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The friend who borrows and forgets: a field guide
Every friend group has one. You probably love yours. I love mine, whose name is Benny, and who currently owes me $35 for a phone charger, $18 for a burrito, a hardcover he swears he gave back, and, if we’re being thorough, half of an Uber from a wedding in 2024.
Benny is not a con artist. That’s what makes him such an interesting specimen. He’s actually one of the most generous people I know. He’ll help you move a couch on a Saturday with no notice. He remembers my birthday better than my own mother does. He just has absolutely no recall for money that leaves someone else’s wallet on his behalf. It’s not that he refuses to pay. The information never gets stored in the first place.
After years of close observation, I feel qualified to offer this field guide.
Identifying the species
The forgetful borrower can be recognized by a few telltale behaviors. The most common is the pat-down. At the register, he’ll pat his front pockets and then his back pockets with a look of genuine surprise, as if wallets are a brand-new concept to him. “Ugh, I left it in the car. Can you get this one?”
Another sign is the sincere promise. The forgetful borrower always says “I’ll pay you back” with complete conviction, and he means it every time. The issue isn’t the promise. It’s that the promise evaporates the moment the conversation moves on to anything else, like whether the Bears have a shot this year, or a dog walking by.
You’ll also notice that the forgetful borrower is often the first to grab a check when he does remember his wallet. This confuses people. He’s not cheap. He’s just running on a completely different internal accounting system, one that is roughly “vibes.”
Habitat and behavior
The forgetful borrower thrives in group settings, where costs get split loosely and nobody’s quite tracking who covered what. Concerts and road trips are prime territory. He’s rarely spotted borrowing large amounts, which is part of what makes him so hard to address. It’s always $12 here and $20 there. No single amount is worth a conversation. Together, they quietly turn into a small car payment.
I think this is the trickiest thing about the species. Because each loan is small, bringing one up feels petty. So you don’t. And he doesn’t remember. And six months later you’re out $140 and feeling weirdly resentful toward someone who’d probably give you a kidney if you asked.
Gentle handling
The good news is that the forgetful borrower is very easy to handle once you accept what you’re dealing with. He isn’t avoiding you. He just needs a reminder, and he’ll usually pay instantly, with an apology and probably a joke.
The trick is reminding him while the memory’s still fresh, or at least specific enough that he can picture it. “You owe me money” will get a blank stare. “You owe me $18 for the burrito from Thursday, the one with the extra guac” will get an “oh no, you’re right” and a Venmo within the minute. Details are everything with this species.
I’ve also learned to keep a running tally instead of treating each little loan as its own crisis. It’s so much easier to say “hey, I’ve got you at $53 total” once in a while than to chase a pile of separate tiny amounts. Some people use a notes app for this. Apps like OweMate do it too, keeping one running balance per person, and on an iPhone with Apple Intelligence it can even draft a polite reminder for you, which is handy when you can’t figure out how to ask Benny for money for the fourth time without sounding exasperated.
Here’s roughly what I sent him last month:
Hey! Doing my monthly tally. You’re at $53 for the charger and the burrito. No stress, Venmo whenever.
He replied with “WAIT the burrito was YOURS??” and then sent me $60 with the note “for the burrito and emotional damages.”
A word of caution. Do not try to cure the forgetful borrower. He cannot be changed, and honestly, I’m not sure you’d want him to be. Part of his charm is that he’s the guy who forgets small things because he’s busy noticing other things, like that you seemed down last week, or that your favorite band is coming to town. A gentle reminder system is all you need. You keep the numbers. He keeps being Benny.
He still owes me half of that wedding Uber. At this point I think of it as a family heirloom.
The OweMate blog is written by the people who make OweMate, a simple way to keep track of money between friends and family.