Do the rich people in your life treat ordinary people badly?

Yes. My father’s side of the family are all sociopaths

The more money they get, the greedier they get.

I don’t find that at all. They’re always very kind and gracious, especially to service people. They’re generous, philanthropic, humble, and if you didn’t see their homes or see them at work, you’d probably never realize they were very rich, except their suit is bespoke while yours is off the rack.

I think you’re talking about old money R3.

your friends are assholes, OP. get better friends

Not mine - blessed with some incredible people in my life!

I've noticed a good deal of both. Some rich people are lovely and humane and use their money wisely and I've seen some who were spoiled and would throw it around at the most random and useless things. They'd use it to fix any problem in life.

The ones I've found the most toxic are poor people who think they're rich. That's a sad kind of person right there. They're the most entitled to wait staff. So filled with desperation and the need to try and prove to the world that they have more than they really do. I do think that, if someone were to tell them that they could shoot their neighbor and get 30 mil, they'd do it. A lot of Trump's base give me these vibes.

Like every other facet of society, there are good and there are bad.

As my grandmother would say, OP, "then they weren't really your friends."

The fact that they were rich had nothing to do with how they treated you.

As for people acting like pricks to service people, the only times (twice) I've been with people who did that, they were as R7 described.

The rich people I met in grad school treated me a whole helluva lot better than my working class family did.

I laughed at Mary Trump's stories of Ivana giving cheap and/or regifted items for Christmas, my wealthy aunt did the same thing. Useless tchotchke crap from W.T. Grant (like Woolworths) or cheap promotional items with company logo on it they received free from vendors they did business with.

I find it depends on the generation. The first generation to generate the wealth are typically normal because they know what life was before. When you get to the third and fourth generation kids, many can be horrible because they're used to having money to throw at any problem. A lot of them are pretty dumb for the same reason and don't bother to learn anything in school and just barely pass through college.

They're also typically given passive roles in their parents' companies because even the parents realize their kid is a dipshit.

I'm always impressed and respect the few kids of the third and fourth generation that take a more humble view toward life and do well in school. Their parents raised them properly.

Some college friends of my husbands are rich and treat him like shit. They don't come around anymore since I growl at them. Two of my friends are old-money rich. One is a candy heir-total fuck up in his 20s. His credit cards were always getting declined (he would go through his monthly trust ion a week) and I'd help him out. He went to rehab in his early 30s and we are good friends now. He's mortified of how he acted and always tries to pick up the lunch tab and I let him. I was pretty good friends with a very famous movie star's grandson and his money never got in the way of our friendship or how he treated me. He collects art, houses, and boyfriends.

Listen, OP--it sounds like you got a lunch or two out of it. Quit complaining.

Seriously--I know how some DLers venerate old-money, old-school WASP-ocracy, but as someone who has dealt with them professionally and personally over decades, they are the cheapest people on earth. Cheap with food, cheap with employees, cheap with everything except 1) premium booze and 2) recreational toys for sailing, tennis, what-have-you. They can laugh about their "Yankee thrift" but it's just insane cheapness.

As my old boss would say, "Well, that's how a lot of them stay rich."

Not badly so much as cluelessly. They understand that people aren’t as wealthy as they are and can’t do everything they can, but instead of having empathy, they get bored and irritated that you can’t take a weekend off and fly across the country to go to a party, or that you actually have to work and might be too tired to go away every single weekend.

Yes. I know many wealthy people. They think they are better than everyone else and think nothing of treating others like peons. When I come across a good hearted, kind one I covet their friendship.

Old money and / or people from the south are quite gracious. My southern grandmother would have fainted if she ever saw me being rude or discussing money in any way.

They can also be assholes, mind you. Just not overtly.

Yes. The former head of the department I worked for treated everyone like shit especially women, coloured, gays and the disabled.

An equal amount of kind/ asshole. No group is a monolith.

Are you still flat broke, OP?

No, R20, I am doing better now.

I'm glad, OP.

I find that when dealing with a rich couple the moneymaker is like everyone else but the hanger-on is fucking horrible.

Do the rich people in your life treat ordinary people badly?

I've got some rich people around here somewhere...down in the sub-basement. I mean, where else am I going to keep them without the neighbors calling the cops on me.

You know, I knew I was going to have trouble with the HOA. I should have bought that old farmhouse 40 miles out of town, but the local F.B.I. agent was already giving me the side eye.

Now, I haven't fed them in a while, so I'm sure if I dangle some food in front of them they'll happily answer your question, but I warn you, they are prone to say anything just to get some food..

Oh, uhm, nevermind...

Whew, that salesman was right about the door being smell proof.

Did I kill him afterward? I can't remember.

I'm sure I didn't leave a paper trail, so...

^zzzzzzzz @ R24.

I think OP expected his rich friends to bankroll his life. It doesn't work that way, hon. They were generous enough to pick up the tab for lunch. That's all you can expect from anyone unless you have a life or death emergency.

R15 is spot on. And that's why rich folks tend to flock with their own kind. It's exhausting to always be conscious of what you might say that could offend someone. Just talking about what you consider ordinary events in your own life can sound like bragging to those less fortunate. If someone says "have any plans this weekend?" Are you supposed to lie and say you plan on sitting at home watching Golden Girls?

I have a wealthy friend who is VERY quiet and guarded. She has to sit and listen to others blather on and on about their own lives, but she can never say much about hers. Our friends freely gossip and bloviate about a local play they went to see, but she can never say, "my husband and I flew to NYC to see Hamilton (for the third time)."

R25. Speak for yourself. I don’t expect anyone to bankroll anything. Whatever lifestyle you are imagining is crazily wrong. I don’t for a minute expect that anyone would give me money or something. That is unnecessary.

I am talking about real vulgarity in bragging. Bragging of a kind that isn’t normal speech, but is pointless and really goes it of its way to make other people feel like shit. Sitting in a room with someone and out of the blue, they say I paid 65K for that painting, knowing that the friend is just hanging in,

Oh, why am I justifying myself to this asshole?

^That does not describe 99% of wealthy people. Where did you find that rare person and why are you friends with him/her?

They treat them poorly, not badly.

And they are no more likely to use proper English than poorer people.

R23 I agree, now that you mention it. It is hanger on or heir who is obnoxious.

R23 is right on.

Wow so interesting.

My mom's second husband is rich (compared to how I grew up, but not a 1%er) and he's very kind. His employees are well-paid and get good benefits (not only office workers but also the laborers on his properties.) He's a great tipper and gives Christmas cash to waitresses at their favorite greasy spoon.

He grew up poor and made a fortune, but still has the same inexpensive taste. Maybe that's why he can spread it around.

I have found it more likely that the nouveau riche tend to be more overtly ostentatious. And usually that wealth is actually marginal. When the money goes a few generations back, there is more of an awareness, and I agree with the poster who pointed out how that awareness could be a bit of a burden.

My best friend from college came from old money, but was a bit of a black sheep. He did go on fabulous vacations and was given nice cars and properties. But he was determined to prove himself and did well on his own when he finally grew up. My family was well off, but not rich. I shunned their money at an early age for reasons I might put in another thread.

So there were things he could do that I could not afford to do and benefits that he enjoyed that I did not. But the friendship was fundamental enough that I did not resent him and he didn’t have to be guarded around me.

However, many of his old school friends did not approve. Fuck em.

"Oridnary"?

No. Because I only associate with warm, lovely people. So the wealthy people I know are genuinely kind. I value that in anyone, regardless of their bank account.

[quote]Our friends freely gossip and bloviate about a local play they went to see, but she can never say, "my husband and I flew to NYC to see Hamilton (for the third time)."

The woman is a SAINT, I tell you.

All these people thinking old money people are gracious, refined, polished people are making me laugh. Old money people have personalities like trolls. They’re monumentally stupid, racist and clueless. I’ve never met a person from an old money family that wasn’t a complete freaky asshole. They’d sneer at oxygen for helping them breathe they’re such assholes.

In my experience, no. The rich people tend to conduct themselves with dignity. It's the poor people I know that mistreat others, usually service industry workers, because it makes them feel powerful.

I don't believe OP - I think he was envious and viewing anything someone said about their lives as 'bragging about their wealth' - when they were actually just talking about their life.

They did pick up the check - what else did you expect? A check for thousands of dollars? They're under no obligation to give you money.

And guess what? Most people vent about their lives when with friends. Wealth is all relative.

I am always very kind to those who own less than I.

I had a lifelong friend who dumped many of his friends including me when his father died and left him a millionaire. We all grew up middle-class, the father was a miser, and when he got this money he built himself an estate in Connecticut and then got a lot of rich friends up there.

I was very hurt because I knew him since kindergarten and we even lived together several years as roommates even sharing our bedroom. No we were not lovers but that's how close we were.

My feeling is that treating ordinary people poorly is really a cultural and social phenomenon rather than any one rich person being snide or cruel generally. I grew up amid a community of people, the bulk of whom came from a generation of farm owners; these were big farms, like multiple thousands of acres. When the lands were sold, the children of the farm owners earned incredible wealth. Due to the more blue collar nature of their fortunes, there really was never an air of pretentiousness or snobbery. No one owned expensive things from fancy stores, everyone drove old pickup trucks or old sedans, and wealthy farm owners wore overalls and reeked of manure, the same as the lowly seasonally-hired workers. Houses may have been updated frequently and nice generally, but it was still an old, smaller farmhouse, not some garish palace. These were not rich people who would stick their noses up at someone less financially fortunate. However, traveling about 10 miles away you'd enter the upscale area just outside a major metro area and it was a completely different experience. My "friends" in that community were outright snobs whose parents were executive types, lawyers, etc.. And what was interesting is that undoubtedly none of the people in that community were nearly as wealthy as the farm folk. But that really was the culture of that area. Being a dick or acting like a princess and conspicuous consumption (for the purpose of making your neighbors and friends jealous) was part of the community's culture. For the record, I've never really noticed anyone in that area being outright rude to those less financially stable (no Lucille Bluth-esque treatment of waiters). But you definitely heard a lot of talk of money and how much they spent while eavesdropping in restaurants and bars.

What “rich people” in my life?

I should be so lucky.

I've never really known "rich" people, only ever really upper-middle class "well off" people, which is close but nowhere near the same thing. They were typically pleasant and polite to almost everyone. The kids have entitlement issues but they tend to grow out of it once they become real adults because unlike with rich people upper-middle class kids don't have a guaranteed future built for them.

^^I don’t about UMC types altogether. Most are alright, I imagine, but in my family there’s some dreadful snobs & bullies.

My grandmother and my uncle in particular don’t have much consideration for others, but it’s quite subtle “looking down upon”. While ostensibly generous materially, they are harsh judgemental critics with no time for family or people they spent time with before they came into money. They are obsessed with seeming “proper” and with whatever the neighbours are doing, and they won’t call or visit relatives they believe aren’t on their level of wealth or leisure (both are retired). My uncle wouldn’t even visit his own son when the poor guy had a potentially-fatal collapse or had a child, because apparently it would take too long and cost too much to fly from the Maldives to check in. There’s a disdain from this bracket that is more offensive than any amount of flash bragging.

My mother, a self-made woman grew up in a council house, with 7 siblings, her parents and grandparents. Now in her 70s she's turned into an insufferable cunt, challenging anyone who uses the public road which her land bounds, as to what they are doing there, and telling them not to enter off the road as the land is private. She refuses to interact with her old friends and her neighbors, telling them to go out and get a job, and told one guy her car was worth more than his house and that her taxes paid for his kids education. Shocking behavior. My dad would be mortified if he were alive.

I hate to say "it depends," but it depends...

I don't know any old money, WASP, rich people--though I LOVE you guys who post about them, especially the society pages and pictures.

I do know basically three kinds of rich people: 1. I know C-level executives of public companies (my family members). 2. I know wealthy entrepreneurs who are all in the real estate development business (or businesses that are attached to it) 3. I know wealthy adult children of parents or grandparents who were in the real estate development business.

In my experience, and I'm going to generalize greatly, group #1 is the nastiest. Group #3 is nice, but they are paranoid that everyone is out to get their money. Groups #1 and #2 know that people are out to get their money, but they are fine with it because they know how to say, "No." Group #2 is the happiest and most generous.

On DL, pointless bitchery is so distorted I often feel as if I'm surround by the one per cent.

It's like life, some do, some don't. The money doesn't seem to make much difference. What they do do, that I envy, is feed each other information and insight to navigate life. Like a friend of mine got a quiet word to get home from holiday because the border was about to close. I flew back early on instinct.

I will also say I have seen some of the worst behaviour in terms of how you treat people on package all inclusive holidays in the Caribbean. Not exactly rich people gone wild at the Four Seasons.

Quite the opposite, OP.

Do the rich people in your life treat ordinary people badly?

Ask Odin Lloyd.

When i was in college, I had a very wealthy friend who had gone to boarding school and who grew up in a 12-room pre-War apartment on 5th Avenue. She was such a lovely young woman, but once when by chance we went shopping at a department store in downtown Boston she would talk to the sales help like they were complete peons--she would almost bark orders at them. We had a long talk about this, and she told me she had learned how to talk to sales help from her socialite mother.

She told me years later she was taken aback by how shocked I was at how she spoke to the sales help and thought long and hard about what she was doing. She told me she started working hard to be kinder to sales help after that.

Most rich people, if they believe you're one of them, will be civil or even nice.

All people should be kind nice and polite to everyone, not just to the fellow rich people.