Yahoo Lifestyle Poor People Who Dated Wealthy People Are Revealing What They've Learned, And It's So Interesting
It's no secret that some ultra-wealthy people live unique lifestyles. (I mean, just watch any celebrity reality TV show and you'll know what I mean.)
If you've ever wondered what it's like to date a rich person as a "poor" person, look no further. In one Reddit thread, people shared the things they learned after dating someone with a lot of money, and it's veryyy interesting.
I've rounded up 19 of the best stories and lessons for you, below:
1."They don't really have a concept of how rich they are. My ex-boyfriend was WEALTHY, but had a complex about how he was super poor."
"It was because all of his friends were also so wealthy, and he was maybe marginally less rich than some of them, he considered himself on the lower end of the scale. They don't really have a point of reference for how poor some people are. When we were together, I was living on a food budget of £50 a month, and he absolutely could not wrap his head around how a person could spend that little."
2."How real the 'network' or 'bubble' of it is."
"It's like the other side from the 'it's expensive being poor' concept. It's this weird internal community of people with money, and thus power, who are willing to make things happen as long as you're 'in'.
I mean, I would meet people at a fundraiser or something and five minutes later, they're happy to make a call that will get me a job at some huge firm. Or like, my then-boyfriend would say let's go to this concert. Tickets are $180, but it's okay, a friend's parents have a box, so we'll just join them. Or even one time the dishwasher in our flat broke — but we didn't have to pay a dime for repairs, because his friend from high school's parents own the building, so they're fixing it for free as a favour."
3."Dated a man who didn't work. He lived off of a trust fund. Oddly, since he could afford nearly anything – nothing had any value."
He'd buy a $400 KitchenAid mixer, and burn it up making Christmas candy the first week. If he decided to make more candy, he'd just go buy another $400 mixer. Nothing meant particularly ANYTHING to him.
4."He didn’t have any concept of saving money, it was always just there because his money was always earning money. Having money was an income stream in itself. Also he had no concept of how much anything cost. I was going to get some groceries for dinner, and he gave me $300 to pick up some basics."
5."What it boils down to is that they have a kind of certainty in the idea that things will work out for them that I don't."
"Growing up, it felt like my family was always at the precipice of catastrophe. I always felt that one wrong move would result in us losing our house or all of our money. As such, I kept immaculate care of the things that I bought, knowing that I could not replace any of them if they were gone. The women I've been in relationships with, though, seem to have none of this fear. They always assume that things will work out. Plans don't need to be made because there's always some way to solve a problem with money. Objects don't get much respect because they're always readily replaceable.
I always think about Nick Carraway's quote from The Great Gatsby: 'They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.'"
6."They lack a lot of basic skills. How to unclog a drain, how to hang a painting, how to change a filter. They'll spend $100 to get a handyman to spend two hours doing something they could fix themselves in 30 minutes and a $15 trip to the Home Depot."
7."My ex-wife had a grandfather who was a multi-millionaire. Christmas time at their house was like being in another world."
"All of the different family members would try to get a moment with the King and kissed ass as much as possible. I spent my time down on the ground playing with my kids and was happy to get out of there.
About a week or two after the second Christmas, I got a phone call from Grandpa. He wanted to know what he could do for my family. I told him I didn't want any of his money, but I would like my kids to know their great-grandfather.
Later that year, he showed up at our place unexpectedly and spent most of the afternoon telling stories with me about his youth. He set up a trust fund for each one of my kids to have their college paid for a little bit after that.
He told me out of all of his in-laws, I was the only one that never asked him for anything but to be himself."
8."Just made me realize how expensive being poor is. They never have debt, never need to look at their balance to see if they can buy food, never pay interest on overdue bills, etc."
9."Well, I wasn't that poor, and she wasn't that rich, but it was enough of a difference that I was shocked at how often she just took planes. Like, she flew more in a summer than I had my whole life."
10."Grew up poor (now middle class) and at 18 dated a superrich guy. The first thing I noticed was the food."
"Not just quantities, but I also discovered so much food (like oysters, fresh fish, olives,..) things my parents could never buy.
I also had to learn etiquette. My parents brought me up well, I read books all the time, was a decent student and well-behaved kid, but the way his family interacted was SO different. I had to learn a lot of unwritten rules that I wasn’t aware of.
I think in the end what I actually learned was that even though my childhood was rough (the amount of stress of not having enough money has probably impacted me for life), I valued my parents so much more. Once I had seen what life was like for rich people, I was just so proud of my family for making it work with so much less."
11."If you have a lot of money, people give you so much free stuff all the time trying to earn your business or procure donations. Ironic that the people who can best afford to pay for the items get comped the most!"
12."The difference between having money and having wealth."
"You grew up poor and worked hard and finally got $10,000 in the bank and your income keeps you afloat? Cool. But that is nothing compared to a 50-acre family farm with a couple of houses on it, and several generations of inheritance that will fall in your lap someday. Family business or family connections to lucrative opportunities. Savings, investments, cash hidden in safes, piles of gold jewelry.
If they suddenly lost all their checking and savings accounts, they’d still be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and wouldn’t have to worry even for a second where their next meal would come from."
13."My wife's family comes from money, and I come from broke AF. There's probably a new 'that's weird, why would you do that?' every week. This will appear for things like forgetting hamburger buns and giving the kids a burger on Wonder bread or whipping up a batch of spaghetti noodles to go with chili."
14."Dated a girl for three years who came from old money. She was fine but her family was beyond out of touch with the real world."
"They were nice people but incredibly removed from the rest of the world. They looked at me like I was a zoo animal in the sense that they were so curious about my life/family. They'd ask me what it was like going to public school. How my parents immigrated. They were baffled that not everyone had vacation homes or traveled a lot.
The most interesting thing is that old money is much more powerful than new money. They belonged to these 'clubs' that consisted of other rich families, and the influence they had was mind-blowing. Want to build a factory in an area not zoned for it? Within a week that was changed."
15."Quality really does make a difference in everything from clothing to ingredients."
16."My ex's father was rich. My ex himself was not rich, did not understand the value of money, and was a spoiled asshole who got a great job at a great company full of awesome people and then proceeded to steal from them."
"He would bitch at me for buying food for the apartment and then come home with $200 worth of stupid shit he got talked into buying at the mall. When his windshield got cracked, he bought a new car. He was the single most incompetent and entitled person I've ever known, but he firmly believed he was the smartest person in any room he entered. None of his friends talk to him anymore because he either stole from or alienated all of them."
17."Some of them are pretty down to earth. I dated a woman who was the daughter of a near-billionaire. I had no idea for a while. I took her to a museum with a $35 ticket price and for pizza on our first date and she thought that was too extravagant. Admittedly, it’s more than I normally plan for a first date, but I was super into her, and she mentioned really liking an artist behind the museum."
"She did live in a ridiculously expensive condo and not work but she had a chronic illness that made school and work very difficult for her. It was certainly a lesson on how differently disabilities affect people with and without money.
Her illness was actually a mystery. Doctors couldn’t diagnose it. So she tried to get an appointment at the Mayo Clinic. They said there was a six-month wait. Her father called them and mentioned how his company handled their pension plan. She flew there a few days later and was quickly diagnosed.
Her parents’ home was huge and filled with original and custom artworks, including from the artist whose museum we visited. It was really weird walking into that level of excessive wealth."
18."How much their rich parents resent/think you're not worthy of their precious angel."
"Overheard my ex's mum telling her that she wouldn't be happy with me and that I wouldn't be able to provide the kind of lifestyle that she wants (my ex was into horses that cost upwards of 100k). My ex sort of fought in my corner a bit, to which her mum replied, 'You need to marry someone rich." When my ex asked what if she doesn't find someone rich that she loves/is attracted to, her mum told her that she can always have a fuck buddy on the side.
Suffice it to say that that relationship didn't last. She's now married to a millionaire who cheats on her constantly. Their marriage is a toxic shitshow. You reap what you sow I guess."
19.And finally, "Wealth is very quiet. No logos. Pretty, monochrome clothes but tailored. No bragging about money or throwing it around. A pretty strict sense of manners and etiquette. They're not going to be shouting over everyone in the restaurant or twerking in the booths."
Do you have any stories or lessons that belong on this list? Let me know in the comments!
