So last weekend I moved into a new apartment. I’m not great at asking for help, but my friend “Darren” kept insisting that if I needed anything, he had my back. He repeated this several times over the past month, so I finally asked if he could help me move a few boxes since he has a truck. He said absolutely, bro, don’t worry about it. I ordered lunch for both of us ahead of time as a thank you, bought extra water, cleared the path… the whole thing. Well, the day arrives and he shows up two hours late, already annoyed because traffic was annoying. He then proceeds to spend most of the time on his phone, scrolling and complaining about being tired. I ended up carrying almost everything myself. He moved maybe two boxes, and one of them he dropped on my hallway floor because he was holding it with one hand while texting. After about an hour he said he had another thing to get to and left. I thanked him anyway because I didn’t want to make it weird. Later that night he texted me You can send me like $80 for today. Moving help isn’t free lol. At first I thought he was kidding, he literally told me multiple times that he was happy to help, ate the lunch I bought, used my AC to cool off, and then did maybe 5 minutes of actual work. When I didn’t respond immediately, he followed up with If you don’t wanna pay, just say so. It’s kinda rude. I told him I didn’t feel comfortable paying someone who barely helped and left early, especially when he volunteered in the first place. He got mad and said I was taking advantage of him. Now he’s not speaking to me and mutual friends are split. A few think he’s being ridiculous, but one person said I should’ve thrown him something because a truck isn’t free. I genuinely don’t think I did anything wrong. I paid for lunch, I did 95% of the work, and he offered. But now I’m starting to wonder if people usually pay friends for this kind of thing. AITA?
NTA. Like you said, he volunteered. Even if he did all the work himself, he volunteered. You can’t set the price after the work is done (unless you both agreed to that style of arrangement). His actions are manipulative. He wasn’t actually offering to help; he was setting you up to be in his debt.
No offense, but your friend is not very smart. $80 for an hour, and he was late??? Give me a break, I wouldn’t send him a dime. NTA.
NTA People don’t help their friends and then ask for payment. They only ask for payment from customers.
So either you are a friend or a customer.
If you were a customer, he would have invoiced you ahead of time.
Since he did not do so, then he is treating you like a friend.
Since he apparently shakes down his friends… he is a bad friend and you could consider upgrading him to someone better.