This is usually why people usually end up with friends that are some what in the same financial situation.
Yes. However, that doesn’t mean you should pay for them. Unless offered, they shouldn’t expect you to pay.
This is just manners I learned at home. Me personally, even though I’m not wealthy but relatively well-off, I would be happy to do this for a friend. None of my friends would expect this from me but would make it obvious ahead of time they’re broke or just flat out would tell me that we should do something else. IMO, If your friends are expecting you to just pay for their shit all the time, you might need new friends that like you for you and not your money. I have had friends in the past that liked me for what I have and those bridges are long since burnt.
The article itself is not a bad read and does not present a boring dystopia to me.
Yes, the person asking the question comes off as a little out of touch (they “inherited and invested” their wealth). Their concern reads to me like a self consciousness that is enhancing any perceived resentment from their friends, but the answer given to their question makes some good points about living with friends who have more (or less) than you do.
Meh, those aren’t friends.
Those are people who are only hanging around you because buy them shit.
There’s a lot of terms for those people, but friends ain’t it.
I remember as a kid I went to my friends house every sunday.
One sunday, the whole neighborhood of kids was on his front porch.
I had brought my spiderman toys. I had a big box of them. My friend and I liked sharing toys.
As I was approaching his front porch, one of the kids yelled “AAAAHHHH!!! IT’S LOST_MY_MIND!!! RUN!!!”
And they all scattered, including my friend. Then that same kid yelled “WAIT!!! HE HAS TOYS!!!” And they all ran up to me.
I can’t say thats the lowest I’ve ever felt in my childhood, but that’s only because I’ve lived through a mother abandoning me, cancer, 17 car crashes, kidney stones, an abusive alchoholic father, being an athiest in a catholic school, 9/11, being cheated on by the woman I thought I was marrying, and losing various other people in my life that I was close to over the years.
But for most people, who haven’t had shit lives, it would probably be the worst feeling in the world. Knowing the people around you only care because you have material items they want. (And in the case of that kid, wanted to literally steal from me)
Yeah its all shitty and sad…but…17 car crashes? I feel like it can’t be a few mistakes and bad luck.
It’s the main reason I’m 41, and never even attempted to get a drivers liscense. 12 of them were before I was 10. And that doesn’t even include the multiple times my dad drove drunk at 90mph on the highway, going the wrong way, running from the cops. I didn’t include those because nobody got hurt, and nothing happened. Although technically, if I did add it, I could add getting shot at by police.
I thought I was cursed and I’ve had 4 in 20 years of driving. 17 sounds like a serious skill issue.
But hey, this guy’s got Spider-Man toys maybe we should cut him a break.
Oh shit my bad
The problem is that generous people are usually generous because that’s how they view the world.
It’s the same vein as liars always assuming people are lying. Shitty people also think others are like them.
It’s why good people become jaded and cynical.
The advice in the article is top notch. Identifies toxic attitudes and recommends ditching such. Identifies non-toxic attitudes and recommends compassion and acceptance.
I have more than a lot of my peers. I’ve also been broke, unemployed, and foraging for fruit to augment my meal of a baked potato and dumpster diving without success at bakeries. Now that I’m better off, I try to be generous about paying for drinks with friends but I feel absolutely no obligation to do so. I like being nice but it’s not something I would respond well to if pressured. Fortunately, my friends are great people and it’s never been an issue.
Not sure how this is a boring dystopia worthy. First, the friend sounds like leech and isn’t worth keeping. Then the writer trying to better themselves and get lectured in the way they needed to be, not the way they want it.
Is it boring dystopia that someone got tired to be leeched on or is it boring dystopia that someone is wealthy? Like the columnist said:
Try a little empathy
When I was a young kid, one of the few things my mother was very strict about was her rule that I must never ask people outside the family for presents. Acting in a way that made it clear I wanted a present without explicitly saying so was forbidden too.
She was stricter about this than about “don’t bring snakes in the house” and she was not a fan of snakes.
… How often did the snake thing come up?
Only once that she knew about.
