u/Coconut_Scrambled

This is a slightly old story but it's been bugging me and I finally decided to ask it here.

So right out of college, me (who was 22M at the time) and four of my friends rented a flat together in Bangalore. We knew each other from back home in different ways- school friends, college friends, neighbors back home etc. Since we were all placed in the same company my friend's dad suggested and all five of us rented a 2BHK flat together.

A few months later, one of my friends got an opportunity to go to US as a temporary on-site for three months. Since he's eventually coming back and his things will remain there, naturally I assumed that he'll keep paying his share of the rent even in those three months. However, in the dinner that we went out to to celebrate his posting, he vaguely hinted that he's not going to be paying the rent for those three months and this surprised me. What surprised me even more is that the other three guys seemed to be okay with that.

So later I talked to those three about it and the exchanges were frustrating. They went something like this:

Their reasoning: He's not staying here so he shouldn't be paying rent.

Me: Well that's not how renting works. You pay rent whether or not you use something if you rent it.

Them: But we're friends. We should help each other out like that.

Me: Why are we helping him out? It's not like he's gonna have to pay rent in US since he's getting company accommodation

Them: Him getting company accommodation is none of our business

Me: If that's the logic, if I go on a week's vacation with my family, will you be okay if I don't pay the rent for that week?

Them: (after laughing at me) So basically you're bringing this up because you want us to refund your rent for when you went on that vacation?

Me: I still don't understand why we're supporting him "financially". He's going to US for the betterment of his career. True that he's still getting paid in Indian salary but it's just for three months. It's not like he's struggling or anything

Them: Now you're just being jealous that you didn't get that opportunity

I wanted to talk to the guy going directly because this did bother me. The rent share wasn't that high but the principle was absurd. But then like I said, these guys are friends from back home and I didn't want to sour the relationship so I just let it go even though I very much didn't want to. This was several years ago and it still bugs me though. AITK here?