▶ Your Answer :
An intriguing topic of discussion at hand is whether financial loans between friends harm the friendship. The answer to this question can vary greatly depending on individuals’ perspectives. In my opinion, I am complete in agreement with the statement that loaning financially between friends has negative impact on their friendship for two major reasons as follows. First off, loans borrowed from friends are not taken seriously compared to the same situation in business. This is due to the fact that if people make a loan from their friends, people usually do not think they are obligated to pay it back as soon as possible because there are not any written documents or certain rules to be kept. On the contrary, in business situation, both lenders and borrowers agreed to create legal documents which contain a lot of provisions to be kept. In this context, the friend who borrowed money from another friend might neglect to turn the money back and this might damage their friendship. The best example to illustrate this point is my personal story when I was in college. At that time, one of my close friends is in trouble because of a financial problem and asked me to borrow money. I trusted our friendship and I was so sure that he would give the money back soon, so I agreed to lend him money. However, after that, whenever I encountered him in school, he avoided me and did not want to return it making an excuse of our close friendship. I was so disappointed by this kind of his irresponsible attitude and finally our relationship was over. As seen in this case, financial transactions between friends might destroy one’s friendship. Furthermore, making loans between friends change their relationship from horizontal one to vertical one. To be specific, in usual business situation, lender is one who has a right to ask to return their money and borrower is one who needs to seek for help. Therefore, in reality, it is normally considered that a lender has power and borrower is on a weak side. If this applies to friends’ relationships, horizontal relationships of friends change to vertical one. According to the research conducted by Ministry of Workforce in Korea regarding loans between friends, two thirds of respondents answered that they are reluctant to make financial exchanges between friends because it might ruin their relationship. More surprisingly, it is revealed that the main reason they answered like this was because borrowers feel sorry and guilty to their friends lending money. Like this, relationship between friends might be awkward if they are involved financially. For the reasons stated above, I firmly believe that financial transactions between friends damage their relationship.
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