Well not often. The last time it happened a friend went into a dark room and tripped and fell into my coffee table breaking. This was an expensive table. He was horrified and offered to pay for it immediately. I refused multiple times. I just couldn’t in good faith take a friend’s money over an accident.
I guess. I just expected this particular friend to have the same attitude I have about this issue. We are usually on the same page.
Bolding mine. Besides, I still see a vast difference between “I went into a dark room and fell on a coffee table and broke it” and “I was drunk and was horsing around with my friend’s camera and dropped it.”
Both were accidents! And I offered to pay right away as well. I just didn’t expect him to take me up on it.
We weren’t horsing around either. It just slipped out of my hand apparently. Hey, I was drunk!
I find it very interesting that you admit you dropped it and yet, not only did you not immediately offer to pay once your friend told you it was damaged, but are still trying to justify not being responsible.
You dropped it, you broke it, pay for it. You are the one being crass by not feeling terribly bad about breaking a friend’s expensive item. Whether you were drunk or not.
Well, at this point, I’d say $260 is a small cost to pay to keep your friendship. Money is the biggest thing that breaks up relationships be it family, friends, or lovers.
And being drunk is not an excuse. How about, don’t touch my stuff when you are drunk!
No, I did offer to pay. Like I said before I just didn’t expect him to take me up on it.
I don’t deny I’m responsible. We are just not the sort of people to nickel and dime each other and freak out over money.
So when you (apparently insincerely) offered to pay for it, did he immediately say yes, or was the email a few days later the first indication he wanted his money?
Well he was sort of ambiguous about it. He said “thank you” which I took to mean as thank you for offering, not thank you for giving me the money. Honestly, I forgot about it till last night when he came over. Another friend mentioned he had a new phone and the “story” of how it broke came up. So from that I should have realized he was not letting it go. The first time he directly asked for the money was this morning. I replied I would give it to him tomorrow when I see him.
It seems my attitude is by far the minority so far. Maybe next time a friend accidentally breaks something of mine, I will accept the money for it, even though it feels wrong.
That’s up to you.
It feels weird because it’s an awkward situation no matter what. If he did thank you originally, though, then it’s got to be really awkward for him: you broke his phone, offered to pay, he thanks you, he brings it up, probably expecting you to take the hint and mention paying for it again/ give him the money, and then he ends up having to ask you for the cash directly. Eep.
Maybe your friend felt a bit uncomfortable or ambiguous about pushing the issue, and only brought it up when you didn’t follow through on your offer to pay for it? I don’t see how that’s crass - you offered, he said thanks, and you didn’t follow through. Since you offered, and quite rightly so, you ought to honor your word. Offering to pay, but not expecting him to take you up on it, seems a bit cheesy, or disingenuous, or something.
Because, drunk or not, you dropped it, so of course you should pay for it. I don’t even see why that’s in question here.
Now there are all sorts of subtle dynamics in the relationship, like how, if at all, this sort of thing has been handled between you guys in the past, what your history as friends is, financial situations, etc.
Also: was this a relatively new phone, or one in perfect condition? Because, strictly speaking, I think your obligation is to make him whole - so if the phone was three years old with a scratched-up screen and a battery in its last year of life, a used phone would replace what you broke for about half the price.
But the bottom line: you were the one who dropped and broke his phone, so why should he pay for someone else’s clumsy moment?
It always sucks when we run into differing expectations like this.
I’d say that you were responsible, and did the right thing by offering to pay when you found out. Him accepting wasn’t crass, though I understand your frustration since you didn’t expect it. If you will have a hard time affording the amount, I think it would be classier to admit that to him and ask if you can go halves or figure out a payment schedule rather than ducking him. That gives him the opportunity to take the hit if he can since he’ll know it’s not trivial to you. Based on the ambiguous answer he gave you at first, I’d kind of guess he was assuming it wasn’t going to be so expensive and only decided to take you up on the offer once he found out it was going to bite him so hard. If the money isn’t a lot to you (which I kind of think is the case since you refer to it as ‘nickle and dime’) you should just pay up with a smile.
As for in the future if friends break things of yours, you should keep doing as you see fit. If the person you want to be is one who is magnanimous and forgiving of friends’ mistakes, even to the disadvantage of your wallet, then continue as you have in the past secure in the knowledge that you’re the guy you wanna be. If you end up in a situation where you really do need a friend to take responsibility for something they’ve damaged, asking is also ok.
If you and your friend don’t normally worry about nickel and dimes, why is this such a big deal for you?
$250 is a chunk of cash to just about anyone. It’s a lot more than you’d normally drop on a night out drinks and falls outside of the “hey, I’ll get you back next time” category. I think it’s quite a bit of money to have to spend unexpectedly, and I can see why you are bummed. But it’s not really your friend’s fault, and it’s not really your fault either- it was an accident. But drunken accident or not, dude needs a phone and they don’t give phones away for free. Someone has to cough up the money, and since you broke the phone, you are the one who pays.
I think if you think about it, it’s not really your friend that you are pissed at. You are mostly pissed off that you have to spend that much money, and you wish someone else would do it instead. I agree, it’s a bummer. But do the right thing and move on.
Am I the only one with insurance on my phone? Solves a lot of problems, it does.
He’s not legally liable for the damages? I don’t know the law, but I imagine Judge Judy would make him pay for it. And, the friendship would still be lost. Not that I anticipate the friend taking him to court over this, but hypothetically. Can you really break someone’s shit and not be legally responsible for the cost of repairing/replacing it?
Not really; thinking someone is being an reasonable jerk is the biggest thing that breaks up relationships. Fighting about money is just one of the more common and more tangible expressions of thinking someone’s being an unreasonable jerk. And if both parties think the other is being an unreasonable jerk, the relationship is just as damaged no matter which side gives in to keep the peace. If the OP pays money he doesn’t think is reasonable and resents it, they’re not further ahead friendship-wise than if the friend just ate the cost and resented it.
And honestly, I think the friend is being a little bit unreasonable here. Not in expecting the OP to pay for something he offered to pay for, but for getting all passive-aggressive about not being paid yet after only “a few days.” You give somebody a full pay period to get you your money because you don’t know their finances and don’t know if they have the extra cash around until pay day. And it’s very bad form to shame your friends by making them say “I can either give you this money right now, or pay my bills on time.”
Also, I’m not sure that in the absence of the OP offering to pay for the phone it would have been reasonable to expect him to pay for it. My take on it has always been to apply the “reasonable person” test: Would a reasonable person expect this behavior to cause damage to the item in question? So if you fall full-length on a wooden table, or drop a porcelain figurine on a tile floor, or drop a cell phone in the toilet or out a second-story window onto concrete, it’s reasonable to expect you to pay for it. But if you bump a wooden table with your knee, or tuck an unshod foot under you sitting on a couch, you wouldn’t reasonably expect that to damage anything–if everything looks fine at the time but then the table is collapsed or the couch cushion torn the next day, the owner can’t really say “You destroyed my furniture and should pay for it.”
To me, the OP’s situation is far closer to the second situation than the first. A cell phone really shouldn’t break just by dropping it from a normal height onto a floor. Portable hand-held electronics are generally built to withstand being dropped occasionally, otherwise they wouldn’t be cost-effective for most people to buy. And if a phone is broken, it’s generally immediately obvious because the case is cracked or it just plain doesn’t work right then. For the phone to be fine that night but not working the next day doesn’t sound like something that would be caused by simply dropping the thing.
Did he say that? The only info we have is that the friend “sent an e-mail asking for him to pay”. The OP should have stepped up and said, “I’ll pay for that man, can you wait until payday?” or whatever. The friend is probably worried he’s not going to get paid, since the OP just dropped the whole thing.
I’m sorry, I just don’t see merely asking as “passive-agressive”. On the contrary, I feel that is the right thing to do. It removes any ambiguity and it takes away any hints about paying. Straight up is how I prefer it and I wish all monetary things could just go this way.
I mean, what are you seeing as passive aggresive?
These are good points. I’ve dropped my phone tons of times and it never broke. It’s not like I threw it out a window. We were sitting at a table and I dropped it.
As for the money, it’s not about that. I can easily pay for it and he doesn’t need the money either. I am just annoyed at him expecting me to pay, when I feel like he knows I wouldn’t have expected it if it were me.
If I had such a delicate, expensive phone, I would have had insurance on it or at least a cover of some sort.
These are good comments. But the situation here is not about the money. We routinely spend this amount on nights out. Paying the money isn’t going to hurt my finances anymore than he is depending on it to pay for a new phone. It just feels petty to me I guess.
I’d venture that your friend might have a slightly different attitude towards money. Even if you can throw $250 around without it having an effect on your finances, some people still get uncomfortable about losing money and getting no real benefit from it. For example, I can afford to drop $20.00 here and there without really noticing, and I think nothing of spending $20 on a couple of overpriced drinks, but I’m still going to be a bit grumpy about paying a $20.00 parking ticket.