[Dylan16807]

If you ask your friend for $100 for no particular reason, just because you want $100, that's an annoying request and "no" is a reasonable response. It's not putting a price on your relationship. It's technically the same answer they'd give a stranger, but that doesn't mean you're being treated like a stranger.

(I do think a slight discount often makes sense just because a friend is probably quicker and easier to deal with. But anything more substantial turns into asking for free stuff, and yes and no are both perfectly fine answers to that.)

[throw0101a]

> If you ask your friend for $100 for no particular reason, just because you want $100, that's an annoying request and "no" is a reasonable response.

If a stranger walks up to you and asks for $100, you're unlikely to give it to him. If a friend does, there's a more likely probability that you will consider the request.

And depending on the relationship, you may expect for the money to be paid back (eventually), or you may not (considering it a gift). (Often the advice is to consider "loans" to family and friends as gifts in practice, as otherwise the expectation of repayment may sour the relationship.)

[Dylan16807]

Sure you'll consider it. The point is you could say yes or no without being a bad friend if their reason for the money is "friendship I guess? *shrug*".

I don't know why so many people are acting like I said a "no" is the only acceptable answer.

[NikolaNovak]

That's the thing. This was a $3000 camera. A 20% friends discount is 600. We've been best friends for two decades, but most days he doesn't give me $600 on cash. Don't get me wrong, we don't keep track who paid for dinner or cinema ticket or whatever. But there IS a threshold at which it really becomes a random cash gift.

Yes dealing with friends is nicer than strangers - but also when you're selling stuff, sometimes it's better to do strangers. Expectations of long term service and support are clearer and have more defined boundaries.

[throw0101a]

> But there IS a threshold at which it really becomes a random cash gift.

Not wrong, but it is also possible that the $600 'cash equivalent' discount would be considered a birthday or Christmas present, or a form of 'repayment' for the time he helped you out with the Thing with the Guy in the Place. (“I'd never been to Belize.”)

[soulofmischief]

I guess friendship means different things to different people. I've had friends spot me plenty more than $600 and I've spent thousands on friends in return. I can't imagine having such an indifferent attitude towards someone I care about.

[Dylan16807]

"Spot you" implies you actually had a level of need for the money.

Declining to give you $600 out of the blue because you'd rather have more money is not being indifferent.

[soulofmischief]

It can imply that, but it can imply other things too and you shouldn't draw conclusions from one interpretation. You've never just paid for a friend's dinner or ticket?

Perhaps this is a cultural thing. I routinely buy gifts for friends, pay for their meals, travel and vice versa. Having more money is not some supreme objective that is more important than the people around you. Money is just a tool for enjoying life. I come from an impoverished and deprived background, spent years homeless since I was a teenager, and I still recognize that putting money before friends is a scarcity mindset.

[Dylan16807]

Gifts are nice but deciding not to give someone a gift out of absolutely nowhere is not "putting money before friends".

[soulofmischief]

"deciding not to give someone a gift out of absolutely nowhere" as a matter of course, as a guiding philosophical principle, is categorically putting money before friends.