Trouble with making / maintaining friendship, common fall-outs (story)

[Alamut]

So I decided to ask about advice/opinion on friendship troubles. Just to set the tone right - I'll be blunt and honest - I don't have a "best friend". It sounds lame, pathetic and sad - and it is. I'm 30 and, to put it simple, I don't know who would I call to be my best man at my wedding and I definitely won't get any calls to be someone's best man either. That in itself is pretty worrying now that I type it out like this and think about it. So let's move on with this story.

 

I recently had a bizzare fallout with a guy who I considered to be my friend (I guess that's the right title, buddy, good acquaintance...I don't know), I knew him for almost 10 years. I would like to get some kind of a lesson from this situation for my own personal benefit..and this is where you folks come in, so bare with me and chime in please. 

 

Back in 2010. - I was pretty bad standing financially and that guy knew it because for whatever reason (probably me being desperate for friendship) I told him my full situation. At that time, during those years, his business was really going good. He ran his utility service as a utility man, home repairs etc and made  really nice money.

 

Back then I screwed up something in my garage and called him up for help, he came around, did his thing, and said "this will cost you XYZ $". I was kinda stoked, didn't expect that price because I was broke, hoped for a lower figure but he explained why he went out of the way to fix few extra things and make his part of the job as good as possible. So, despite being broke at the time, I paid him in full. Just to keep you guys up to speed, we're talking new pair sneakers type of money.

 

Our "friendship" was regular as usual after that, we would go for drinks, talked about problems, good things bad things, money, cars, and we did it quite often so for whatever reason, I considered him an actual friend.

 

Fast forward to 2016. and the situation is much, much better for me (financially), where he got into a bit of a situation, he closed his shop, got a job at his girlfriends company, they had a long term relationship, broke up, he moved out from her place back to his parents house, but still went out and bought a Porsche (15 years old but still, it's expensive). I don't want to go into details about his habits but he was always a bit snobby and wanted to leave an impression of a upper scale type of guy (probably resenting his blue collar roots...because he told me multiple times how much he despises his father, from who he inherited his business). I remember him buying a Breitling watch back in 2009. and pronouncing it "Bret-ling" until someone played a youtube clip to him where a guy pronounced it the way it was supposed to be pronounced. 

 

But that's off topic. So what happened couple of days ago - he asked me if I could salvage his notebook, and I told him sure I'll do it, I'm busy but when I get the time I'll take care of it. When he asked me about the price, I told him the exact amount. I did hear it in his voice, a bit of "seriously?" type of vibe but I deliberately didn't want to do my old routine and do services for people in exchange for fast food meals and chump change or any similar pathetic moves from my youth. And to be honest, I don't want to sound douchey, but nowadays I'm not in a situation where I desperately need to get that kind of money. So I just told him my price, I value my time and work that much, take it or leave it. He gave me the notebook.

 

After couple of days, I called him up, the notebook was finished. He gave me the money and off he went. I noticed a weird silence, no usual daily shitting and posting stupid messages over whatsapp, not a single "thanks" or any other feedback. Called him up 2 times, no answer.

 

Next day, I get a whatsapp message "I asked around about the prices for the service you did, you burned me with the price but at least we had fun with it in our whatsapp group. Please don't call me anymore, bye". I charged him probably 30% more than I charged regular customers 10 years ago, and we're talking new Nike shoe type of money here. We're talking almost exact amount of money he charged me for the garage fix back in 2010. 

 

I want to know a couple of things - how do I run into people like this, and why do I keep contact with them, how can't I pick up on signals that are obviously pointing to the fact that I'm dealing with a deeply dissatisfied wannabe working-class snobs?

 

I can't blame others, it's not his fault that he's the way he is. Why was I around him for such a long time? And is this the reason I have no friends? Could I be so socially retarded I can't discern who's a good friend for me and who's not? Because this isn't the first time I had this kind of scenario, where I had a fall-out with someone I considered "friend" for multiple years. This is the 3rd time. And it always had money involved, of course.

 

Thoughts?

 

[fokum8]

So I decided to ask about advice/opinion on friendship troubles. Just to set the tone right - I'll be blunt and honest - I don't have a "best friend". It sounds lame, pathetic and sad - and it is. I'm 30 and, to put it simple, I don't know who would I call to be my best man at my wedding and I definitely won't get any calls to be someone's best man either. That in itself is pretty worrying now that I type it out like this and think about it. So let's move on with this story.

 

I recently had a bizzare fallout with a guy who I considered to be my friend (I guess that's the right title, buddy, good acquaintance...I don't know), I knew him for almost 10 years. I would like to get some kind of a lesson from this situation for my own personal benefit..and this is where you folks come in, so bare with me and chime in please. 

 

Back in 2010. - I was pretty bad standing financially and that guy knew it because for whatever reason (probably me being desperate for friendship) I told him my full situation. At that time, during those years, his business was really going good. He ran his utility service as a utility man, home repairs etc and made  really nice money.

 

Back then I screwed up something in my garage and called him up for help, he came around, did his thing, and said "this will cost you XYZ $". I was kinda stoked, didn't expect that price because I was broke, hoped for a lower figure but he explained why he went out of the way to fix few extra things and make his part of the job as good as possible. So, despite being broke at the time, I paid him in full. Just to keep you guys up to speed, we're talking new pair sneakers type of money.

 

Our "friendship" was regular as usual after that, we would go for drinks, talked about problems, good things bad things, money, cars, and we did it quite often so for whatever reason, I considered him an actual friend.

 

Fast forward to 2016. and the situation is much, much better for me (financially), where he got into a bit of a situation, he closed his shop, got a job at his girlfriends company, they had a long term relationship, broke up, he moved out from her place back to his parents house, but still went out and bought a Porsche (15 years old but still, it's expensive). I don't want to go into details about his habits but he was always a bit snobby and wanted to leave an impression of a upper scale type of guy (probably resenting his blue collar roots...because he told me multiple times how much he despises his father, from who he inherited his business). I remember him buying a Breitling watch back in 2009. and pronouncing it "Bret-ling" until someone played a youtube clip to him where a guy pronounced it the way it was supposed to be pronounced. 

 

But that's off topic. So what happened couple of days ago - he asked me if I could salvage his notebook, and I told him sure I'll do it, I'm busy but when I get the time I'll take care of it. When he asked me about the price, I told him the exact amount. I did hear it in his voice, a bit of "seriously?" type of vibe but I deliberately didn't want to do my old routine and do services for people in exchange for fast food meals and chump change or any similar pathetic moves from my youth. And to be honest, I don't want to sound douchey, but nowadays I'm not in a situation where I desperately need to get that kind of money. So I just told him my price, I value my time and work that much, take it or leave it. He gave me the notebook.

 

After couple of days, I called him up, the notebook was finished. He gave me the money and off he went. I noticed a weird silence, no usual daily shitting and posting stupid messages over whatsapp, not a single "thanks" or any other feedback. Called him up 2 times, no answer.

 

Next day, I get a whatsapp message "I asked around about the prices for the service you did, you burned me with the price but at least we had fun with it in our whatsapp group. Please don't call me anymore, bye". I charged him probably 30% more than I charged regular customers 10 years ago, and we're talking new Nike shoe type of money here. We're talking almost exact amount of money he charged me for the garage fix back in 2010. 

 

I want to know a couple of things - how do I run into people like this, and why do I keep contact with them, how can't I pick up on signals that are obviously pointing to the fact that I'm dealing with a deeply dissatisfied wannabe working-class snobs?

 

I can't blame others, it's not his fault that he's the way he is. Why was I around him for such a long time? And is this the reason I have no friends? Could I be so socially retarded I can't discern who's a good friend for me and who's not? Because this isn't the first time I had this kind of scenario, where I had a fall-out with someone I considered "friend" for multiple years. This is the 3rd time. And it always had money involved, of course.

 

Thoughts?

Men are a lot more nimble with social circumstances. They could drop you if you aren't providing them anything with close to no emotional risk. This guy sounds like he didn't value your friendship that much. Think of alimony. However much you divorce your husband for is like saying "I hated being married to you to the tune of this many dollars". This guy clearly saw you as disposable/dismissable, otherwise he would've leveled with you and said he thought the price was too high rather than just dropping you. Have higher standards for the type of people you hang out with.

[Alamut]

Have higher standards for the type of people you hang out with.

 

Thanks for the reply. This particularly. I don't know how to bond with people, I think that's my main problem. And it could go back to what I said in the beginning, not having a "best" friend, which probably makes me let these types of people in my life. 

 

I have to say while I'm commenting on this, I had similar fallout 10 years ago, also with a dude who I wanted to hang out with and he was well aware of that but turned into his advantage aka I started going into business with him and became his errand boy. Now that I reflect on those years I really can't believe that I allowed myself to be in that position, to work at his business, get paid minimum wage and get occasional, semi-regular insults or those passive-aggressive type of put-downs when we were in a group of common "friends" or whatever was that called.

 

I decided to cut the cord with him and haven't seen him since but I have to admit he left an impact on me - what I mean by this is he left some kind of permanent questioning on a lot of things I do.

 

The best way to explain is thru obvious example; I used to block things I post on facebook so our mutual friends/acquaintances wouldn't know what I was doing so HE wouldn't accidentally get the info from them. That's super lame, I know. 

 

Also, he was the "hater" type, he was mocking/belittling/judging and basically talking shit about everyone who was better off than he was, which was...a lot of people. Everyone had a "yeah but" in his book, this guy is at that stage in life because of X, that guy drives that car only because of Y...and so on. Nobody was "all good" except of him, of course.

 

This guy from my post, recent event, is the similar type. But even worse, now that I think about it. This one is so thirsty to be the part of the VIP club, part of the rich bunch, but he's a working class dude, so the amount of shit he talks about other people material possessions is crazy. I used to think he just uses those things as a joke, because he does have a great sense of humor, but now that I look back, all those jokes are rooted in his content for everybody and anybody who got ahead in life, and by "ahead in life" I mean drives a better, faster, more expensive car.

 

I'm glad I have this anchor off my back, and now I have to free up myself from the voices these people left in my head, doubts, all those little darts of "ehh you don't need to do that" and "you don't know to do that" and "why would you do that, you won't get rich from it".

 

I believe those guys impacted my low self esteem self and kept me away from meeting new friends, because they didn't approve of basically anyone but their own kind, similar type of "snakes". 

 

I'm out of that. Need to focus and get a grip, never let anyone hold my own steering wheel. 

[Tony Crowe]

There's just so much there, can you distill it please?