Help having a conversation with a friend from a different financial situation

[Anonymous]

OP, next time your friend goes on about their wonderful multimillion dollar home and their expensive kitchen cabinets, you say: 'Poor you, poverty is hard to hide, isn't it'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. I wonder if our situations are just so different we can’t really be close friends.

I more or less said that and she just responds defensively about how they don’t have salary- just live off investments, they aren’t as rich as I think they are, they have a mortgage too, etc..

I do find it a little bit of “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” ... if you’re rich and want to talk about your money, own it and I’ll be happy for you but don’t act like you’re “just like us” at the same time or try to give advice on what we should do or spend on based on your budget when you clearly know we can’t spend $500k on a kitchen remodel. This conversation started because I was showing her photos of a beautiful remodel in my neighborhood in a home comparable to my own and she was critiquing everything “that’s paint grade cabinets, that’s a middle grade range.. our cabinets alone were $150k” I don’t know how to explain to someone why we 1. could never and 2. would never put $150k cabinets in our home .. it seems obvious someone would know you just wouldn’t get that back in resale unless the house is $5mil. I said “well this is in line with what we would do and what makes sense for our home price point and area” ... I don’t get it. I have plenty of friends who things are understood without saying. I also wouldn’t suggest my social worker friend move into our neighborhood or upgrade, knowing that it’s likely not a possibility.

OP, I really really feel this frustration.

I am in a semi-similar situation, except that:

-She's not as close a friend
-She does not, thank goodness, pick on my own lifestyle and doesn't generally suggest totally ridiculous things to me or other friends
-However, she does constantly talk about her own $$$$$ stuff, not just real estate. I guess (?) understanding most of her friends can't afford these things but just kind of acting like they're common, everyday items-- or even highly necessary ones
-She is also very very very anti-capitalist in philosophy, which adds another layer of discomfort and cluelessness

I posted about her recently, actually. https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/940587.page#18990011

What I've been turning over in my mind is whether she has actually fully internalized that she is rich now. I don't know if she is in some sort of ~5-10-year psychological transition phase from UMC to wealthy (but having grown up poor/unstable)? Or maybe, like many rich people, she will always, rather delusionally but American-ly, think of herself as just middle class, IDK. What makes it more frustrating is that she is very outspoken about inequality of all kinds, so while a lot of rich people might not truly grasp that making $1 million a year is an enormous privilege regardless of expenses or w/e, she should and seemingly has even recently.

When people even sort of jokingly say, "$3 million home? Sure, let me check my couch cushions," she either goes into a sort of denial-- "Oh, I mean I couldn't afford THAT house (but makes it clear she can afford $2 mil, to people who are mostly poor to MC)." Or "Yeah, that's just what things cost around here, wild, isn't it? But, sigh, not many other options." (But she's insisting on a Georgetown-equivalent neighborhood-- sure, other places near her might be less desirable for even legit reasons, but obviously most people find a way to live in a place more akin to Petworth or w/e, if not Gaithersburg.) But sometimes she's less defensive or in denial than straight clueless-- like she'll say, "Yeah, isn't it a BARGAIN for the square footage?" Uhhhhhh.... I mean, okay, I'm sure that's true, but that's obviously not what we're thinking when we say, "Wow, $3 mil!"

Just in general, I am highly annoyed by those articles about or comments here on DCUM from rich people where they take these same sorts of stances. Either with a defensive or just clueless tone.

"Well, after we pay for literally everything we need AND most of what we want, sock a bunch into 401ks, IRAs, college savings and investments, we don't exactly have much disposable income!"

Maddening.

So I don't know if your friend or mine is struggling mentally with the transition from not-rich to rich, or honestly if just a lot of rich people are this way, regardless. The argument could be made that those who grew up with wealth may be even more blinkered, but then again, some of them are more grounded, too. I think I'm talking myself out of it being circumstantial. Hm.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you've tried OP and it isn't working.

I'd be blunt, and maybe be prepared to decide this friendship simply isn't what you thought.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, no one who hasn’t been hugely wealthy their whole life is confused about why $150k on kitchen cabinets for Pete’s sake(!) is not ridiculously excessive in the minds of 99% of Americans. Maybe she truly is a nice person, but she does also sound status-obsessed to me.

[Anonymous]

150k on cabinets? That can’t be real