Adult relationships require exchange. But what happens when a friend gets too comfortable not putting in any effort?

In today’s story, a man shares how one of his friends doesn’t feel like it’s fair to pay for his own expenses on a trip to NYC.

Are they bad friends for wanting him to bring his own money, even though he’s currently unemployed?

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for being upset that my friend is going on our trip with no money?

I have a few online friends that I’ve been friends with for over 10 years, that I play games with.

We have linked up a couple of times in the past, and it has been good memories.

One of the friends in this group, we’ll call him John, has not been financially well-off since I’ve known him since he was 15 (he is now 25).

I love the guy to death, but no job and no school, just has sat at home playing video games for his whole life and never had a job.

And I’m not trying to throw him under the bus, but it’s just the harsh truth.

My online friend group has had trips in the past, and each trip we are always having to cover for John because we don’t want him to feel left out.

But he got a little too comfortable with this setup.

Anyways, we all 4 are supposed to meet up in NYC this weekend as it has been 2 years since we’ve all seen each other in person.

I understand everyone’s financial situation is different, but 3 of us have jobs and money to spend in NYC for the weekend.

I’m grateful that I’m a software engineer and make good money, but even then, my budget for NYC for the weekend was just going to be $100-200 a day.

We’ve had this trip planned for months, and this entire time I figured John would have the funds to have some spending money for the weekend.

It’s now 2 days before the trip and we are being told he has -$9 in his bank account and only $50 left on his credit card to spend.

They had to be honest with him.

We have made a point to him that we have gotten tired of covering for him and that it is going to be difficult to have an enjoyable time in NYC when he has no money to spend.

John has now gotten very upset at us but we are at the point where we feel that it is unfair to us to be expected to cover for him.

Let me preface by saying he doesn’t expect us to cover for him, but also, how are we supposed to even do anything?

Stuff in NYC costs money, whether it be clubs, food, or stores.

And we wanted to go to a nice dinner, this has been planned for months.

But this might hurt the friendship.

And obviously as friends, we don’t want him to feel left out, but at the same time we don’t want to continue covering for him and we would just feel bad if we go to a nice restaurant and he just sits there.

But yeah, that’s the situation right now.

I will say I am very frustrated but I’m not sure if I’m sounding like a bad friend to him and to myself.

AITA?

They will help him more if they stop enabling his behavior.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

Exactly.

It’s easy for him.

Suspicious, indeed.

Another reader shares their thoughts.

Yup.

Ideally, he should even want to pay them back, not take more.

He’s also taking them for granted.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.