I can’t afford my friends anymore

“Hello! Dost, there’s a new restaurant in Gulshan. Let’s go this weekend!”  It sounds like an exciting invitation until we start calculating how much saying “Yes” is going to cost. We rehearse excuses like they are Oscar-worthy performances — “I have a family problem.” “I am not feeling well.” But the truth? We would love to come; our wallet just RSVP’d a "No".

There comes a point in life when we silently realise we can no longer afford our friends, not because we love them any less, but because our wallets simply cannot keep up with our social lives.

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The problem is not that our friends are trying to bankrupt us. It’s that adulthood comes with wildly different salaries, spending habits, and priorities, yet we often discover ourselves pretending like we are all working with the same bank balance.

Imagine how much easier life would be if we could simply say, "Can we pick somewhere cheaper?” or “This month is a bit tight for me.”

There’s a high chance someone else in the same group chat is secretly hoping to say the same thing. Not everyone arrives at adulthood with the same relationship with money. Some of us grew up celebrating every small purchase which we were thinking about buying for 6 months, while others never had to think twice before ordering it.

Neither experience is wrong; it’s just different money stories.

Spending habits often come from upbringing — not just their salary, so understanding that will help us replace judgement with empathy. The friend who insists on saving every receipt is not actually stingy, and the one who spends casually and plans a foreign trip during lunch is not necessarily showing off.

Perhaps that is why having a diverse circle of friends silently keeps us grounded. Spending time with people of different ages, careers, and socioeconomic backgrounds reminds us that for different people, the “normal” lifestyle definition is different. One group celebrates birthdays with homemade cakes, someone books a whole restaurant, and another is perfectly happy sharing a cup of tea from the roadside.

Sometimes the kindest soul is not the one who reserves a fancy restaurant but the one who says, “Let’s find a place where everyone is comfortable.”

After all, the friendships worth keeping are never built on overpriced coffee or Instagram-worthy brunch photos. If your friendship only survives based on the expensive restaurant, then the bill is not your problem. The best friendships still laugh over shared street food, long walks, and/or conversations with a cup of tea that cost absolutely nothing.