Money. Some days, it seems simple enough. We trade our time and
skills for it, then trade it for things to eat and a place to
sleep. But other days? Money can get really, really weird. Take our
friend J, for example, who forgets their wallet when out with K. K
foots the bill, enthusiastically too, until three months later when
the debt's still unpaid, but K feels too uncomfortable to bring
it up. Suddenly what began as fifteen dollars balloons in
significance, a dime here to represent the fact that J's new
job pays him more than K's does, a quarter there becomes a
symbol of the fact J's even looking at condos.
The point is that financial matters between friends can get
awkward fast, especially in our 20s and 30s when a formerly
egalitarian peer group may see its members begin to earn higher
salaries for the first time, but not necessarily at the same rate.
We'd all like to think that money could never get in the way of
our personal relationships—it's just money,
