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[honeylocusttree]

Ugh rich people ugh

ETA: Sorry for being obscure. Just visited a local country club for an interview. Drove past homes literally worth millions of dollars. Completely failed to comprehend the desire to own a home worth millions of dollars--or to be a member of a country club.

I had a fit of giggles as I drove by them though. It brought a tear to my

Comments

[embroiderama]

Ugh, yeah, that level of wealth is kind of sickening. I also completely don't get buying a house that costs a massive amount of money but then is just a generic (if huge) suburban McMansion. If I had the money (which HAHA I do not) I'd love to buy a gorgeous old turn-of-the-century home in one of the cool, walkable areas of the city where I live--the suburbs circa 1900. My best, more realistic, hope is that *one day* I'll have good enough credit and savings to buy one of the tiny mid-century houses (they looks like Monopoly houses LOL) located in that area.

[honeylocusttree]

It horrifies me, honestly, because I've spent so much time studying developing countries and economic issues and like, wars and poverty and so I look at these people and a I. don't. Get it. Plus I don't understand wanting things, because what I want most of the time is to get rid of things.

These things make McMansions look, well, like little boxes. I mean they have *wings*. They probably have 'the help' too. And apparently 'all the houses inside the white fence are country club houses,' or something. So just...roll that around inside your mouth and see if it doesn't taste nasty.

I'm scared that they'll want to hire me. I mean it's good for the life experience (and writing), being around the entitled pampered rich, but I may vomit daily and who wants to live like that? Urgh.

[honeylocusttree]

Not waste it hanging around a county club for morons who play tennis and golf? I hope

[claudiapriscus]

I can understand the lure of multi-million dollar homes. Some of them, anyway. One of those sweet old victorian homes in Pacific Heights in San Francisco would be a very nice way to live.

But I don't really get the love the uber wealthy have for sprawling monstrosities. Or, as you say, country clubs.

[honeylocusttree]

Honestly I don't understand wanting things, beyond a very basic level. Especially when it comes to living spaces--it doesn't feel natural to me, it's so hard to conceptualize. I care about the outdoors--like is the area rural or urban and how many neighbors and how close to a highway--but the indoors is hard for me to care about much, in the sense of thinking of it as something to want. I can look at a place and appreciate it aesthetically--there were a lot of nice old homes in Cincy where I lived, though it was a ghetto area so they'd all been broken up for apartments. But they looked nice. And I'll happily and cheerfully enjoy pictures of nice old buildings and well-crafted design that makes good use of small spaces. But. I wouldn't want to own one. Imagine the upkeep, and the property taxes. And of course once you're in one, how could you ever get out

[claudiapriscus]

This is my fantasy: If I had enough money to live in a place like Pacific Heights or Santa Cruz or any one of the incredibly lovely places with insane property values, I'd be so wealthy that dealing with all the taxes and upkeep and all that would be somebody else's job

[honeylocusttree]

Oh, absolutely. I've been in nice houses and it's very cozy and homey. And I don't begrudge people having that. But I do think there's a logical cutoff at which point the money could be better spent elsewhere. But no one ever believes me when I say that

[dear_tiger]

My ambition is to be a ridiculous rich person and own a house worth a couple of millions. Country clubs cal burn in hell, I want mine on the coast, with the harbor/ocean view. And I want things! I totally aspire to be like (or almost like) one of those people you point and laugh at :D

[honeylocusttree]

Well that's fair, but then I have to ask why?

Honestly asking, I mean. I can tell you why *I* don't aspire to it, and I'm curious about how it works if you do. (Never pass up an opportunity to understand a different mindset, is my motto.)

What is it that you want, and how does it happen? I mean do you daydream about it? Do you regularly think about it? I had someone ask me once about where I'd like to live and I pretty much had to make something up. So, if I were to ask you, would it be a fairly well-sketched out dream?

Would you donate to charity or work in developing nations or invest in and NGO or anything? I ask b/c I always wonder how the very wealthy understand the relationship of their own wealth to those who haven't got it.

Eh, don't feel like you have to answer, but know if we were having a conversation face-to-face I'd be asking the same thing. I honestly just don't get it, and it couldn't hurt to have a different perspective.

[dear_tiger]

Hey, it's a cool conversation topic! For instance, do you prefer to live with only what you need because then you can give more to charities and be less cluttered? Or other reasons, too?

For me, it's really important to have a home, some place that is built how I like it, is entirely mine and is the absolute best place in the world for me, because that's how I define "home". I have feelings for the Pacific, so I want to as close to it as possible without actually climbing into it. And I like my privacy, so the less neighbors, the better. And OMG, a big kitchen to cook things in! I do think about it fairly regularly, to the point of trying to pick interior decorations and wall colors. I want Frida Kahlo, the painful ones, with the bathwater, and the two Fridas with a surgical clamp, and the one with bandages and pins

[honeylocusttree]

Honestly in my case it's because a) I have a hard time with the idea of a future, and tend to plan no further than a year or maybe a few months ahead, and b) because we live in a world that is actively out to kill us--not maliciously or consciously, just that disorder is inherent in the system, and things fall apart a lot more easily than they hang together. So the things a person owns are all things that the person can lose. Every item of personal property is a potential vulnerability. The less stuff you have, the less of a risk you take in merely existing. It doesn't mean terrible things won't happen to you, but it won't matter so much when they do because you won't have lost anything of value. The more stuff you have, the larger a target you present--and the largest target you can possibly create out of yourself, is trying to make a home and life for yourself that's permanent

[pedx]

Went to a country club for a wedding once. EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE WAS BLACK. I felt incredibly awkward.

[honeylocusttree]

Oh my god.

Some of the requirements listed on the posting were 'must speak english fluently' and 'must have own car from afer '00'. I mean. Sheesh.

The employees I met were a bit more mixed at least. But still. Ouch.

Later that week I had an interview for a better job in a terrible neighborhood. So it was a weird spectrum/cross-section of local demography. I feel like there's a lesson in all this, though I have no idea what it is.