Five Things Rich People Like To Do

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1. Complain about their busy hectic life

For the lucky rich people who don’t have to work, making their life seem busy becomes their full-time job. They litter their days with pointless appointments to give the illusion of productivity. “I can’t meet you for a four-hour lunch today. I have to meet my scoliosis fundraising team to discuss streamer options! You obviously don’t get that I actually have a lot of responsibilities with my charity. They depend on me!” Things other people would see as luxuries are viewed as absolute necessities to them. “I can’t miss yoga. That’s like asking me to die. Do you want me to die?!” I lived in Beverly Hills for a hot minute (#dark) and would see women behave like this every day, scurrying from lunch to eyebrow threading to their yoga studio with such a sense of purpose, like they were going to a business meeting or something. If I didn’t have to work and someone asked me what I did for a living, I would just say nothing. Why is honesty such an issue? It’s an easier pill to swallow than having to pass off “charity supervisor” as a real occupation.

2. Have anxiety

Sometimes when you grow up with a lot of money, you become ill-equipped at dealing with real life issues. The wealth coddles you and creates a protective bubble, making insignificant problems seem like the biggest deal ever. Rich people love to be stressed out. It’s like their favorite thing other than buying bars of organic soap that cost forty dollars. The following things can trigger a full-blown anxiety attack: Organizing a party, bad help, bad weather, bad food, airplanes, stingy doctors, poor people, being in love, exes, and most of all, vacations. Oh, don’t even utter the word vacation! It sends chills down a rich person’s spine because vacations involve lots of planning, breathing, and moving from place to place. There’s also luggage involved, which terrifies them! “Aggh, take that big boxlike thing away! What does it want from me? My clothes? Well it can’t have them!” It’s weird because the things that bring most people joy are the same things that cause rich people to have complete meltdowns. Freaks!

3. Travel in packs

Rich people typically stick to their own kind. Maybe it’s because they all grew up in the same neighborhoods and attended the same schools, but socializing strictly within your own class is a very real thing. I’ve hung out in groups where the words “vacationing in the Hamptons” was treated as NBD. Conversely, I’ve hung out in groups that couldn’t fathom the concept of vacationing outside their own bedroom. It’s like they speak two different languages: “Oh, just another Prada bag”, and “I wish I had money to eat.” I find this implicit division of the classes fascinating and also sort of unnerving, which I guess also sums up my feelings towards money in general.

4. Shop/eat/workout/do anything in a special entitled atmosphere that’s designed for other rich people

Fact: The best part about being rich is that you have your very own bourgie grocery store, gym, neighborhoods, coffee shops, restaurants, airlines etc. You can belong to all of these exclusive clubs and fraternize with other rich people, making it so you don’t have to deal with the riffraff at Safeway or the YMCA. You can go to Gelson’s and Equinox Gym! Thank God! “I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t pay twenty dollars for an Asian pear!” Overpaying for things is the oxygen that rich people need to breathe!

5. Pretend they’re poor

Occasionally you’ll encounter someone who has so much guilt about being wealthy that they’ll try to adapt a blue-collar lifestyle to fit in. I once knew a guy who came from serious money, but would always talk about getting a job as a dishwasher. I’d be like, “You live in a doorman building in downtown Manhattan. You even have a dishwasher in your apartment. What’s the deal?” He just couldn’t deal. He wanted to struggle for his money so he would turn his luxurious apartment into a thrift store Grandpa den and act as if he couldn’t afford a falafel. Pretending that you’re broke when you actually have a lot of money can be just as bad as behaving like a grandiose snob. Telling someone who actually doesn’t have any money that you want a real honest {read:humiliating) job is sort of rude and insensitive, right?

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image – Nicolas Genin