sponsoring

Verb: The act of providing support which is usually financial. The act of being a sponsor (often reluctantly) while out with a group of "friends" where one or more seem to consistently carry less cash than you and/or others in your group. Often sponsoring is voluntary and is planned by the group. For example: A few guys taking turns buying rounds of drinks. Or, a pre-understanding that one of the group has voluntarily offered to buy dinner, drinks, etc while out this time. Except in the case of voluntary sponsoring described above, the sponsoree is generally suspected of purposely carrying less money, with the expectation that one of their (soon to be alienated) friends will wind up sponsoring them (lending them money) at the last minute usually facilitated by the impaired judgment of the prospective sponsor. The reluctant sponsor later feels taken & curses himself as he realizes the sponsoree will take weeks to pay him back and that the money will assuredly come from another of his friends.