'AITA for telling my poor friend that he's actually the privileged one now?' CONCLUDED
"AITA for telling my poor friend that he's actually the privileged one now?"
One of my very close friends Nathan (29M) and I (28M) met during our first post-college job at a prestigious finance firm, and we immediately bonded over the long work hours, sh*%$y middle management, and general soul-sucking nature of making PowerPoint slides and Excel sheets all day.
For the next few years, a lot of our friendship revolved around us talking about work and how much we hated it.
A few years ago, I decided that I just couldn't take the corporate grind anymore, and I quit my job to move into the nonprofit world. While I now certainly make less than I would have at my old job, I'm exponentially happier, healthier, and absolutely love the work that I do.
I also still make a very good salary ($80K/year) which I feel is more than enough money for me and my needs. Nathan has been ambitiously climbing the corporate ladder, and recently became a VP at his firm. He makes well over $300K a year.
Nathan grew up in a very poor family, and his relatives are still financially unstable and often ask him for money. I, on the other hand, grew up in a comfortable upper-middle class suburb with parents who have always been financially stable.
They're not millionaires, but if anything ever happened to me, they could (and would!) help me until I could get back on my feet. Nathan does not have that privilege.
I recently got offered my dream job, where I would be making slightly less money than I am now ($75K/year). Despite the money, I am genuinely giddy about this job prospect, and was pumped to tell my friends.
However, when I told Nathan, his response was 'I'm glad you have the financial privilege to take a pay cut.' Not 'wow AncientMesopotamia, I know you've been really wanting this job for months now and have told me all about how excited you are about it, congratulations!!!!' or anything along those lines.
I'll admit that I snapped back at him and told him that he makes triple the amount of money I do, and that at some point he needs to realize he's now got privileges of his own instead of pointing out mine.
The conversation got a bit heated, and we agreed to hang up and cool off before talking it over later.
Now I'm wondering if I should apologize to Nathan for what I said, or if I should stand my ground. I'm feeling angry and a bit defensive, which I realize is exactly the reaction that a spoiled rich kid would have.
However, I also do think it was a bit mean of him to say that at that exact moment when I was so excited. And while generational wealth does give privileges that income alone does not, he literally does make over triple the amount of money that I now make, so it seems a tiny bit hypocritical for him to be calling me privileged.
Also, as a final note, while my parents certainly are well off, they do not support me financially in any way, and have not since I graduated from college 7 years ago. So, I leave the judgment to you all - AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
NTA. Cry me a river to all the whiny ba$$#@ds making $300K a year. The dream is to get that job and invest for 5 solid years so that you can retire out in the countryside.
5 years?? You clearly don’t know anything how little $300k gets you in a HCOL area. To make $300k, you HAVE to live in a HCOL area first. Then it gets you an upper middle class lifestyle as a single person. You can’t invest it and retire in 5 years lmao you know nothing.
NTA. What kind of friend says that when their friends tells them they got their dream job.
The kind with a chip on his shoulder. He may be earning a lot but inside he's still that little poor boy with an inferiority complex and it makes him angry that his happiness is tied into his net worth while OPs is not thus the pay cut not being a problem.
NTA. What he said was pretty rude and spiteful. He's making 300k. He's doing extremely well for himself. If he's giving it all to his poor family, that's his choice and problem, not yours.
NAH. He's right, you don't have any financial obligations to anyone other than yourself. If you lost your job, you know you'd have someone around to backstop your fall. He's still grinding at a soul sucking occupation because he doesn't have the opportunity to leave. He has others who depend on him to bail them out, but he has no one to bail him out. He's a little bitter about it.
None of this makes anyone an a**hole, you just didn't understand the position he's in because you've never lived it.
The OP read through everyone's opinions and had this to say:
EDIT - Woah, this really blew up in a way I wasn't expecting. I've spent hours reading as many comments as I can, and I thank each of you for your perspectives - I have really learned a lot about privilege and what it's like to grow up poor from some of your stories.
While it is nice of many of you to say that I'm not the a**@ole, I do think I approached Nathan's situation with a lot of ignorance and potential a**@olery.
u/Equivalent_Joke_9617 said it best:
'I don’t think it matters who’s ‘more right’ here. What matters is whether Nathan has been a good friend and one that’s worth keeping. If the answer is yes, a heart-to-heart talk should sort this out. Genuine adult friendships are hard to come by. Don’t let a misunderstanding ruin it!'
Nathan's been my buddy for years, through thick and thin, and so I called him back up to apologize. I mentioned that I really didn't know what his experience had been like, and that I was so proud of him for all he's accomplished, and that I just felt a little hurt and unsupported when he called out my privilege from the get-go instead of being happy for me.
It felt like he was minimizing my success, but it turns out he's just been having a tough time at work and didn't respond in the best way to my job news. He apologized too and we had a really nice conversation.
I think that since we started our careers at the same place and time that it's easy for us to compare ourselves, and we're both guilty of the competitive comparison game with each other.
Anyway, it's all good now and I think we've opened up a good dialogue where I can learn more about my buddy's past and what it's been like for him, and try and support him with some of the mental struggles of coming from poverty.
Listen to u/Equivalent_Joke_9617 and have heart-to-hearts with your friends and learn from your mistakes!
Also Nathan and I will be going to a baseball game next week and he offered to buy the tickets because he's 'loaded' and I'm a 'non-profit schlub' (both his words, both said with love).