Imagine letting a coworker borrow something that’s important to you. If they quit their job and moved on to another company but still had the thing you let them borrow, how would you go about getting it back?

In this story, one man was in this situation when he let a coworker borrow a video game. Over a year later, he finally decided he really wanted his game back.

Now, he’s wondering if he handled the situation poorly because his former coworker seemed pretty upset when he finally got ahold of him.

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

AITA for ‘making it about money’?

A little over a year and a half ago, I let a co-worker I was friends with borrow a video game that was pretty hard to come by.

Really soon after he left the company, and we did hang out a few times after but I absolutely ruined the last two times we met up by having almost catastrophic mental break downs- he invited me to two parties because he didn’t believe when I said my social anxiety was bad, and I was trying to be normal for a bit but just couldn’t hack it.

Anyway so he never contacted me again after that. Which was fair enough.

He still wanted his game back.

But about a year ago I thought I should really get back that game, not just because it was pretty hard to come by now, but because the longer I waited the weirder it would get.

It took me a year to finally work up the nerve to message him on FB and ask if he could meet with me or just mail it to me, but even though I could see he was active on FB he didn’t reply.

So after a couple of days I said I’d send him 50 bucks to just mail the game to me, but at the same time I started looking online again.

Copies of the game were starting at 100+ bucks, but I found a store that just got a used copy in a city pretty far away where one of my family members lives, and within half an hour my fam had my back and got a near mint condition copy for $60!

He sent his former friend one last message.

So anyway I could tell from the ‘last activity’ indicator on FB that the guy had come online when I sent the message about giving him 50 bucks to mail it back to me, and I figured yeah fair enough to ignore me.

So when my fam sent me a photo of the game to confirm they had a copy, I just sent off one last message telling him “I get it, I won’t contact you anymore. But the game is rare and in good condition, so don’t sell it to someone for less than $100”.

I just assumed he hadn’t played it and wouldn’t want to keep something of mine.

He was not expecting this response.

But that was when he finally replied saying that it was so offensive that I made it about money, and that I was a terrible friend.

To quote, “the fact that you jump to conclusions because you don’t get your way is insulting.”

But I mean, he was using FB all the time and definitely avoiding replying. And he hadn’t talked to me in over a year and a half- how could we possibly still be friends?

I really thought he would have been annoyed to even hear from me.

He’s wondering if he really did mess up.

Am I honestly a jerk here for assuming that someone who hadn’t made any attempt to contact me for anything in a year and a half didn’t like me, and making the return of this game about money?

I just assumed that if he hated me now the only way I could get the game back was offering compensation for time.

Note he did ask for my address to send it, but I told him that I found myself another copy and that he can keep it.

I know it’s immature for this to be about a video game, but it was a present from my brother originally… and also a really really good game. I just wanted it back without making anyone mad at me, which was why it took me so long to even ask him for it back in the first place.

His former coworker should’ve given him back the game a long time ago, and he shouldn’t have ignored him when he tried to reach out on Facebook about the game. Since OP just really wanted his game back, I can understand that he assumed offering to pay would get the guy’s attention, which it did.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person thinks his former coworker is the one who was rude.

Another person thinks he still needs to get his game back.

But this person thinks he never should’ve loaned out the game.

This person has a theory.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a restaurant employee who decided to put the staff over customers despite the official policy.

Here’s the big question.

He really never should’ve loaned the game to his coworker, but it definitely doesn’t sound like they were really ever friends if over a year went by and the guy still had the game. The former coworker really messed up by not returning it right away.

You have to be careful who you let borrow your things because if you let someone borrow something, there’s a chance you’ll never get it back.