I've lost rich friends recently. Rich friends who, by virtue of being rich, have little hope of ever being able to understand where I'm coming from.
People from rich families lack the emotional capacity to care for those without a similar experience to them. Their financial cushions protect them against having to carry out anywhere near as much emotional labour or care. Paid nannies stand in for older siblings; paid tutors stand in for a siblings' helping hand with homework; entertainment systems stand in for improvised, imaginative play. The empathetic muscle thus goes unexercised in childhood.
These former “friends” are becoming landlords; influencers; inheriting apartments in their mid twenties. Despite all that, their victim complex is seemingly never-ending. They'll constantly complain about their lives, fabricating intra-group drama out of nothing, fashioning their lifestyles after the fake plastic model set out for them by Love Island. The only topic they can even begin to agree with me on is anti-work, the difference being that their antipathy to work comes from vague, unarticulated entitlement, not an actual understanding of how the institution of work today is effectively an extension of slavery.
They'll all inherit beautiful homes and follow the preordained path of nuclear family life, but it'll come back to bite them, as their children won't experience the joy of having real skills (social and practical) passed down to them. As much as I'm ultimately on their side, and I'll be there for them when they want to talk to me about these things, I'll certainly relish watching all this catch up to them in their thirties and forties.