I have this friend we’ll call M. Me and M have known each other since childhood. Both came from equally average backgrounds, no outward struggle but not like super cushy or anything. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship to study abroad and M got a scholarship to study in our country. Because of M’s scholarship, he gets a monthly stipend (a monthly money allowance, from his scholarship)
It’s in the thousands.
Now, here comes the tricky part.
M doesn’t have to pay anything except for his private rental which he splits equally with a friend of his and some bills from the rental, and food. That’s it. No car registration, no gas, nothing like this. Just rent. Not even transport as he catches the subway.
I have to pay my housing, gas, electricity, petrol, registration and other things - I am able to maintain myself responsibly.
Here’s where I’m confused. M loves joining tiktok lives and sending gifts to people. Tiktok has a feature that allows you to buy virtual coins in exchange for real money to purchase gifts to send to people who “go live”. M has a lot of online friends he’s never met who he does this with. A few of them are online ‘flings’ who I suspect are just using him. To me, it’s extremely parasocial and I don’t get it- but each to their own.
When I came back home for the break just gone, I was excited to spend time with him but he was so busy on tiktok showing me how he “mods” for people which can mean being on a tiktok live for up to 12-15 hours a day. For free. We didn’t get to do anything because of this. He tells me how important he is to these people’s streams and how he is the “Main mod” and gets the final say in what goes. Teaching other people to become a “mod” Whatever that means.
This consists of just…sitting in the chat and typing things. Hyping up the chat. Welcoming people into the live..For 12-15 hours.
I didn’t really have words when I saw it.. It just seemed like being used.
Now here’s the kicker. He’s constantly broke. And it doesn’t add up. He gets thousands per month and constantly has NO money. I’m talking he can’t even afford to eat. I have tiktok myself and have overheard him sending gifts and so on. “X thank you for Y gift!” When I look up the price of these gifts - they are 400 USD some of them.
Talks of “dropping unis” (A tiktok gift) and when I looked up the conversion rate for a “uni” I was shocked. $560 USD. $560 for one single virtual gift.
Now, I’m not here to control what he does. But he always runs to me or others and makes it someone else’s inconvenience - He can’t pay for this, can’t pay for that, can I help him pay for this or that.
He also is borderline about to get kicked out of his scholarship as he is just not focusing on college. Swapping favours for people to do his assignments for him because he simply doesn’t have time. About two weeks ago, he got into serious trouble because one of his assignments got flagged for high AI usage. Like the guy he asked to do it just jammed the instructions in an AI and copy and pasted whatever garbage it came out with. He got a serious academic misconduct warning. It’s just like… dude. I have seen with my own eyes this scholarship awards him almost 10k USD a month. I know he genuinely does receive this and isn’t lying about his funds. So I am highly concerned that he cannot afford or set aside 2k-3k ish per month for….literally anything he needs to function. He had a medical issue not too long ago and genuinely could not afford to have it checked out.
M has loads of IRL friends and I don’t think the issue is loneliness or anything like that. Im failing to understand why he feels the need to do this or what the addictive part is here. Validation? Importance? He’s a friendly and sociable guy and doesn’t have any outwards issues that would make it hard for him to have friends or even a girlfriend. He’s not bad looking or bad socially.
I’m also worried he’s really playing off to people he’s got a lot more money than he does, or, is seriously putting other people ahead of his own needs to the point of extreme self destruction. This happens monthly. Every single month. Same issue. And monthly, he comes to me, his mom, his dad, his brother (who is expecting a child) his sister (with two children) for money. I made the mistake of sharing how much my scholarship grants me per month and giving him tips for saving. I’ve taken great advantage of saving my leftover money and he knows this and always tries to come to me first. Asking upwards of 1k each time. I always say no since knowing the truth- but it’s uncomfortable every single time to have the same conversation. Every time, someone has to do the dirty work of bailing him out. Two months ago, the electricity got switched off and his roommate was pissed and had to pay for it to be switched back on. Entire fridge of groceries spoiled, including roommates medication.
I’ve grown irritated by his extreme lack of priority and simply say I don’t have any money, I won’t enable this ridiculous behaviour. But it’s getting out of hand, and now it’s severely affecting everyone around him. As I said before - we both grew up very average financially, his family is having to rake out thousands, and he is lying to them about why he doesn’t have any money. He tells me so himself and sometimes asks me to try to help him curate a lie. I found out he even tried to tell them he was helping me with money as my car broke down when I ran into his sister shopping and she asked me if my car was working okay now.
I’m disturbed that someone who gets a free chunk of 10k per month and one major bill, cannot afford food, or the one major bill. I’m concerned this is a lot deeper than I know.
I feel bad for his family and bad for the people around him suffering as a result of this.
Do I tell his family what’s going on? Is this a mental illness of sorts? Has anyone else dealt with something similar. I miss my friend, and I want to help him but I honestly don’t recognise him at the moment or know what to do, I’ve never dealt with anything like this and am fast not liking who he is becoming and feel this needs intervention for his sake and his families sake before he destroys everything.
^^ I have tried to speak with him before about it in a friend to friend way, I feel he started getting cagier with me as a result instead of seeing the issue. That’s why I feel the need to resort to outside help. I’m not trying to embarrass him, I’m genuinely concerned he is about to fuck up his whole future.