Salutations to the Petty Potato queen, and fellow Chili pepper child, Charlotte and her loyal potato croquettes! I hope this finds you all doing absolutely fantastic! I have seen a few videos about friends lending friends and family members things and Charlotte's no borrowing boundaries due to personal issues in the past. Buckle up friends, because I have a horror story as to why I have my own boundaries.
This happened several years ago when a very dear friend (F) of mine and I (35F), (23at the time) went out for the night and she knows I have some cute little hand bags, clutches, and little crossbody bags with built in compartments and wallets, as well as little shawls and jackets that are easily able to be folded up to put into said bags. She asked me if she could borrow my favorite purple wristlet clutch as it matched her outfit, we'd get ready by her and leave our regular purses at hers and take out what was needed when we went out and put it in our little bags. I told her she absolutely could borrow my favorite going out bag, but at the end of the night, I'd like it back. She was a bit hurt, and asked if I thought of her as untrustworthy about lending her my things, as this wasn't the first time I've done that. I told her that it absolutely had nothing to do with her or my trust in her it was from past experiences with other friends and former friends.
She understood, but asked me what happened to push me to my breaking point about my same day/end of the evening rule. I told her aside from old friends of mine who would borrow my things and never return them, lose my things and not replace them, or give them back months later completely destroyed. The day that finally broke me was in my junior year of high school.... I had a friend who acted like a good girl, by lying to her parents that she was out with friends and going to sleep over at a friend's house afterwards on Friday nights, meanwhile she was out on a date and getting down with the get down after the fact and staying over by her secret boyfriends house.... I had this adorable black, lacey skirt that hit just above the knee that my mom bought me mainly for choir concerts and just to have something nice to wear in general. I absolutely loved this skirt, it had a vintage flare to it, so it was kind of a wiggle style, but not as tight so it was still age appropriate. I loved this skirt. Whelp, this old friend asked if she could borrow my skirt for her date. I was hesitant at first, but, this friend hadn't been careless with my things in the past, so I agreed..... Que Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" saying; "Big mistake, huge!!" I proceeded to tell my now friend how on Monday, she gave me my skirt back.... Tell me why this girl didn't look it over and wash it after borrowing my skirt and return it to me in a horrifying state.... She Monika Lewinskyed my God damned skirt! She screwed her then boyfriend in my skirt and heels... It was everywhere... It was crunchy and disgusting.... I yelled at her for doing that, I told her; "not only did you stretch out my skirt! You defiled it and thought it was okay to return it to me like this?! You didn't think to wash it??? It's not dry clean only, you couldn't run it on delicates??? What the actual fucknuggets is wrong with you?! Keep it, keep it! I have to wash my hands!!!"
You could have heard a pin drop, I thought the call dropped because my friend was so quiet. I said: "Hello?" And my friend made a wretching noise and said; "I'm here! 'wretch noises'. Oh my God in heaven!!!! That's disgusting! What on earth made her think that was okay?!" I told her I didn't know and I never told my mom what happened, I lied and told her she lost it. Her sister stole it and she felt awful that she couldn't find it.... And she never replaced it or offered compensation for it.... That's when I decided that if I can't get it back the same day or at the end of the evening, I flat out refuse to lend anyone my things. I don't care how much I love you, if I can't have it back at the end of the day or end of the night, you're not using my shit. She completely understood why I was weird about my things and said how sorry she was to hear that I went through that and she doesn't blame me for my boundaries on my things now.
So, potato queen and community, that's why I have the boundaries I have about allowing anyone to borrow anything of mine. I hope nothing like that happened to any of you. Set your boundaries, always!!!!