Telling People About Your Money

[smd]

I appear to have found myself in a quagmire about this topic.  I'm on my way to being financially free & I got this app on my phone that will show me my bottom line at the flick of a button.  I'm really excited about it & the first thing I want to do is talk about it.

The reactions are mixed, but it feels that majority of reactions are that people resent me & I get froze out in social situations.  I'm trying to build a social group & make more friends when I go out, but nothing appears to be working.  I can't really figure it out with other people.  Nobody is interested in talking.  If I do manage to strike up a conversation with someone, they're not interested in self-development or financial freedom.  I can't get others to talk.  Maybe it's my age.  I'm not really sure.

Last night, I was having a pretty good conversation with this large woman & one of her friends.  Though while I was drinking my mind was thinking about ways I could bring up my money (I'm so proud of it..lol).  When I had broached the subject of self-development with these two people, I felt it was being made the subject of ridicule.  So I quit talking about that & went back to giving praise to the woman (she's a cover-tunes singer).  

The bar was closing & I went to take a piss before coming back to the bar's patio to wrap things up.  I was only gone five fucking minutes & when I got back, her other friends that were hanging around nearby stole my seat & surrounded her.  The wagons had been circled.   My initial reaction was that I just got froze out by a bunch of assholes.  And I hadn't said anything about my money.  I said goodbye to the singer & embraced hands, kept the tight grin on my face & drove home in the early morning darkness, with the usual shit-feeling I have when trying to engage in social situations...and failing at it.

But I was curious as to why nobody can talk about success with money without being given a sneer?   My manager, who is also my friend, when I told him, he wanted to help make it a realization.  One of my other friends who is wealthy was the same way.  Then others I've known for a long time, when I told them, they seem to have become cold & distant.  Even one at work, who has worked as long as I have in the same career & is not wealthy, seems to be giving a lot of extra edge in his sarcasm towards me.  Saying shit like "Pride cometh before the fall" or pissed that I'll complain about work one day & then be happy the next.  I suppose he's trying to figure out why I'm not perpetually miserable.

I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong here & can't put my finger on it.  Even if I don't talk about my money, perhaps I still can't get people to open up to me & I don't know why.  Do age demographics matter?  I feel the people I talk to are many years younger than myself, although I look younger...well I used to, not sure anymore, perhaps the genetics are catching up.   I wonder why there is so much judgment about money?  If someone told me they were a millionaire or came from a wealthy family, I'd be proud to be their friend.  But others...nothing but bitter resentment.  Help me understand.

I appreciate any & all comments.

Best,

SMD

[JoJo]

Hi smd,

It might be that other people aren't as excited about your money as you are?  Particularly if they don't know you very well?  It might sound as if you're boasting or trying to impress them.  They may feel other things are more important and want to talk about different topics.  It may be that they feel they're being lectured rather than having a conversation.  And all sorts of other reasons.  Personally I switch off pretty quickly if someone I don't know very well starts talking about how much money they have.  It just isn't something that interests me.  I'd be more interested in talking to someone with very little money and learning how they manage on a low income.  It's all just personal preference, I guess.  Perhaps when you're getting to know people it might help to focus on asking lots of questions so that you find out all about them rather than waiting for the chance to bring up what you want to talk about?  And maybe you can glean from asking them about their hobbies and work whether they are into similar things to you and take your cue from that? 

From a slightly different perspective, reading what you wrote reminded me of the way a friend of mine met her husband.  They'd been dating for a couple of months when he told her he hadn't been honest with her and that he didn't work where he said he did, or live where he'd said, or own the car that he'd been driving around in.  It turned out that he was a multi-millionaire and he'd got so sick of women only dating him because he was rich that he decided to lie and pretend he was just an 'ordinary bloke' so that he knew whether someone liked him for him rather than his bank balance.  He owned the company he'd told her he worked for and the car he was driving actually belonged to the handy man in the apartment block he lived in; on the nights he took my friend out he lent the handy man his fancy car and borrowed his very modest one.  So maybe it would be better to wait until you know someone likes you for you instead of taking the risk of them only being interested in your cash

I do think people can have odd attitudes to cash.  I'm very careful with my money and I don't spend it on things like iphones, Sky TV, takeaways and that sort of thing.  I don't smoke and I don't drink a lot, but sometimes I get snarky comments about "it's alright for some" when I spend money on something that others see as luxuries, such as acupuncture, for example.  So it's kind of why I think it's better to get to know other aspects of people really well before talking about money as it can bring up all sorts of problems.

[smd]

@JoJo Thanks for the reply.  I always feel if I'm trying to make new friends, if I ask too many questions, I'm giving them an interview.  Some, though barely few people, have any general interest in getting to know you very well.  Other times, they will talk about themselves for a little bit & switch off.  If someone told me about their approaching financial freedom, I'd want to ask how it was done.  But like you said, others just find it off-putting.  I guess it's a show me, don't tell me sort of thing & seeing the bottom line balance isn't enough.  I don't go around wearing fancy clothes or driving luxury cars.  If I did that, then it would speak for itself.

I'm not really trying to hook up with anyone, nor settle down or have kids.  I'm just trying to create or join a social group.  For one reason or another, it seems tough to do.  For instance, when I went to the restroom & returned, why didn't anyone bother to save my seat?  They just took it, without any explanation or care.  They probably knew it was a dick move & they did it anyway.  I was very tempted to call them out on it, but restrained myself.

You know my friend at work never talked to me like that before he found out about my cash.  Now I have a condescending & superior attitude all the time on some of the things I bring up.  I feel I've talked the exact same way I've talked before, so I suspect he's embittered by my financial freedom.  I told him everything I was doing when I was doing it, over the past several years too.

[JoJo]

@smd I understand what you mean, it can be very tough to find or make a social group.  I think sometimes people can be a bit mismatched.  I'm not really into a lot of things that lots of people I know find really important - I don't watch a lot of telly, I don't love to shop endlessly, I'm not interested in who did what to whom in the pub last Friday night - so I find it hard to find people I really enjoy talking to, so I do get what you mean about trying to get with a group of people.  People I know who seem to end up with a good group around them seem to meet people through mutual interests, often things like rock climbing or some kind of sport - I don't know if you've tried anything like that? 

I think maybe your friend at work feels inferior now that he knows you have a lot of money and so is talking down to you to try to balance out how he feels?  Which I know sounds a bit back to front but I think our society is so money orientated that people without it sometimes feel there is something wrong with that and it makes them feel bad.  Which doesn't really help, I know, but I think maybe that's why it's one of those topics that doesn't always go down too well.

[smd]

@JoJo Yeah it's a tough topic to work with, but that's why I wanted to post it & get my thoughts on paper & I'm glad that you took the time to respond.  I've thought about it all weekend & I feel let down that it appears I can't say anything about my cash & will probably just let that topic go as a conversation starter or opener at this point.

The thing is, you pointed out some interesting things such as someone talking about what happened at the pub last Friday or just any general conversation.  I can't even get that!   I just feel like I'm not there & I can't seem to get anyone to open up.  And others that I know, it seems they like me to be seen but not heard.

When people do open up, it's usually in a strange place, like a nurse helper in a doctor's office for instance.  You ever watch the TV show Cheers?  I've not once come across any such group of people that talk friendly & hang out in a bar.  Usually, the music is so damn loud you can't hear anything.  So how can anyone talk?

I believe when I was younger, I didn't have any problems with this, but nowadays, it seems my social skills have become severely retarded & I can't seem to find any way out of it.  I keep learning & trying different things.  I just found out about an NLP trick in which you slow down your sentences to draw people in.  I'll have to try that out, if I can find a way to get into some conversations.  Perhaps I need some voice training.

I can excel at certain things, but not this one thing.  I wish I could put my finger on what it might be.  I've had some good outings & bad outings, probably more bad outings than good & I haven't been able to build any Cheers-type environment where you meet & get to know a group of people at a certain situation & have simple conversations about anything.   I'll have to spend some time in contemplation on this over the Thanksgiving holidays.

Maybe I need to re-investigate my personality type.  There was a book I was going to buy about my personality type but I never got it, so I guess it's time to get that & start reading about my type immediately.  It's from 16 Personalities & based on the answers I gave, it said my personality is such, that it's very hard to have or make friends & that I would only have a few, long-term friends at any one time & nobody else.  The personality descriptor has been spot on with how my life has been for the past few decades.   I'll have to see what that book says about me & see if it can give me some useful pointers on how to interact with others.

[WaveInTheOcean]