Money Or Principle?

I got into a right interesting mess today. It's one of the messes that is typical of what I tend to do when half asleep: violate my own rules. Now, this was a matter of an item I had for sale, and I got some offers. Generally, I do not close a deal ASAP, because I should logically wait for a reasonable number of offers to come in before obliging myself to anyone. That is the logical thing to do, which I did not do, while muddled with sleepiness. It's a bit like being drunk, and this is what happened...

Person A contacts me with a low bid. Naturally, I am unhappy. Person B contacts me with an identical bid, but I thought he was person A because I was going by phone numbers and assumed they were the same due to identical amounts. A tells me that my pricing is bad because the general prices are lower. With this new information (it's true, BTW), I figure that person A's offer is fair. So I tell B that we've got a deal. We should meet up to trade sometime.

Of course, being half asleep, I wasn't really thinking straight at the time. I agreed to a price that was lower than I wanted to agree to. The correct (and usual) response I should have given was that I would think it over, instead of saying Yes. I figured that it was a screwy deal, so I asked my friend, who again offered me the exact same price. Now, between a friend and a stranger offering identical prices, I chose my friend. So now there are 3 people I basically obligated myself to. A and B (whom I mistakenly thought were the same person) and my friend. At this point, I realized A and B were different people, so I had to say no to B, because A agreed first and thus was taking priority over B. B wasn't very happy at this development.

C calls in with a higher bid than all 3. In my stupidity, I told my friend that the bid was higher, and asked him if he would reconsider the agreement. Of course, since he wanted the item, my friend relented. I had to turn down A, B and C as a result. Now I am in the unenviable position of basically flip flopping on a deal with my friend, and having to turn people down. Of the 3, B was still unhappy, and was very eager to close the deal, apparently at a higher price point than any of the whole bunch.

In the end, I figured that I had to turn B down no matter what, to avoid further flip flopping. Now the situation became an ethical dilemma: Would I stick to the newly negotiated higher price with my friend, or go for the financial gain and press my friend for it? After much consideration, I figured that the right thing to do would be to suck it up and deal with my friend at the initially agreed upon price (a deal's a deal).

The evaluation was pretty complex, for a simple situation stupidly turned complicated. In reality, the sum of money was small, and I did not actually need the difference. It was a matter of principle that I tried to maintain as high a profit margin as possible. The root of the matter was that I violated my usual rule not to agree to any deal too early, which was done in a moment of muddle-headedness.

Why would I have chosen to deal with my friend at the low price, despite having semi-closed deals with 3 other strangers? This is not necessarily a logical decision, given that I am sticking with my friend because he's a friend. That is, he would potentially provide more benefits in the future as a friend by preserving the relationship through the relatively charitable gesture. However, it is also possible that the first person I agreed to could also provide me similar benefits in the future. More importantly, a friendship may not turn to enmity over such a minor infraction, but it may become so with a stranger who has no vested interest in me. Also, I have no real guarantee that my friend would actually repay the gesture in kind at any point in the forseeable future. In the absence of more data, I had to settle with the friend, though it really was more of a leap of faith.

In sum, the wise thing to do would simply be to stick to my own rules, and deal with matters on my own terms. That means not settling on deals when I do not have to, and especially not when I am sleepy and prone to stupid mistakes. It is strange just how many times I violated my own rules to poor effect, but I do it anyway. When they say go with the gut, it's really a good thing to do. Bleh.