S/O Do you think it is impolite to talk about "rich person problems" around people who are not rich?

[Anonymous]

Inspired by the thread about being wealthier than your friends.

Do you think it is rude to talk about problems that are the result of wealth and privilege in front of people who lack the wealth/privilege to have those problems? For instance is it rude to complain about upkeep on a very large home with someone who lives in a small one? Is it rude to complain about your nanny to someone who can only afford daycare? Is it rude to complain about service at a high end restaurant or resort to someone who only budget travels? And so on.

And if your response is that it's not rude if it's a close enough friend, who does "close enough" mean and how do you decide? Like how do you know your friend isn't internally rolling their eyes and then complaining to their spouse later about what an a$$ you sounded like whining about your rich person problems?

[Anonymous]

I don't know if it's "rude," except to the extent that making a conversation about a topic that the other person can't contribute to is rude, but it's clueless, tone-deaf, and makes you look like a jerk.

[Anonymous]

How much complaining are we talking about?

If you can't guess whether your friend is internally rolling their eyes or not, you might have social issues that extend beyond income disparity.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Most people know this, but I think the difficulty is knowing your audience, particularly when parents get together waiting for their kids and talk to people they know well, but others are there in the same group that they perhaps don't know as well. When in doubt, maybe don't share so much.

[Anonymous]

I'm not rich. I have to work and my problems are more UMC problems than rich people problems. I actually really only talk about these things with people who I know have similar lifestyles/stresses about their job and rest in the same general income bracket, so other people at my level in my job/field. I'm lucky I have a good network of work friends.

[Anonymous]

PP here. My field has fairly transparent compensation, too. That helps.

[Anonymous]

No one wants to hear that much whining about anything. Why do you spend so much time complaining?

[Anonymous]

More tone deaf/oblivious than outright rude, but not best practices at all.

[Anonymous]

It's easier to just talk to your spouse and family members or close friends of same ses, since covid and remote work I only talk to work people about work

[Anonymous]

Yes, it’s rude. I keep my mouth shut. Even with my close friends.

I did not grow up wealthy. I know how privileged we are.

There is plenty to talk about that is universal- family, kids, traffic, etc.

[Anonymous]

What do you expect the other person to say? They can't really contribute to the conversation, and it's not very polite to talk about something that excludes the other person from the conversation. Are you just asking for sympathy? Why would ask someone with less money to feel sorry for you because the service was slow at your five-star resort? That's super-self-absorbed and really tone-deaf. Are you humble-bragging and you want to impress them? Do you think complaining is a fun conversation topic?

Conversations about supposed to be about back-and-forth. Moaning about the cost of your housekeeper to someone who doesn't have one isn't really inviting actual conversation.

[Anonymous]

It's tacky and boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one wants to hear that much whining about anything. Why do you spend so much time complaining?

+1.

[Anonymous]

It's impolite to complain to most people in general.
You don't want to be the person who is always negative and finding the cloud in any silver lining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if it's "rude," except to the extent that making a conversation about a topic that the other person can't contribute to is rude, but it's clueless, tone-deaf, and makes you look like a jerk.

+1. Agree with this. I think if you had to do this the way to do it would be, for example with the upkeep, mention something like you hate doing yardwork because that's something most people can't relate to. Don't talk about how 20 acres is a lot of lawn to mow but just say that you dislike yardwork or you're not looking forward to blowing leaves in the fall. On the restaurant, don't name drop some expensive place but you can generally say that you went out to eat and it was disappointing that they didn't refill your drink the entire meal. Do not talk about how difficult it is to manage your $20 million investment portfolio.

Agree with some of the other responses that you should minimize the amount you complain, people generally don't want to hear it.