When do you owe someone?

You can owe money, respect, a favor, and gratitude, among other things.

When money is owed, the debt is obvious and easily rectified. However, as soon as things become slightly less quantified, it becomes a mess.

Gifts, for instance. If a gift is anticipated, it is generally proper to reciprocate - though the need for exact compensation is low. When a gift is unforeseen, generally, nothing is expected in return but gratitude. When a gift is something functional given for a specific task, often gratitude is there but overshadowed by the understanding of the contribution to the greater good from the transaction. The giver is satisfied as much as the recipient, so why is gratitude necessary.

When it comes to favors, the water is murky at best. Favors share common ground with gifts in that they can be “traded” or just given, but the value of favors cannot be reduced monetarily. This is because favors generally have a different value for the favoring and the favored. If I give you a lift across campus while it’s raining, it costs me but 5 minutes of my time (low, even if I don’t like you), but it saves you the cost of 20 minutes in the rain and the aftermath of absorbing that much of life’s precious fluid. So do you owe me 5 minutes of your time, or do you owe me the equivalent of the 20 minutes in the rain?

That is, are favors measured by their cost or their worth?

Ches