I’m gonna be straight up. My father is quite wealthy and us such me and him live a very nice lifestyle compared to all my peers and even most of my immediate family too. I’m not sure how much that might lead me to rub them the wrong way but I want to avoid it as best as possible.
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Most of the people that hang out with me are talking about growing up in a ghetto or how they got their house broken into and their only xbox stolen . I don’t know what to say when they bring that kinda stuff up. I feel bad that stuff happened to them, but I just feel
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For example, I’ll have a friend retell me about how they had their home broken into and their only Xbox stolen, or having knife pulled on them. Or they’ll complain about how their parents are drinking a lot more because they’re barely able to pay rent. I just don’t know what else to say other than “that must suck a lot” over and over. I don’t have any issues or unfortunate personal memories that I could relate with them through. Like the \*closest\* I can recount to is when my mother would force me over at her house which was in a pretty bad neighborhood, but the worst that happened there was I was bored all day or our neighbors yelled at us, and then I went back to my dad’s nice ass house after a day or two. Conversations usually of die down or come to a halt because I don’t know how to carry it on once they bring it up. I don’t want to invalidate or downplay what they complain about by comparing it to what I’ve been through. But I don’t know how to carry on the conversion after they bring it up.
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Or the time I shared photos of when I barricaded the rear wing of the house because my aunt decided to let my toddler aged cousin bring her multiple annoying friends over on family reunion. The nice-ass old fashioned pocket door got in the frame. Or I’ll share a photo on a discord server of deer I found in the backyard and I don’t realize the longass windy driveway is in frame. I feel uncomfortable sharing nearly any aspect of my life because it all feels like bragging – there’s always something really nice or showy nearby that just so happens to end up in frame or is important context. I don’t know how to tell my friend that the reason I’m taking so long to connect to a game is because I’m trying to figure out which of the five routers is actually the one that’s good for this floor, or if the one that’s for this floor needs to be rebooted when it’s all the way down in the basement.
When this kind of thing happens, is there a way to show to others I’m not trying to brag? I see some rich people pretend to not have a nice house or clothes and ommit all the nice stuff they actually have from their public image. I don’t want to do that. If the nice house or nice backyard or nice car ends up getting in the shot when I’m photographing how I figured out to secure a wagon to my bike, I don’t want to have to purposely re-angle the camera to hide all that. I don’t want to lie to my peers or my friends about who I am or how I live. But I don’t want to flaunt it either. I would just casually and openly talk about what I’m doing or did or whatever but I don’t want to come accross as out-of-touch. I don’t want o be rude about it, if that makes sense?
It doesn’t help that I have a lot of hobbies/interests that have snobbish associations or snobbish communities – watch collecting, suits, wine, vinyl record collecting, that sort of thing. I’m not sure how to share how those hobbies are going with my friends without sounding like an out-of-touch snob.
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Maybe it’s just social anxiety. I don’t know, but I’m really fucking scared of grating people the wrong way but its hard to avoid given these circumstances.
1 comment
To me, I think just being real is the best policy. If anything, its a good litmus test to narrow down who does and does not make for a good friend; do you really WANT to be hanging with people for whom your economic divide is an issue? Does that really seem like a good match? And the best way to find out when you’re being out of touch or bragging or wtfever, as well as learn to relate to and empathize better with people from different life experiences, is to be real enough with your friends for them to TELL you.
MANY of my friends come from SIGNIFICANTLY wealthier backgrounds than I. Not hard to do admittedly, I grew up pretty poor lol. We talk about that stuff as much as we do anything else. My wealthier friends callin me ghetto for relaxing on the curb or me calling them boojie for not wantin to take a bus is no different than my heavier friends callin me a skinny bitch for ordering a salad or me callin them a lazy ass for not wantin to walk a few blocks… and because we can be open and casual and banter about it, we can also have real conversations about it as well. To use the same comparison, I speak as freely with my wealthier friends about social graces I may not have learned or entitlement they may not realize they’re acting out of as with my heavier friends about prejudices I may not face or health concerns they may not want to all the time, etc.
The only difference between having friends of different economic status vs having friends of different ethnic backgrounds, or physical ability, or gender, etc is that you CAN hide/ignore/avoid the reality of different financial status whereas more physical differences are always apparent and so you end up unavoidably acknowleding and talking about them. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should; ime there’s zero reason for it to be any different than any other difference, you can joke and tease each other about it and also learn from each other’s disparate experiences etc the same as with anything else so long as you let it be as pat a part of your reality as anything else rather than an avoided subject or hidden secret.