AITA for asking my best friend to pay me back the money our friend group owes me?
Hey Reddit. I (21M) am part of a close-knit friend group that’s known each other since elementary school. We argue a lot, but usually resolve things. Recently, though, two friends, Andrew and Trent, have caused ongoing issues while planning our group trip to Japan.
Over the past year, we all graduated and got stable, well-paying jobs, so we started planning our first big guys’ trip. We picked Japan and spent months organizing everything: hotels, attractions, reservations, budgets, etc. Since it’s expensive, we agreed everyone would immediately pay back whoever fronted the money so nobody was stuck with huge charges on their credit card.
When we booked hotels, everyone paid their share except Andrew and Trent. Trent at least communicated and paid me back after about two weeks. Andrew, however, ignored reminders, brushed the topic off, and never gave a timeline. After a month, another friend and I privately confronted him. We weren’t angry; we just wanted communication and even said we’d understand if he needed more time.
Instead, Andrew got defensive and started yelling that “it didn’t matter how long it took as long as he paid before the trip”. Then he literally said he was going to delay paying us back even longer because we brought it up. From then on, he’d pay people back whenever he felt like it. He eventually paid for the hotels two months later.
As we started booking activities, the same issue kept happening. Andrew & eventually Trent too would delay repayments, “forget,” or say things like “it hasn’t even been a week.” We constantly had to remind them. Trent even admitted he started doing it because he thought our reactions were funny.
Because of all this, I stopped putting my card down for group purchases. Recently, though, we realized we were late booking Universal Japan tickets and had to buy expensive passes to get into Nintendo World. My best friend Bob was buying tickets, but there was a 4-ticket limit, so someone else had to put down another card for the remaining tickets. Everyone immediately looked at me.
I refused because I didn’t want to deal with Andrew and Trent not paying me back. After arguing, Bob proposed a compromise: Andrew and Trent would repay Bob, while the other two friends would repay me. I reluctantly agreed.
The very next day, one friend accidentally paid Bob instead of me, so Bob told Andrew to pay me instead. Andrew immediately responded, “I don’t know, I don’t really feel like it all of a sudden.” Bob laughed and joked around with him instead of taking it seriously.
I got pissed because this was the exact situation I was trying to avoid. Half the group says I’m overreacting since they eventually pay people back. The other half agrees it’s disrespectful to deliberately delay repayment as a joke.
Am I overreacting, or are they taking this joke way too far?