Tweet
I take part in a number of hobbies- cosplay, poi dancing, swordplay, and the like.
I've got a friend who is something of a wannabe at these things.
She wants to spin poi, so I made her a set of furry tribble-poi to play with.
She almost never practices, so her spinning is clumsy at best- flailing, really.
Sometimes I like to bring glow-poi with me to various nighttime events. For the record, LED-driven glow poi are rather expensive, if you want well made ones with replacable batteries. On average, they can cost between $40-60 for a pair.
At some of these events, my friend has pretty much insisted on being allowed to play with my poi. I don't like this- one, she is a poor spinner, and I'm worried she will either damage my poi or hit somebody. And two- if I say no, then she will be upset and offended, making me out to be stingy for not sharing.
This past week, we had Bridgewalk in our city. One of our two suspension bridges gets shut down to traffic, and pedestrians get the run of the entire deck. It's fun, and my friends and I love to go in full cosplay. My friend and I wore our Jedi robes. Now, my friend seems to have misplaced her lightsaber, and could not find it in time.
I have a really nice pair that I got recently- copper hilts that I wrapped in leather. They're the latest additions to a decent sized saber collection, and I was planning to bring them both (I'm a dual-wielder).
The night before bridgewalk, my friend asked if she could borrow a saber in case hers didn't turn up. But it was how she asked that got under my skin. "I can just use one of yours, right? After all, you have two!"
Like I said, this irritated me. I was planning to bring two sabers for a reason, and on top of that, I only recently got them and it was my first time bringing them out for a cosplay. So I wanted to enjoy them. But the manner in which my friend asked annoyed me- it came across as entitlement- "what's yours is mine, and if you refuse, you're selfish".
Now, I did find another saber for my friend to use- an older plastic-hilted one. I mentioned I do saber-spinning? My friend is NOT good at it at all, yet a few times during bridgewalk, she tried anyway, usually when I was out of sight. She only fessed up later that she had dropped my saber onto the bridge deck several times while playing with it. That pee'd me off. If it's not your toy, then don't use it for practicing tricks you can't do, especially when your practice involves repeated drops onto a hard surface. Luckily my saber's not damaged.
And now we're probably going to go out again this coming week, being buskerfest and all. I don't know if my friend will cosplay, as it's supposed to be warm. If she does, she's gonna want my sabers again, and this time I may have to tell her no. They're my brand-new toys, and I don't want them dropped or broken. That and I would really like to enjoy them myself.
Am I being stingy and mean, or does my friend need to get a job and buy her own toys, and quit manhandling mine?
(She's on assistance, has not worked in years)
I've got a friend who is something of a wannabe at these things.
She wants to spin poi, so I made her a set of furry tribble-poi to play with.
She almost never practices, so her spinning is clumsy at best- flailing, really.
Sometimes I like to bring glow-poi with me to various nighttime events. For the record, LED-driven glow poi are rather expensive, if you want well made ones with replacable batteries. On average, they can cost between $40-60 for a pair.
At some of these events, my friend has pretty much insisted on being allowed to play with my poi. I don't like this- one, she is a poor spinner, and I'm worried she will either damage my poi or hit somebody. And two- if I say no, then she will be upset and offended, making me out to be stingy for not sharing.
This past week, we had Bridgewalk in our city. One of our two suspension bridges gets shut down to traffic, and pedestrians get the run of the entire deck. It's fun, and my friends and I love to go in full cosplay. My friend and I wore our Jedi robes. Now, my friend seems to have misplaced her lightsaber, and could not find it in time.
I have a really nice pair that I got recently- copper hilts that I wrapped in leather. They're the latest additions to a decent sized saber collection, and I was planning to bring them both (I'm a dual-wielder).
The night before bridgewalk, my friend asked if she could borrow a saber in case hers didn't turn up. But it was how she asked that got under my skin. "I can just use one of yours, right? After all, you have two!"
Like I said, this irritated me. I was planning to bring two sabers for a reason, and on top of that, I only recently got them and it was my first time bringing them out for a cosplay. So I wanted to enjoy them. But the manner in which my friend asked annoyed me- it came across as entitlement- "what's yours is mine, and if you refuse, you're selfish".
Now, I did find another saber for my friend to use- an older plastic-hilted one. I mentioned I do saber-spinning? My friend is NOT good at it at all, yet a few times during bridgewalk, she tried anyway, usually when I was out of sight. She only fessed up later that she had dropped my saber onto the bridge deck several times while playing with it. That pee'd me off. If it's not your toy, then don't use it for practicing tricks you can't do, especially when your practice involves repeated drops onto a hard surface. Luckily my saber's not damaged.
And now we're probably going to go out again this coming week, being buskerfest and all. I don't know if my friend will cosplay, as it's supposed to be warm. If she does, she's gonna want my sabers again, and this time I may have to tell her no. They're my brand-new toys, and I don't want them dropped or broken. That and I would really like to enjoy them myself.
Am I being stingy and mean, or does my friend need to get a job and buy her own toys, and quit manhandling mine?
(She's on assistance, has not worked in years)
To make matters worse, my friend's saber hilt actually cost over $100 when we bought it a few years ago. And since she is on assistance, she cannot afford to easily relplace it.
Comment