WWYD: Watching Someone You Know Steal

In this installment of “What Would You Do?,” a woman finds herself at the scene of a crime.

I was with my now ex-boyfriend in Argentina, visiting his grandmother in the ugliest city I’ve ever been to. We stopped at a bank to use the ATM and there was a guy in front of us. When it was our turn, we realized the guy in front of us left his card in the machine and it was asking, “Do you want another transaction?” Before I could do anything, my boyfriend hit “yes” and took out $300 Argentine pesos, at the time around $100 USD, and put the card in his pocket.

I argued that this was wrong and I wouldn’t use that money, and freaked out that this guy might come back for his card and beat/kill us. I immediately took out money from my own card, and left. We fought for hours over this, breaking up and getting back together. I was six hours from home in a city I had never been to, and this scared the hell out of me. I had no idea where the bus station was. We were in Argentina for two more days, and then his parents were driving us back to Chile, where we lived. How do you turn in your boyfriend/ride home when you don’t even know how to call the police? Do you turn in a loved one who does this?

We did break up for real a week later, and I was worried that every time my passport got checked at a border, they would somehow know that I took out money from that ATM, and was with the guy who stole somebody else’s money. — A.

WHAT. That was my reaction when I received this WWYD in my inbox. I mean, this is pretty cut and dry, right? If I were this woman, I would also want to break up with this dude — a thief! And not even the Robin Hood-kind with possibly good intentions for his thievery. I would have loved to hear what his defense for stealing that money was, because, boy, no matter what you say, you’re a thief.

Is stealing money from an ATM a dealbreaker? Yes. Add that to the list of dealbreakers. I probably wouldn’t have turned him into the police, but I would have certainly told his parents about his stealing. It’s tough being in a foreign city on your own, but I would have also asked around for directions to the bus station and found my own way home, because I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my trip arguing with this guy. What would you do?

Email me your WWYD experiences to me with “WWYD” in the subject line. See previous installments.

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