Questions: Family & Friends

Had a boyhood friend, that I 'grew up" with that was the biggest money grubbing SOB you could ever imagine, and took every opportunity to make certain that 'some one else' paid for 'gas, or anything else involved in a 'night out", including any 'gaming' machine costs, pool table cost etc.

We had a mutual 'acquaintance' whose family was an 'heir' to the Saalfield Publishing Company, fortune, in Akron, Ohio, in that he got a monthly check from the estate of the Saalfield family fortune, and my 'friend' knew that and would go out on a Friday or Saturday night, drinking and partying on 'our friend's" money, and never offered to pay a dime.

I wised up to this 'sponge', quickly, and learned to see that he paid his SHARE of whatever we spent on a 'night out' with the 'boys', but it seems the other guy was somewhat lonely, and had few friends and allowed this unscrupulous jerk to 'leach' off of him.

On the flip side, I had a work associate here in California, that was from Pakistan, and he was the absolute antithesis of my 'sponge' boyhood friend, and this man refused to let me pay when we went out to lunch, during our work time.

Have you ever had a so-called-sponge "friend' like I describe above, and if so how did you handle it? Did you just shut him off as a "party person" or just 'dump; him as a friend, or did you find a way to make him pay up when he/she should have?