Do you accept "Charity"

[Martin]

Talking more on a one to one basis.... not a charity organisation basis.

I learnt early on, through my brother and friends, when you have no money and they want you to come along and be involved... they offer to pay for you... coz they can.

I found this hard to accept at first, but my brother explained it to me, (before that film of "pass it on" came about) ... We / I want you to be there, money is not everything...

The main thing is that you can join in.

I have benefited from this many times...

In the last few years I have offered to pay for friends to come to meals, dance weekenders, holidays etc. when they say they cannot come due to money.

Mostly people refuse

This coming weekender I extended the offer to someone who I like dancing with, she has said yes, and I am sure she will have a great time.
She did check with me, a few days later that there was not an "expectation" , and I assured her there was no "sexual expectation" it was just that I can afford it and would like you to come.

All good, and I am so happy.

My thoughts being, when I am short of cash people help out if they want me to go, if my friends are short of cash I help out (with no expectations) ...

Thing is, some people get hung up on this... which makes me rather sad... as they are missing out, and I am missing out on their company.


What are your thoughts?

[Jamie]

Completely agree with you, if I can't afford something my friends normally try to help me out as best they can, and I do the same for them.

[Double Trouble]

I paid for my best friend to come on holiday with me to Greece about 15 years ago. She was skint and I didn't want to go away on my own, so I was doing myself a favour really. She said she would pay me back, but I knew she couldn't afford to, so I never expected her to...and she didn't.

It may have cost me £450, but I ended up living in Greece for the whole of the next year as a result of that holiday and had the best year of my life.

God..or is it Santa...works in mysterious ways.

[Miss Molly]

I think its really great that someone will accept the generosity of a friend so that they can enjoy something together - if I offered I'd be pleased that someone accepted! But I would struggle to accept an offer myself! I can't work out why I feel that way, I suspect is something to to do with fairness (giving back what you receive) and independence, but I have always been one to prefer the joy of giving and not taking.

The prime example in my life was offering to bring up my 14yr old sister (7 years my junior), for which I received no financial support. I didn't have a well-paid job and struggled but I have never regretted it - she got a good education and now has a great job she loves. I didn't do it because she's my sister, I did it because she's someone I treasure like a best friend.

The flipside was that my long-term relationship fizzled out because he was affluent, I was not and couldn't bring myself to allow him to pay for me all the time. But karma kicking in, when we split up and I moved out of our home, my sister was the first to offer me a room! (And I was much happier living with her anyway! ).

[Martin]

I think its really great that someone will accept the generosity of a friend so that they can enjoy something together - if I offered I'd be pleased that someone accepted! But I would struggle to accept an offer myself!

I guess this is the point... I often said no to my brother and friends.. but they beat it out of me and told me I was "selfish" not to accept I found this rather harsh , until they explained that is was my company they were after... They just wanted me to be part of the group and my personal finance had nothing to do with it.

I can't work out why I feel that way, I suspect is something to to do with fairness (giving back what you receive) and independence, but I have always been one to prefer the joy of giving and not taking.

So maybe, sometimes, one needs to enable "the joy in giving" for others.

The prime example in my life was offering to bring up my 14yr old sister (7 years my junior), for which I received no financial support. I didn't have a well-paid job and struggled but I have never regretted it - she got a good education and now has a great job she loves. I didn't do it because she's my sister, I did it because she's someone I treasure like a best friend.

The flipside was that my long-term relationship fizzled out because he was affluent, I was not and couldn't bring myself to allow him to pay for me all the time.

I had a similar thing, with a very affluent girlfriend.
I was in a good job, but could never keep up with the lifestyle she had.
Must admit, I felt a bit bad when she insisted on paying, so I could be with her Guilty as charged... I added up all the things she paid for in my head and 6 years later, offered to give it back to her...

Needless to say (but I will anyway) she refused.

But karma kicking in, when we split up and I moved out of our home, my sister was the first to offer me a room! (And I was much happier living with her anyway! ).

cool

[Icey]

I'm very bad at it.

I was brought up with very strong "pay your own way" and "if you can't afford it save until you can" opinions that result in my finding it very difficult to accept others paying for things for me.

I was always told that no-one gives anything away for free and that there is likely to be an "expectation" (of some sort) upon me for anything that I did accept.

[Miss Flicts]

If my friend was skint and I wanted them to come along to something, I would definitely offer to pay for them if I could afford it - both of us would be benefitting, so everyone's a winner. Simple!!....

BUT.. when I thought about it the other way round (if a friend paid for me), I would feel very uncomfortable and would be very keen to pay them back as quickly as possible - I wouldn't be able to just accept it as a gift. I'm not even sure why I'd feel like that - seems silly, because I do think it's a practical problem-free idea in theory.