My best friend recently started an online shop, and at first, it seemed harmless enough. He asked me to “like” his page, which I was totally fine with. Then, it turned into “share this” requests. I understood that promotion is important for a new business, so I did it. But then, it got exhausting. He started messaging me literally every day, asking me to buy products I didn’t even need. I’m not going to lie—I even caved a few times and bought things because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
Eventually, I just got tired of the pressure. I started saying, “Hey, I’m busy, sorry,” and stopped replying so much. That is when he snapped. He told me, “You aren’t happy for my success!” I tried to smooth things over and even pretended to be supportive when he asked again.
But two days later, he showed up at my place crying. It turns out he was embarrassed because I had talked to a few of our mutual friends about feeling used, and they had all admitted to feeling the exact same way. One of them let it slip to him. Now, I feel awful because he was so upset, but at the same time, I feel like he pushed it too far. Where is the line between supporting a friend and feeling exploited? I wonder if I should have just kept going along with it to avoid hurting him.
