Whenever someone from the past gives you a call, there’s always this dilemma in the back of your head: do they really want to reconnect or do they just need a favor?
In a post that recently caught the attention of the subreddit ‘Entitled People,’ platform user Routine-Mess recounts a perplexing story where her husband was invited to the extravagant wedding of his former roommate.
She attended the ceremony as his plus-one, but it quickly became obvious to the woman that the two of them weren’t important to the newlyweds. Her thoughts were eventually confirmed when the groom revealed that he needed money.
Old acquaintances have this tendency to pop up whenever they need something
Image credits: vai_jcw F56 / unsplash (not the actual photo)
And this guy’s former roommate asked him to sell his car so that he could save his failing business
Image credits: Prostock-studio / envato (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Routine-Mess
The wedding invitation appears to have been an “investment” rather than a token of genuine camaraderie
Image credits: Dmitry Zvolskiy / pexels (not the actual photo)
Counselor Suzanne Degges-White, Ph.D., who is also a professor and chair of the Counseling and Higher Education department at Northern Illinois University, highlights that friendship consists of many (in)tangibles.
“For instance, you might pick up the check for your friend’s meal when she’s short on cash, and then her next payday will mean a payback for you,” she said. “Your friend’s child is going to be a sunflower, a raindrop, or a face in the crowd in the elementary school play and your friend really wants you to accompany her on opening night. You agree to attend, and a couple of months later, when you need someone to go with you to the opening reception for the modern art exhibit you had been eagerly anticipating, your modern art-loathing friend will go with you because she knows she owes you—and she likes you, too.”
Even though long-term friendships don’t require a ping pong payback, they should still feel reciprocal, with an unspoken understanding that support and kindness flow naturally between friends.
In this case, the wedding invitation appears to have been an “investment” rather than a token of genuine camaraderie.
According to Degges-White, it is up to us to decide whether it is worth our time and energy (and maybe even money) to keep the social connection.
But since the groom pushed the couple to help him even as if his livelihood depended on it, the flashy lifestyle suggests that he may have been just trying to use them as a means to an end. His request for them to sell their car certainly deepens the suspicion. So, I think it’s not only pretty clear that the couple did the right thing by declining, but we should also commend them for keeping cool under such insulting circumstances. The nerve of some people!
As the story went viral, the original poster (OP) joined the discussion in the comments
Among the reactions, people also shared their own similar experiences
