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0 pointsjerojero1y ago0 comments

I thought we were talking about friends? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the meaning of the word.

I wouldn't imagine being friends with someone and not trusting them with knowing how successful I am.

I think maybe, and this might be a cultural thing, a lot of people tend to use the word lightly. I simply wouldn't get to a stage of being friends with someone I am not able to trust in such a way that I have to hide how much money I have from them.

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naming_the_user1y ago

I think the issue here is that with retirement levels of money existing friendships can become strained.

If your high school friend earns 50k a year and you earn 100 then I mean sure, you have different toys, bigger house, whatever, but you're both existing in the same universe with similar constraints.

If your high school friend earns 50k a year and you suddenly have 60 million like the guy in the post then it's more of a test because your lifestyle can just differ hugely.

Some people can handle it but with others there will be an underlying resentment. There are lots of layers to it. They look for work - you look for suitable employees.

Having said that, in my experience there are only really a few major cut-offs, one between homeless/terminally skint and working, one between working and being able to live off of investment income, _maybe_ one at the sort of bodyguard required super famous level. Inside those it's just sort of like, yeah ok, your car/yacht/jet/whatever is better than mine, cool.

JohnMakin1y ago

It doesn't have to be super drastic - When I graduated college and got a decent job, most of my social group was making less than a full time minimum wage salary, bouncing around couches, or staying with parents - with no hope of it improving. I felt the resentment a lot, even though it was subtle, and constantly felt obligated to pick up checks if we did anything I wanted to do, because what I could afford to spend on an outing was significantly different. Then that builds resentment over time, etc. People don't like seeing people with more "stuff" than they have at a really deep level. Looking back I am not sure that I could have done much to salvage it, the only friends that survived out of that era were the ones that were able to bring themselves out of their situation as well.

sokoloff1y ago

My friends can accurately assess my net worth within a factor of +/- 5, but where exactly in that range isn't necessary for them to know. Even my closest friends probably can't reliably put it within +/- a factor of 2 (nor do they need to for any valid purpose).

j4coh1y ago

I’ve never shared my specific financial details with any friend, before or after, so perhaps a different definition of what it means to be a friend. I haven’t bought a bunch of expensive crap that would give it away.

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