Do You Have Rich Friends?

[Prubangboy]

Painfully honest article in The Guardian about how wealth inequality strains friendships. Interesting: 88% of Millenials will go into debt after spending time with richer friends. The FOMO is strong.

 

I am the most set up of all the people I know. One thing I learned, is that poor people don't want to hear my fake humility or protestations of thrift.

 

I changed careers from a $1,000 suit job to a $200 suit job. I knew not to wear the old suits, but I couldn't resist keeping the $200 ties. So I was back to square one. I was still clearly monied. It oozed out of every posh pore of me. Likewise, when I was rich, my humble beginnings were always present.

 

What's your favorite rich person faux-humility gesture? What's your favorite poor nouvelle rich over-reach?

 

Do you have richer/poorer friends? How does wealth inequality affect your relationships with Thai people?

 

I pretested this thread with NextG. He had this to say:

 

"Whether I haver richer, poorer, or indeed ANY friends, is neither here nor there. Why are you assuming? The witness protection program I'm in doesn't allow me to say anything. Are you trying to get my credit card number?"

 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/nov/12/is-the-wealth-gap-ruining-friendships

 

 

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by Prubangboy

[bob smith]

Do You Have Rich Friends?

whenever we go out in Thailand i’m usually the richest man at the table.

 

Do you know why? because I never offer to pay the bill.

 

Lesson 1, you dont get rich by giving it away.

[GammaGlobulin]

3 minutes ago, bob smith said:

you dont get rich by giving it away

 

FTX gave it away.

He got rich.

 

 

Richer than your wildest dreams, buddy.

 

 

[bunnydrops]

Tis true. I have a couple of millionaire friends. They would be the last people I would ask for a couple of bucks for a coffee.

[KannikaP]

FOMO means the Fear of Missing Out for any thickies like me out there.

 

My poorer friends have me to fall back on!   555

[GammaGlobulin]

12 minutes ago, bob smith said:

you dont get rich by giving it away

 

Little Joe never once gave it away.

 

Everybody had to pay and pay.

 

 

Never got rich, as far as we know, though...

 

 

[save the frogs]

one of my siblings is very rich.

there is a "caste system" in my own family.

i'm a 2nd class citizen in the family. 

rich and not-rich don't mix well. 

 

[OneMoreFarang]

Most of my friends are richer than me.

I didn't choose them for that reason. Most of my friends are also smart and work(ed) in well paid positions.

Most of the time there are no big differences between us. We go out together and invite each other for drinks or lunch and dinner.

Maybe a "rich" friend selects an expensive wine, or he brings a bottle. 

We all don't have cars or compete in other ways about money. 

[OneMoreFarang]

13 minutes ago, bunnydrops said:

Tis true. I have a couple of millionaire friends. They would be the last people I would ask for a couple of bucks for a coffee.

Why would you ask anybody "for a couple of bucks for a coffee"?

 

I understand it's nice to be able to ask a friend to help pay the rent because the salary is late. But for a coffee or a new shirt? I would never ask anybody for that. 

[Prubangboy]

1 minute ago, OneMoreFarang said:

 

Most of the time there are no big differences between us.  

 

Do you find that you escape classism by living in Thailand? I def do.

[sipi]

I have rich friends, but they're bloody miserable.

[bunnydrops]

3 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Why would you ask anybody "for a couple of bucks for a coffee"?

 

I understand it's nice to be able to ask a friend to help pay the rent because the salary is late. But for a coffee or a new shirt? I would never ask anybody for that. 

I guess you have never left your wallet at home. One of my friends (family owned the business that made children's coats) Had a favorite saying when it can to money "Is there anything I can say that will help."

[Gottfrid]

A bunch of them. Don´t know who is the richest. Might be me, or might be anyone of them. We never talk about money, as there is never any need to do, nor do we talk about the things we own. Here it´s golf time, or football at Saturdays and Sundays. If anything, one of us might just mention, that we bought something and it was good, or bad.

[MrPancake]

Rich people are often boring and selfish.

Never kept one as a friend for long.

You got those who work all the time and those spending money all the time.

Both workaholics and heirs are lame individuals imo.

Workaholics are busy and self-centered af. They make terrible friends and partners.

Heirs are completely disconnected from reality, have no limits and end up dragging you in their depression-driven consumption craze.

Both also have that terrible habit of trying to buy people in a way or another when they feel like it.

[bob smith]

27 minutes ago, sipi said:

I have rich friends, but they're bloody miserable.

tis true.

 

The richer you get the more miserable you become and the less genuine friends you have around you.

 

one must learn how to be a wolf in a world full of sheep..

[Prubangboy]

4 minutes ago, Gottfrid said:

We never talk about money, as there is never any need to do, nor do we talk about the things we own. 

 

Is this diff from how you behaved back home? How so? Why?

 

I had a much younger crypto zillionaire type as a neighbor for a while. We bonged up a few times. He shagged the laundry lady and I heard about it from the building manager. This kind of interaction would be impossible in the states.

[orchis]

I have richer friends; hotel owners and lawyers. Comes in handy, but we've know each other from before their resp. careers so it didn't change much friendship wise.

[GammaGlobulin]

2 minutes ago, Prubangboy said:

 

Is this diff from how you behaved back home? How so? Why?

 

I had a much younger crypto zillionaire type as a neighbor for a while. We bonged up a few times. He shagged the laundry lady and I heard about it from the building manager. This kind of interaction would be impossible in the states.

 

Let's get this straight.

 

You say he bonged the laundress?

 

 

[pomchop]

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history.

Heller responds,“Yes, but I have something he will never have — ENOUGH.”

[Gottfrid]

10 minutes ago, Prubangboy said:

 

Is this diff from how you behaved back home? How so? Why?

 

I had a much younger crypto zillionaire type as a neighbor for a while. We bonged up a few times. He shagged the laundry lady and I heard about it from the building manager. This kind of interaction would be impossible in the states.

Yeah, maybe a little bit different. As you describe it, here in Thailand it´s more free and you are not judged as hard on what you do or how you behave if you have money. However, I am trying to be a fairly good boy ;-) Nowadays, I am more relaxed then I was back home. Also, back home, I wouldn´t have been giving away and supporting as many people as I do here.

[ezzra]

I'm rich, ( and not in Thai baht) yeah and i feel comfortable boasting about because i worked hard to get to where I'm today, and i have friends, so what should my reply be?...

[Walker88]

Where I used to work the average guy---me included---wore Brioni and Stefano Ricci, so one can guess the wealth level. One day I was out after work with office mates and realized they all were arrogant a-holes. I began to wonder if I was not the same. Money can be quite corrupting. I cannot imagine what the wealth of a Musk or Bezos does to one's head.

 

I quit soon thereafter (though admittedly waiting until bonus season finished...I'm not THAT pure). I hope the A-hole-ness oozed out over time, but that is for others to decide.

 

The folks with whom I associate now, whether Thai or expat, are unlike my previous colleagues, both in terms of personality and wealth. It's much more refreshing today, though I do get hit up rather often for tributes or loans, as people can guess I have more than they have. Sometimes I give in if the need is real, and other times I figure I've been had. So be it.

 

When I go back home and catch up with high school mates for golf or dinner, it's not an issue, as I was voted Most Likely to Succeed, so they kind of assume I have more than a pot to void in. With those guys, however, I'm still the kid I was in high school, so it's honest. We're all 17 years old again, gossiping about our female classmates we 'did' back then. Boys will be boys.

 

I will answer an age old question, at least from my experience: Money does make you happy. It takes away the vast majority of worries most people have, which leaves one with time to enjoy this brief existence.

[Prubangboy]

I used to have a very expensive, six burner stove. Cooking is my wife's #1 hobby.

 

An expensive stove is like an expensive sports car; you will be seeing a lot of your new friend, the expensive stove repair man (assuming you can even book him). If you want 1,000 degrees for pizza, that's going to put a lot of stress on that very expensive stove. Call it 4 $300 visits a year. Cheaper than having a horse, I guess.

 

The repairman told us that he like fixing our stove because we never ruminated on whether or not we really wanted an expensive stove or what that said about us. Did we really need it? Wasn't a good ol' thousand dollar stove just the same? What message was this 2-ton status signifier sending to the kids? As he put it, "I'm a stove-guy, not a therapist".

 

As an expensive stove porn-addict, The Guardian (of course) regularly runs articles by expensive stove agonizers. Oddly, for all of the wailing, it's very hard to buy a high-end stove second hand. People keep them to the grave. This is diff from restaurant stoves, which are likely to have been in half a dozen other places before heating up your korma.

 

If you're lucky enough to be affluent, then it's bad taste to expect any consideration from people who are not. If you got all the money, then someone else gets all of the sympathy. If God ever offers you the reverse, don't take that deal.

[GammaGlobulin]

13 minutes ago, pomchop said:

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history.

Heller responds,“Yes, but I have something he will never have — ENOUGH.”

 

Enough of what?

 

Had he had enough of life?

 

Had he had enough of hypocrisy?

 

Had he had his fill of fools?

 

Enough of WHAT???

 

 

[Gottfrid]

Just now, GammaGlobulin said:

 

Enough of what?

 

Had he had enough of life?

 

Had he had enough of hypocrisy?

 

Had he had his fill of fools?

 

Enough of WHAT???

 

 

As the thread is about rich friends it is all about money. My guess would be that he had enough money. Mostly relating to that his money was safe in the bank, which is not usual for a hedge fund manager where many suddenly lose everything in a couple of hours.

[bignok]

36 minutes ago, bob smith said:

tis true.

 

The richer you get the more miserable you become and the less genuine friends you have around you.

 

one must learn how to be a wolf in a world full of sheep..

Kfc cheers u up

[MrPancake]

21 minutes ago, ezzra said:

I'm rich, ( and not in Thai baht) yeah and i feel comfortable boasting about because i worked hard to get to where I'm today, and i have friends, so what should my reply be?...

 

You're either rich or you ain't. It has nothing to do with THB :))

[connda]

Use to back in the day.  Dated the daughter of a CEO of a major food corporation and a timber baron in the Northwest. Friends with a number of kids with very well to do parents living in Lakewood, WA on Gravelly and American lakes.  A lot of very wealthy people in that area.  Been there, done that. 

My experience was that I never saw or interacted with the fathers except for the the high powered banker of a girlfriend in Lake Oswego OR who was an interesting man.  But I found all of their mom's were very down-to-earth people.

Now - I could care less.  I interact with Thai villagers.  I'm good with that near the end of my life.

[VocalNeal]

I've never had any rich friends, but my friends have.

[spidermike007]

And I have a few friends that I would describe as quite wealthy and they are very cool about their money. They tend to be generous when it comes to meals and fine wine. And they are are pretty humble about their wealth. I wouldn't have it any other way, the people that I know that are the opposite are not people that I want to spend any time with, they're obnoxious.

 

As far as knowing wealthy Thais I don't have friendships with any of them, they are some of the most obnoxious people on the planet, some of the most arrogant and self entitled people, and they buy into a silly class system. Plus, they have virtually no interest in having a friendship with the foreigner, much less a foreigner who's not wealthy. 

 

And it means nothing to me.