Favor Debt

Newsletter 2023-07-13

There’s nothing more dangerous than owing someone a favor. It’s a vague, open-ended obligation with no price or limit attached. Yet without favors, society would collapse. The cheap part of it, anyway, which is where I spend all my time. These risky non-monetary IOUs only exist because people like me are too miserly to pay for things in the first place. Why fork over money for professional movers when you can just guilt your buddies into helping out? People wonder why friendships die off as we get older. It’s not because we lose the desire for a genuine connection; it’s because our backs can’t handle carrying sleeper sofas up two flights of stairs anymore. Better to swear off human contact altogether than to risk being asked to help load yet another U-Haul.

I’m the worst favor abuser of all. As the thriftiest man alive, I’m more than willing to take advantage of the free services of others now for the ill-defined promise of reciprocation in the future. Recently, my lack of foresight came back to bite me. Someone had the gall to ask me to do the most egregious of favors in return and my whole world came crashing down.