abstract
| - It's coming up to rent day and 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 between friends? No need for collateral or payment deadlines, The Power of Trust will prevail! Now one (or more) of several things happens to severely strain their friendship:
* 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 Shark!
* Alice suddenly has money to burn, and does so. Bob is either angry that she hasn't learnt her lesson, that she seems ungrateful, or that she apparently didn't need the money as much as he thought. He may be too proud to mention needing the money, and Alice will assume he's getting along fine without it.
* Bob assumes this will happen, and starts watching over Alice's shoulder, reading her receipts, and generally being nosey and superior - less Loan Shark and more Bank Manager. This will rarely be the moral grey area it would usually be in Real Life: one party (most often the greedy lender) will be clearly in the wrong, and will learn An Aesop about the importance of Friendship and Trust. If the borrower really was taking advantage, the relationship can be more significantly damaged, especially if they continue to refuse to pay it back. One of the Money Tropes. Closely related to Broken Treasure, where a borrowed possession is lost or broken, leading to similar problems. If the ill-advised borrowing is from a suspiciously helpful stranger, they will probably turn out to be All Devouring Black Hole Loan Sharks. Examples of Never Lend to a Friend include:
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