So a month and a half ago, I lent my friend , let’s call him B some money to come to go on a trip we were both on. I said I could lend him some money if he could promise to pay me back within a month. He has a job but was having problems accessing payments but promised me it’ll be resolved within a month, so I agreed to lend him the money.

He ended up borrowing more money than what we agreed on. I transferred him some extra money that he was supposed to help me withdraw (I get charged a lot of money withdrawing cause I’m a foreigner in the country while he’s a local) , but he never ended up withdrawing that money for me. He was also supposed to pay for the Airbnb but he said he had problems with his card so I paid for it in the end. He told me he was also borrowing money from another friend for accommodation, so he was supposed to give me back the money for the accommodation earlier, but he didn’t because this other friend didn’t end up lending him money. But I thought everything is fine as long as he gives me back the money within a month.

I myself am not doing particularly well financially. I am jobless (searching but no luck), and am worries about running out of money. Throughout last month, because of my increasing worries about my own financial situation, I did ask him multiple times if he was able to give me at least some of the money back at any point- because well he was supposed to have borrowed money from other people as well, not just me. He said he didn’t, and that is fine. I’m stressed but I understand he also can’t access money at that point in time either.

So one month was up about two weeks ago, I chased him up on the money matters but he told me it would be another week before he could access the money, so I said that’s fine.

Last Friday (so one week later) , I was moving into a new apartment and needed to pay for the month in advance, so on Thursday night I called him but he didn’t pick up. I called him again on Friday morning but he texted me that he was busy at work. I texted him back to ask if he had the money yet immediately but he didn’t respond. I texted him throughout the day but he didn’t respond. I know he’s bad at responding to messages in general , but I know he’s on his phone quite often so I find it hard to believe that he didn’t see my messages at all. Even by the time I was sure he would have already finished work and called him, he never responded in anyway. This did leave me pretty disappointed because I felt like there was no accountability and I expressed my disappointment to B but there was still no answer.

To be honest I was feeling quite stressed on Friday, because I calculated my spending for the month and realised I had used up 3 times more money than I’ve been spending previously, it got me really worried I’ll run out of money much sooner than expected because I have no idea how the money even got used up so quickly. I can account for part of why I might have used more money but not for the whole amount.

I was talking to another friend of mine who we will call A. So A & B have never met before but I’ve also lent money out to A. I was talking to A about my money worries and told her how I was able to contact B about the money he owes me. A was very concerned, she told me I should be careful because he might have no intentions of giving me back the money. Because even if he’s busy, replying to me isn’t hard. She always replies as soon as she sees the messages when I ask her about the money I lent her. And she is right, but I also understood B was bad with messaging so though I didn’t think too much about it.

But then later in the day I met with C who knows B as well. While I hadn’t thought B would deliberately keep the money, I was getting worried about my finances and really wanted to talk to B about when he could pay me back, so I asked C if she knew he would be going to the event we were heading to that night. They said they had no idea and asked why I wanted to know. So I mentioned to C that B owes me a bit of money (it’s actually a lot of money). They then tell me that B owes them money too, and that he never returned them the money. But because it wasn’t a huge amount, they decided to drop the matter so not to make things awkward though C feels like they’ve been used.

After talking to C, I became really worried that B really might not give me back my money. C is a nice person and I’m shocked B asked to borrow money then never returned it. So after that I try to contact D, who is a good friend of B and asked if they knew how I could contact them because I had something important to talk to B about.

It’s quite late so I guess it’s understandable that neither D or B replied that night. But my anxiety was through the roof. I ended up smoking a bit to try and calm down but it didn’t help at all. I was worried all night long, struggled to enjoy myself at the event then struggled to sleep that night.

On Saturday I try to contact B again but he doesn’t respond yet again, so I end up telling D that B owes me a lot of money and if she could please help me contact B it would be really great cause I had no way of contacting him. D was very lovely and helped me at once.

B contacted me not longer after that but he was pissed at me. (I was also pissed at him but I felt like I had good reason to be mad). He thinks all I care about is money and that I shouldn’t have contacted D because it makes him look bad. I don’t want B to have bad relationships with his friends but I had no other way to contact him so I didn’t know what else to do. He thinks I should have just relaxed because we would have eventually seen each other at the social events, but for me I don’t feel like I could have waited that long because I was getting anxious about my finances- and became extra worried and suspicious after what C told me.

I don’t know, maybe I should have waited until I was less pissed to message him, but I also wanted to get confirmation he was going to pay me back. So I asked him “Can you seriously tell me, do you have the intention of paying me back [X amount] you owe me? Yes or no?” I guess that was kinda aggressive but I needed actual proper confirmation cause I was so stressed he would not pay me back like he did with C.

B has now said he will pay me back on the 15th of this month. But he doesn’t want to talk to me about anything other than money matters. I feel really heartbroken. I do feel disrespected and taken advantage of, but I wanted us to talk about it and put it behind us.

When I came back to this city, I didn’t really know many people, and B was one of the few people I know who also usually is very sweet and kind. But I feel so many layers of sadness about this whole situation now. On one hand, yes I feel taken advantage of because I lent him more money than what we initially agreed on, even though he can’t pay me back the money in the promised time frame I have been tolerant with it, all I ask is that he communicates with me what’s happening but he says he can’t. He only uses his phone to message the guy he’s dating, emergencies and taking photos.

But AITA for messaging D to ask them to help me contact B because he owes me money instead of waiting a few more days? B says I have too much trauma and should have trusted him more. I am actually very traumatised but I feel like B should be more responsible in communicating to me about the money he owes me?