Should you be required to splash out for a friend’s birthday dinner?

Sometimes birthdays get out of hand. I know I’ve been there. Maybe you have that friend who has fancy taste, and you know that when their birthday rolls around, things might get a little crazy. They’re going to want to go to a nice restaurant, and just because they picked it doesn’t mean they’re going to cover the bill. If you have a friend like this, you might have ways of coping with it. You might have money set aside for when their events come up. But friendship is worth spending money on. It’s a good thing to spend a little cash on some memories that will last you a lifetime. It’s actually a pretty good setup. If you don’t spend your money on this kind of thing, then what are you going to spend it on? Everything deserves to be celebrated, and the closest people in your life are included in that. If you’re not willing to spend on that, then you might have to draw some boundaries around your friendships. And you might lose some friendships in the process. If you’re constantly counting yourself out of things, even things that you can afford, this is not a long-term strategy for making connections and keeping them. That’s what was happening here, in this pair of friends who were hitting a rough spot when it came to one of their birthdays.