in a few years.

MIL feels like she owes it to SIL because she behaved poorly towards SIL over four decades ago when SIL was growing up. In reality, she owes nothing to SIL. She’s paid for her “sins of the past” many times over and now simply can’t set healthy boundaries.

It sounds the same with Purple Crayon, who feels like they owe it to their moocher friends because decades ago, those friends helped them out during a tough period. In reality, Purple Crayon has already repaid those friends many times over.

Definitely don't feel feel obligated in any way whatsoever. The vast majority of this took place 15 to 20 years ago, or impacted mutual friends other than me. I genuinely enjoy seeing PunkRocker once a year, and the meal is a non-issue -- but I am aware of it. Most importantly, any of our money that has entered into any of this in the last decade is negligible, and has no economic impact on me or DW's situation whatsoever, nor has it ever put any pressure on my situation even when I was single. Likely why I don't feel burdened in any way, and can feel the way I feel about these two, despite their mooching ways.

My original post was to point out their moochiness -- not their impact on us personally, of which there really isn't any. It just leads to us shaking our heads in disbelief a lot.

Mostly just baffled that I know so many people like them. I tend to think it's because I grew up in such a poor area, with prevalent community drug issues (my brother is currently locked up for this), and such a high occurrence of not finishing high school. Perhaps if one grows up funded by community resources, it doesn't feel as much like mooching when they apply it to others situations?

Case in point, my dad's three older sisters make those two look like they are novices. All three got pregnant as teenagers, currently live in a row of trailers on my cousin's land (not that there's anything wrong with living in a trailer, which FairWeather did), and have given birth to 30 children between the three of them.

His oldest sister (13 kids) has had her rent and food paid for by the local church for well over ten years. The church itself even encouraged her to get (and paid for) a tubal ligation. She has never once expressed that she felt guilty about the help because "that's what it's there for -- people who need it." Next sister (10 kids) could have her own tv show. She has three sons in jail (nicknamed Toady, Buddy, and Boo), legally changes her name every time she gets into trouble, and legitimately married her (and my dad's) first cousin. I have a distinct memory as a kid of driving home from dinner at their house, listening to my mom cry because aunt #2 was complaining about having "too much lobster" when we subsisted off of what mom thought of as minimal. Apparently, the issue when you have 10 kids but no income (at least in the '80s), is that you get a LOT of money in food stamps and the like. Aunt #2 had purchased a second floor freezer and filled it with food whose excess she thought she could sell to her neighbors -- primarily lobster. She was struggling to sell her supply and was complaining to my mom about running out of freezer space. After she and her husband (cousin) divorced, he lived in a motorhome in my parents' driveway for 3 years, until mom said "enough". Aunt #3 had her first kid (and got married) at fifteen. Her husband's dad gifted them a house as a wedding present. They lived off of his dad's credit card until dad died, and quickly thereafter lost the house and moved into her current home next to her sisters.

Every time we see any of my extended family (for Christmas, for example), DW spends the whole drive home telling me she can't believe I am the way I am or asks me how I "escaped" to which I just laugh.

Where are everyone else's moochy people stories?

Let me be the first one to say I look forward to you writing a book and I will be happy to buy a copy!

[Turtle]

If I don't personally know any mooching parasites.... AM I the mooching parasite?

I do occasionally feel like this with my dad’s side of the family.  There’s a family tradition on that side which was started by my grandfather, that the doctors in the family cover visits to ice cream places if there are extended family get togethers.  I’m perfectly capable of paying for my own ice cream, but I let them treat folks if that’s what they want to do.  Members of that side will also sometimes decide to cover entire meals out for larger family gatherings.

My cousins with 10 times the stash I have don’t need to be paid back directly; but it does sometimes feel like I’m too close to mooching for my taste.   I just balance the karma by covering other things for the youngest generation in ways that help them participate in family events.

Allowing folks to be generous while not in the position to reciprocate isn’t exactly mooching, but sometimes it feels mooching adjacent. 

[Metta]

I personally feel that 99% of people are terrible with money, resources, instant gratification, discomfort, etc., and if a person only permitted those into their life that are good at navigating all of those things, their pool of potential friends would be, like, a dozen people (exaggerating for effect).

This is sort of where I am with the mooches in my life. If they offer me something else, fun, entertainment, crazy stories, etc., I’m willing to be reasonably generous with money (to the degree that my husband, who is much less tolerant, will accecpt). And I’m loyal to family. Money means less to me than the joy of people themselves in all their varied craziness. But we budget for monetary gifts and if I go beyond that budget, I need a discussion with my husband, who everyone knows is a hard-ass on this.

It’s worth noting that not everything is monetary. My sister who has some mooching characteristics and has managed trips around the world on the kindness of family and strangers, nonetheless cares for my mother and others with time and energy that I couldn’t muster for this task. I worry about her eventual retirement because all she has in the way of assets is debt. But I’ve discussed it with my husband and we agree that when my mother dies, we will give any inheritance from my mother to my sister. Meanwhile, my sister is adept at shaking down resources from programs, charities, and people.

One of my other friends has delightful stories about how he was a spy/special forces member/activist and is in danger if he doesn’t get xyz. I could listen to his stories about his past for hours. (All false, of course.) These narratives (lies) drive my husband absolutely crazy. But I enjoy them and I’m willing to pay for lunch on occasion to listen to them.

One of my other friends has also managed to cross the continent and the world on a good story, a pretty face, and a winning ability to cook. I think this way of life is terribly dangerous to her and it doesn’t seem to be making her happy.

Ultimately this is the end result of mooching, I suspect. Poverty, unhappiness, and vulnerability. As one’s looks fade (as they must) and one’s health declines (as it does at times) it becomes harder and harder to live and to mooch. So these people are making a choice to put the current moment ahead of future health and stability. I worry about them.

We, btw, never give loans to family or friends. We give gifts. So when my sister needed money for her property tax and had none, we gave her the money. It’s cleaner that way. Loans are a burden on both the lender and the borrower. Gifts are a burden only on the receiver. If the requests for gifts are too large or too frequent, we have an incredible weapon. “No.”

[Metta]

Just to add my favorite mooching story:

Cleopatra (not her real name) against all advice and with a brand new, well-paying job that might give her a chance of getting out of debt decided to travel to a country that was basically in the middle of a war. She called me a couple of weeks later desperate to get money to travel back since it hadn’t occurred to her that it might be expensive to get home again.

She ended up borrowing money from her daughter after we weren’t fast enough to give her money (because we had to sell stocks to do so). Got home too late and lost the good job she’d recently acquired. A few months later she called to ask if I could go to her city (she lives about 8 hours away from me) to check on things while she was travelling out of the country again. But luckily she couldn’t manage to put the money together to leave.

This is a characteristic of a lot of these people. They put themselves in bad positions through lack of planning and then rely on others to get out again.

[reeshau]

Allowing folks to be generous while not in the position to reciprocate isn’t exactly mooching, but sometimes it feels mooching adjacent.

Looking from the other side, I have always been conscious about allowing people to have dignity.  My youngest brothers are 12 and 14 years younger than me.  They are successful in their own right, but earlier in their careers.  So, I am the one who often buys dinner for the extended family.  But if they want to buy breakfast (cheaper) or a treat, or want to cook something elaborate for the family as their contribution, I agree enthusiastically, and make sure they know it is seen and appreciated.

Luckily, I have no moochers among my siblings or parents.  The distant, extended family has a couple, but we do not encounter them often enough to engage with that. 

[trailrider]

My FIL passed away at the end of last year. MIL had 2 kids from a previous marriage. When MIL and FIL got together, he had no kids. My husband is the only child of FIL. However, FIL graciously supported SIL and BIL his entire life. Husband has a pretty decent job for our LOCL area. BIL "has a disability" and is unable to work, but lives a very low-key life. SIL has had decent jobs and also thinks she knows all things financial but has been on the brink of foreclosure more than once. FIL and MIL paid for SIL's daughter's car insurance (while in high school) for several years and constantly sent money to SIL. They gifted BIL a car and continue to pay the insurance and license on it, as well as his phone bill. After FIL passed away, SIL stepped in and started telling MIL she couldn't afford to give to her church and that she would have to cut that back significantly, and maybe stop it entirely. MIL told her that would NOT happen. This conversation was happening before FIL was even in the ground and in front of my husband and I. When we left that day, I told my husband....maybe if SIL would repay all the money she ilked out of her mother through the years, MIL could afford to give to her church! There is also a relatively expensive camper that MIL has no need for anymore and SIL has decided that MIL should sell it to her for about 25% of it's value. FIL had a collector car and my husband and I have talked about buying it from MIL now. MIL told him that she wants to give it to him. We both had an immediate and hard "no" reaction on that. A small discount would be fine because he does a lot of stuff for her, but we are in a position to pay full value for it without much consequence. 

I think my favorite SIL story comes from MIL many years ago. MIL was telling me about how SIL was about to lose her house and couldn't pay the mortgage and how she had given her money to pay the mortgage. In the very next sentence, she is also telling me how SIL's basement flooded and she lost all her fall decorations, but she had been in town earlier that week and a Big Box store had all their fall decor on sale for 40% off, so SIL was able to buy a bunch of stuff to replace what she lost. My mind was completely blown over the thought process behind this by both SIL and MIL and neither one being able to understand how ridiculous this was.

BIL comes to our house every fall/winter and helps us work up deer meat, which is an all day ordeal. In return, we send him home with whatever is left of the previous year's deer meat in our freezer and a few packages of fresh. One year we were on vacation and the grass was growing extremely fast, so we asked him to come mow for us. I think my husband paid him some gas money and probably a case of beer. Sometimes BIL will call and ask to borrow a chainsaw or some other random thing, but it's about 4 times a year at most. He doesn't have much, but he also doesn't want for much. He enjoys fishing, so when husband is fishing in his town, he will call him and take him with him. When FIL was sick, BIL spent a lot of time taking care of him so MIL could do things like grocery shop, Bunco, etc.

Of both BIL and SIL, it's easy to see that BIL knows what his means are and tries to live within them. He expects nothing from the family. SIL thinks it should all be hers and spends like it will be hers someday.

[GilesMM]

I guess anyone living with their parents and not paying rent beyond college falls in the parasite category. Millions of those!

[TheFrenchCat]

(snip)
I hear through the grapevine that I "make her feel bad" when we talk about this stuff.  Like, girl, you should feel bad.

Yes, "feeling bad" in the form of discomfort is a normal reaction to being held accountable.

It sounds like she's a reasonably able-bodied adult of reasonably sound mind who wants the benefits and privileges of adulthood without putting forth the necessary effort to function as an adult. When an adult in a healthy community slacks off, the other adults typically hold him or her accountable.

Accountability is extremely uncomfortable to those not raised in it. A few respond to the discomfort not by changing themselves but by trying to change others. They do whatever it takes to make the healthy person just shut up and enable. This usually takes the form of withdrawing from the healthy person and enlisting the aid of the community in forcing the healthy person to toe the line and kowtow properly. When this is successful, what you now have is an unhealthy community wherein some individuals are allowed a free ride, enjoying unearned privileges and exemption from negative consequences for negative behavior. Others are treated in the opposite way, with unreasonably high expectations, lack of access to the benefits of their own labor, lack of protection from the predatory or abusive behavior of others, and disproportionate punishment for any drop in productivity or effort to evade bad treatment.

The evidence suggests that your husband's family is unhealthy in this way. His sister is so comfortable in her role of non-functioning charity recipient that she feels entitled to complain about you to other family members if you don't enable her hard enough. Each time you fail to kiss her butt with quite enough tongue, or behave like a normal adult and hold her accountable by offering meaningful help, she reacts. She tells people you "make her feel bad". The other family members truly believe that her tender fee-fees make her exempt from accountability. They are willing to listen to those complaints and criticisms about you when you're not present to defend yourself, so her sense of entitlement has a basis in fact.

Be careful with your generosity because you aren't dealing with a normal human being. A normal human being responds to occasional generosity by understanding that they're being given to, and that it's the exception and not the rule. So they don't ask or cadge. If you give to a self-entitled person some of the time, he or she interprets it as an intermittent reward which is more compelling than a consistent one.

A pigeon who learns that pecking at a button yields a treat all the time will stop pecking that button after a few tries when the machine stops dispensing a treat, and concludes that the treats have run out. The same pigeon, if it learns that pecking a different button will *sometimes* yield a treat, will keep pecking that button almost indefinitely before giving up. The only defense with a self-entitled, cadging, manipulating person is to treat them like a lab pigeon. You can still be kind, but you have to explicitly state that the gifts are dialing down to zero, and then follow through. Expect all variety of tantrums and emotional reactions, but if you don't cut off the entire relationship, the respect will begin when the tantrum stops.

Wow, that one paragraph hits super close to home.  I'm currently in the process of having to hold the line of not re-establishing myself as an emotional punching bag for someone I've been no contact with for three years.  My mom has been pushing me to restore contact since I severed it due to threats to my family.  She has said this relative is completely exempt from responsibility because they have a mental illness.  Doesn't matter that I've had more severe mental illness and managed to control myself so that I was never a threat to anyone else.  Now that I'm functioning and feeling much better, she's been pushing even harder, like I owe all my bandwidth to this person.  I need to either make it super clear that's not happening, or cut my mom off too.  It's heartbreaking; I think she sees me as a resource, not really a separate person.  If it wasn't for my extended family (that I want to keep in my life) probably letting this person come back to holidays and such someday, I wouldn't bother at all. 

I've never been mooched off of monetarily, but I think I'd have preferred that to being mooched off for emotional labor.  Though the money-mooching appears to often come with emotional mooching too. 

[NorthernIkigai]

I personally feel that 99% of people are terrible with money, resources, instant gratification, discomfort, etc., and if a person only permitted those into their life that are good at navigating all of those things, their pool of potential friends would be, like, a dozen people (exaggerating for effect).

Nah, most people I know have figured money and resources out at least to some extent by the time they're out of their youth (so in their 40's, at the latest). Yes, some are very unlucky and others have health problems, and many are a bit sad that they aren't doing better financially or at work, but most people eventually adapt to their personal situation and get on with life.

I've had to cut a few people out of my life because of the instant gratification thing: Even though it's certainly not my business how they conduct their (financial, professional, romantic, health, ...) lives, I got really tired of watching them claim to want one thing, do another, then be upset when that didn't work out well for them. In some cases they even asked for my advice, didn't take it, and then reacted negatively simply to my existence, since I guess me being there somehow reminded them of our earlier conversations and how it had all panned out for them. I could understand their reactions if I would have criticized them and their choices, but I really bit my tongue.

Some of these former friends got divorced and then criticized me for not dumping my spouse and young kids to go traveling with them whenever and wherever they wanted to. It's as if I'm married, successfully employed, and financially stable at them, rather than simply for my own good. 

That's why it's been easier to just stop hanging out with them. Now, years later, I hear via the grapevine that at least one of them is upset and wonders why I've not been in touch... (said person has also not been in touch with me, and I have wished them happy birthday over the years). I guess they think that since some of the things they said over the years were said while drunk, they don't count?

[Chris Pascale]

New guy shows up to work. We had a phone distribution list and right before shift he calls me asking if I can lend him any money until payday. Knowing that someone must be in a very bad spot to have to ask, I discreetly gave him a check for $20 (I didn't have any cash because things were tight for me, too) and told him he didn't have to pay me back - that I was glad he was on the team, and that he'd help the next new guy.

I later found out he did this to just about everyone. One of the guys moved in with him and started griping that they were at a strip club and the moocher guy asked to get spotted for a dance, but that his wife (who didn't work) was mad that he wanted one, so he didn't get one.

He later applied to be a police officer, then couldn't believe it when his supervisor hated him. One of the reasons was that he didn't have a driver's license! I asked "how did you get the job?" He said he had one, but that he had tickets back home. At first, I thought, okay, he's paying down those tickets; that's why he didn't have money. He was not paying down the tickets.

Then I realized that that's why he had the other guy move in with him. He was always bumming a ride off of him for work. Now you might ask, did his wife not drive either? Oh, she did. She just wasn't his ride!

[Purple_Crayon]

I've had to cut a few people out of my life because of the instant gratification thing: Even though it's certainly not my business how they conduct their (financial, professional, romantic, health, ...) lives, I got really tired of watching them claim to want one thing, do another, then be upset when that didn't work out well for them. In some cases they even asked for my advice, didn't take it, and then reacted negatively simply to my existence, since I guess me being there somehow reminded them of our earlier conversations and how it had all panned out for them. I could understand their reactions if I would have criticized them and their choices, but I really bit my tongue.

I've experienced this as well -- the asking for my advice, not taking it, ending up in a worse spot, and then avoiding me or the topic in the future. Similarly, when I have "lent" folks money in my late teens or early twenties, I definitely noticed those people saw me as a debt reminder or something, and also had negative feelings about the debt I represented now. I quickly learned to never lend money and to just gift it, so I'm not punished in a roundabout way for trying to help a friend by their possible discomfort around it.

[Sandi_k]

....In some cases they even asked for my advice, didn't take it, and then reacted negatively simply to my existence, since I guess me being there somehow reminded them of our earlier conversations and how it had all panned out for them. I could understand their reactions if I would have criticized them and their choices, but I really bit my tongue.

I've experienced this as well -- the asking for my advice, not taking it, ending up in a worse spot, and then avoiding me or the topic in the future.

I call these people "askholes." DH's brother is the King of the Askholes.

I've learned to stop doing hours of travel research for him, because after asking, he inevitably finds something cheap and easy to book, and does so before I return the next day with thoughtfully curated suggestions.