Recently I lost a really good friend (or at least I thought he was a good friend) to an issue over money and his attitude behind it. From a worldly standpoint, I was totally in the right. From a Christian standpoint, I might have been partially wrong.
In November 2008, my friend borrowed W4,000,000 won ($3,734). He didn't tell me exactly what it was for but he said he needed to do it for business. A month later, he asked me for another W1,000,000 but I refused.
For the first two or three years, my friend felt bad that he wasn't able to pay me back. I mentioned that he could make a payment plan and pay me that way, but he said that he wanted to pay me back in a lump sum. He had a sense of pride I guess.
In 2013, he approached me with a proposal. He said that he thought we could write e-books together and with all of our books, we would be able to split the profits. The main reason my friend came up with this idea was so that he could help pay off his debt to me and I thought it was a good idea.
I wrote three books of my own and he wrote two books of his own. However, we expected to get more profit from the books that we wrote together. The books that we wrote together included two books about how to learn English (for ESL learners) and three children's books. The profits would go to my US bank account since the ebooks we submitted were through Amazon. We really expected the children's books to take off since our illustrations were good and we thought the dialogue was simple but useful for young children. Little did we know that we aimed a bit too young. We probably should have aimed at elementary school children instead of preschool children, so the books never took off since kids at that age don't use computers or kindles. Only their parents can show them the books on their phones or tablets. The books that we wrote by ourselves had mild success, but the children's books turned out to be an utter failure.
So my friend continued to be indebted to me and it made our get togethers more awkward over time. I remember one time when I went to his home and his wife was telling me how much they had to spend on rent, utilities, and other expenses. I was wondering why she brought that up but I was pretty sure she was trying to tell me that there was no way my friend was going to be able to pay the money back for quite some time.
Yet during the next few years my friend took his family (his wife and daughter) to Scotland to see his family, to Portugal to visit his mother who retired there, and bought a new TV that my wife noticed when we came over to his home one time. I never said anything but my wife and I didn't understand his attitude. He had the money to do those things but made no effort to pay any of his debt to me. We continued to let him slide.
My wife and I would go to my friend's area to have dinner with him, his wife, and his daughter and there was no talk about the books. My friend eventually stopped talking about it and then I told him on two occasions that I forgave his debt even though it was a big chunk of money that I lost. I honestly didn't want to lose a friendship over money even though I thought he was selfish and inconsiderate towards me. After the first time I mentioned forgiving him of his debt, he said that he still felt bad but he still planned to pay it back. Three months ago, when we had dinner together, I mentioned once again that I forgave his debt and that he didn't need to worry about it. He said that he wasn't a good friend in that area and that he "hoped" to pay me back sometime in the future (even less confident this time). He also said that he felt that I was "too nice" in this regard.
Well since he knew that I was a nice guy, he once again tested to see how far I would go with my understanding nature. Almost three weeks ago on a Monday morning at 8:00am, my friend kept texting me to see if I could talk really quick. I said that I was in class and I would talk to him later. He said to please call him back after 9:00am. That day was a bit busy for me since my wife and I were supposed to visit another friend who was in the hospital due to him having cancer. I called him while I was heading to the subway station after my morning classes. My friend said that his uncle passed away and he was asked to be a pallbearer. He said that he didn't have money for a flight ticket and asked if he could pull his profits from his book profits. #1 in order to do that I would have to be there in person to wire it to my Korean account. #2 Since I couldn't do that, I would have to pull money out of my bank account in Korea that I share with my wife, which I wasn't planning to do. I told him that I would ask my wife since that is a very huge decision to make. He pressured me to let him know before the day was over and I felt that was a bit bold and rude considering that he never paid me the W4,000,000 back. I met my wife at the subway station near our home to make our way to where my friend was in the hospital. I texted my friend that he had the gall to ask for the money after owing me W4,000,000. He acted very surprised that I would be upset and I told him that I would call him later. Once again, he pressured me to get back to him by the end of the day.
My wife said that I shouldn't have to pay him the money back, but she was curious how much profit he made from his books and how much profit I made. After spending three hours checking my bank statements and Amazon, I came up with a conservative estimate. I made about $3,500 from our books and he made a maximum of $1,200 but could have been less. My feeling was that yes, he did make some profit from his books but how could he honestly ask for that money after he made me go 10 years without paying the original debt? I even forgave that debt and said that he didn't need to pay it back, so why would he try to claim money that he didn't deserve? Most of my friends agreed with my rationale except one. He said that if I forgave the debt, then I should have given him the book profits. He quoted Matthew 5:42 (never turn away a friend who wants to borrow from you) and Luke 6:42 (love your enemies and lend to them without expecting anything in return).
But I never expected him to pay me back and I was okay with that. Why should I give him more money and reward him for taking advantage of me already? I've treated him to dinner or coffee more often than he has treated me (NOTE: he paid sometimes including my birthday this year) and my wife and I always went to his area to meet him and his wife for dinner. And this was all after he had been indebted to me. However, I didn't care about those things. Friendship means sacrifice. On the other hand friendship doesn't mean to take advantage of the other person and I'm tired of always being too nice and people walking all over me.
I emailed him a very direct letter explaining that I wouldn't be giving him the money and if he wanted to talk about it, we could either text or meet in person. I wasn't going to have him talk over me on the phone and I wanted my wife to hear everything. He obviously didn't like it and unfriended me on Facebook and unfollowed my Instagram page. I've heard nothing from him since then which is too bad. I was very sad when he unfriended me but my wife said "Well, you wiped the dirt from your hands." She felt that he chose money over our friendship. Maybe I could have given him the $1,200 but I wasn't going to take money out from a bank account that I share with my wife. That's not fair to my wife or myself. It's truly sad and disheartening. We had been friends for 13 years and he was one of my groomsmen. I truly hope we can be friends again, but I will not contact him since I don't believe in one-sided friendships. When it comes to friendships, quality is much better than quantity.
Advice: Never lend a large amount of money to friends. Either you give it as a gift and don't expect to get it back or you don't lend it at all. It's not worth losing a friendship over.
Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy
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