Ruby's Musings on Friendship, Part One.

Don’t ever give or lend money to your friends. Not if you want to keep them.

You’ve heard this advice before.

“MY friends are different,” you say.
“We’ve been friends for years. It won’t affect our relationship.”

Wrong.

Two things happen:

1. Your friends resent you for being in the position to help them. They take the money, but they feel like failures for needing it. You become the manifestation of their failure.

2. Your friends will feel obligated to continue the friendship, despite the fact that they pretty much wish you were dead.