STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I wish I had one friend, just one, who didn't come from a wealthy family. I just came from brunch with seven girlfriends and I feel like my head is going to explode. During the course of this brunch, conversation topics included: 1) how friend A's mother doesn't know how to use a vacuum cleaner while their cleaning lady is on vacation; 2) how friend Y's mother has been going through menopause and went bonkers shopping the last time she and her dad were in Florence and came back with a suitcase bursting with goodies from missoni and ferragamo ("oh yeah," chimed in friend L, "you always have to bring an extra suitcase to bring home all your loot!"), 3) the expensive electronics habit of friend Y's father; 4) friend L's upcoming wedding (ceremony at church on Park Ave and reception at the Waldorf Astoria), and 5) the distress of friend L and friend J about their respective wedding registries because although they both want to keep things simple, their mothers/aunts keep pushing them to register for sterling flatware services and fancy china even though they will eventually just inherit said mothers' own heirloom sterling and china.

Ullllhhhh. Now, my issue is not that my friends are snobs, because they aren't (well, with one exception but she was actually not getting on my nerves with that stuff today, for once), but just that, well, as I said, sometimes hanging out with them makes me feel like my head is going to explode! I have been dealing with this for nine years... I went to an elite private college on a big fat financial aid package, but although I know there must have been other people in my boat, I somehow managed not to actually meet any of them. I was the only one in our group of friends who was on financial aid, the only one with a work-study job that I desperately needed cause that was my only source of spending money, and the only one who couldn't even contemplate a summer internship because I'd have no way to pay for living expenses. I used to have a pretty big chip on my shoulder about it, even though at the same time I fully realized what a skewed perspective of the world it was, that _I_, with all basic needs met plus a little spending money plus this incredible education, felt POOR. I deal with it much better now, although I still have moments of whiny "why ME?" They usually come when I am stuck at the office with a big school project looming and I am resenting needing to support myself financially with an unfulfilling and irrelevant job while I am in school, while my friends who are in school, whose parents are supporting them, can devote themselves completely to schoolwork without spending 20 hours a week doing something irrelevant.

But most of the time I am proud of myself for the discipline and self-reliance I have had to learn, and besides, I make enough money now to be able to buy a few nice clothes and travel, so I don't feel as much like the poor relation as I used to. I don't resent my friends for what they have but I feel so excluded from conversations sometimes. And it's not like I can even say anything to them about it--they aren't snobby or elitist, it's just that their frame of reference is so different from mine that the things they mention in casual conversation make my head spin. Friend K, on real estate: "so my dad just bought the house [his FIFTH] in Palm Springs! Oh well, I guess it's better to buy real-estate during his midlife crisis than cars..." Versus me, on real estate: "my aunt and uncle are trying to decide where to move because after he retires they won't be able to afford even their current shitty, ugly house in a low-rent DC suburb." Friend Jen, on budgets: "I really had to think twice about taking the job because I have a mortgage I have to pay" when the mortgage she speaks of is on a $1 million+ Soho duplex that her dad bought for her so it is mathematically impossible that she is paying more than a small percentage of said mortgage at any given time unless she is making several hundred thousand dollars (which she is not). Versus me, idly wondering whether I will own a place by the time I am 40 and coming up pretty doubtful.

!!!!!! Sometimes it's just a little too much to take and I wish I knew someone else who was in the po' boat with me. Because just as I can't relate to them when they discuss certain aspects of their lives, they cannot relate to me when I discuss things that reveal my own lack of money--when I talk about not being able to pursue certain career paths because they don't provide a living wage, or about having to work three days a week while in a really demanding full time degree program, or about being worried about my father because he is four years away from retiring and doesn't have enough money saved even to meet basic necessities let alone live in comfort, they just don't get it--they are very sympathetic but it doesn't resonate with them on any level of understanding. It would just be so comforting to know someone who would be like, "yeah, boy, been there!" or "Oh I know, me too" or "well when I was dealing with that it really helped to" or whatever.

Sorry that was so long. I do feel better for having vented, though. And I'm hoping there are some STers who are familiar with this scenario--or at least with not having much money, if not with being surrounded by wealthy people--so I know there is someone who gets it!