Woman Shares Her Experience With A Friend Who Brought Almost No Money On Vacation

A pretty constant part of life is that stuff happens. Good stuff, bad stuff, random stuff, it matters not, one has to be prepared for all sorts of eventualities, particulate while traveling. Unfortunately, when not traveling solo, you might end up being around a person who does not prepare because they think you are their get-out-of-jail-free card.

A woman detailed a somewhat annoying and rude experience she had when planning a vacation with a friend. While she planned to bring a combination of cards and cash, her friend stated that she would only bring the bare minimum in cash and treat OP as a walking, talking ATM.

Setting aside the emotional disrespect of calling a friend an ATM, it’s also a horrific way to objectify them. While it’s not exactly weird to roast your friends, normally it remains a joke, but OP’s friend (a word that can be used loosely in this context) seems to have meant it literally. She assumed that using her friend's money at will is a normal thing to do. Setting aside the financial entitlement, as there are of course circumstances where a person is wealthy enough to not care, there are practical risks to this endeavor. What if OP’s cards were lost, stolen, or blocked? Now two grown adults are stuck with a few days worth of cash between them because she couldn’t be bothered to think about packing a tiny plastic card.

As many commenters noted, OP’s friend’s explanation does not exactly stand up to scrutiny. The cash she has with her is more clunky and easier to lose than a card. It’s also easier to steal, as a card can be blocked quite quickly, but cash, once out of your hands, is gone. The main explanation, which is probably the most realistic, is that OP’s friend simply wanted to mooch off of her. A cynic might start to see the elements of a plan here, where the friend spends her cash quite quickly, then has OP pay for the rest, safe in the knowledge that OP probably won’t keep every single receipt and create an itemized list of costs. It is entirely possible that this was not her plan and she just didn’t want to bother “dealing with” money, but this creates more risks for both of them and more pressure for her friend who is ostensibly on vacation.

Even if OP’s friend didn’t have “bad” intentions, it is still deeply entitled to think that she could, without planning or asking, take her money. While we do not know much about OP’s financial situation, if she herself did not know that any and all additional financial burdens would be placed on her, she would have no way to prepare. OP may have just had to spend a serious amount of money and wouldn’t have spare resources for two in case of a true emergency. As she herself said, lending her friend money if needed would not be an issue, but her friend put both of them at a very unnecessary risk.

Why OP’s friend is so entitled, we will likely never find out. What complicates the matter is that psychologists are not entirely clear about what causes entitlement. The leading theory is that it’s a result of one or more personality disorders. Entitlement represents the disconnect between what a person can actually get or deserves and what they think they should have. If there is some mental blocker inhibiting the reception of good and realistic information. In these sorts of cases, the person will intercept things in such a way that benefits them, as, if we are honest, most of us do see our side of things first. Fortunately, OP “caught” her friend's plan early and hopefully made all the necessary arrangements. The comments were full of advice for how to make sure her friend does not take advantage of her even if she does bring a card or two.