“Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”
And so goes the oft-quoted advice in Hamlet, where a father gives his just-off-to-France son a concise set of rules by which to live his newly free life.
However well quoted that is, I reckon Shakespeare was wrong. I’ve always been a keen borrower and a lender of things. It’s the friendly, economical way of living your life, especially in these days of tight belts and wallets.
Why don’t we start with borrowing first? Being able to borrow from a friend is a measure of friendship. They are saying that they trust you with that gadget, that tool, that bike and that you’re trusted to return it, either after the loan period if there is one, or when they ask for it. You’re not buying it or renting it. It’s still theirs, but you get to use it. This goes on more than you think, as the world of friendship is often one of micro-loans: ‘I’ll buy the pies, you get them next time/Need a lift to Sunday’s ride? See you at eight, you can play taxi next time…’
As a borrower, this can save you small amounts of money. It might be that you will only ever need a Shimano direct-mount chainring tool once or twice in your life and buying one will cost you half the price of a new chainring. Borrowing the tool from a friend makes sense for that one occasion.
It may also save you huge amounts of money. I spent thousands on a ’50s car in my youth. I had it for six or seven years and it eventually became my house deposit when I sold it for what I paid for it. However, I’d have been completely satisfied with borrowing a Cadillac for a fortnight if I could have. I don’t reckon that the ensuing years of ownership and maintenance increased my pleasure in it over that first week of joyriding. It can be the same with a titanium frame, or a low-fat e-bike. Massively expensive to buy, yet it might just take a couple of rides to sell you (or not) on the benefits of that particular bike. And quite often, I’ve found, the owners of fancy things enjoy seeing them appreciated by other people.
If you own a fancy bike, car, house, watch, whatever… every time you use it, your appreciation for it dulls just a tiny bit. That ‘first ride’ joy can only be felt on that first ride. After a year, your dream bike is just your bike. Seeing someone else overjoyed with the bike you barely notice any more can remind you just how cool it was, and it still is.
The argument against lending stuff out is that you might never get the things back that you lend out, which then leads you to fall out with the friend who borrowed them. And back in Shakespeare’s days, ‘lending’ probably only meant money, as not everyone had torque wrenches, shock pumps or PlayStations to lend out like we do today. Today, though, unless you live in a bright white, minimal, 100-items-or-fewer stark household, you probably have sheds full of stuff that you rarely use. It includes things that you tried and fell out of love with, like that BMX, those cross-country skis or those kettlebells. Or, things you’ve upgraded, while still keeping the old thing ‘just in case’. Hence the old PlayStation 4 when you have the new one, or the 140mm forks just in case you decide that 150mm isn’t for you. And why do you need three track pumps?
In these situations, I reckon that it’s better to get lending these things out while they’re still vaguely useful and in date. How many of us still have 26 or 27.5in wheels we were saving for some reason or other? Lending those things out is easier than getting around to writing an eBay listing to sell them for a disappointing amount. And at least this way, your friend is getting use out of your old stuff and, while it’s still technically yours, are you really going to ask for it back?