Those who venture into the dating arena know there’s a popular notion that “opposites attract”. Now, matching with someone who leads a different life is definitely exciting, and your differences may complement each other at first. But with time, you’ll definitely recognize the struggle of dating a person who basically lives on an alternate planet. Especially when they lead a luxurious lifestyle separated from you by a yawning wealth gap.
It’s no secret that the enviable wealth of the super-rich makes them seem worlds away from the lives we lead. And it’s easy to think that finding someone well-off is a cure-all for all your troubles. But that’s not always the case.
So what does it mean if you’re dating someone wealthy and you’re well, poor? There’s one viral ‘Ask Reddit’ thread that may just give us the answer. After Redditor zipzap21 reached out to the community and invited them to share what they’ve learned from the experience, people were eager to offer us mere mortals a peek into what goes on behind the scenes. Below, we gathered some of the most illuminating responses they shared, so continue scrolling! Be sure to upvote the most surprising ones and share your own experiences with us in the comments.
#1
Mine’s a bit on the positive side I guess.
I grew up dirt poor and I guess got to a point where I couldn’t dream big. My family is still poor.
I dated a guy who not only was a trust fund baby but he also had a job as chief engineer and was making over $250k a year from that job. He didn’t need the money. I was making $70k.
He’d organise spontaneous holidays overseas and fun weekend activities that cost money. Told me to leave my card at home. Then in the short time we dated, he coached me into how to get a better paying job. Helped me learn and understand my worth and the value of my education and experience.
While dating him I quit my $70k job and landed a $100k one, then broke into the $200k a few years later.
Now I have money and can take my parents and siblings on holiday as well as put my siblings through university and help them out.
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#2
I learned just how productive having money can be. Something needs to be fixed/ replaced? We can afford to. Want to do something fun or adventurous? Sure let’s do it now. Want to eat healthier? We can afford all the ingredients.
Like what do you mean your life isn’t slowed down by a million different things that need fixing/ upgrading/ replacing/ saved for?
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#3
I only went on one date with him. He booked out the entire bowling alley so we’d have privacy for our date. It just seemed so shockingly wasteful to me, and it was bizarre to have a 20-lane bowling alley just to the two of us plus a fair sized staff who were left with nothing to do but look after us. I learned I’m very uncomfortable with that level of casual assumption that the world will rearrange itself to suit my whims.
Also he had absolutely no respect for personal space. I don’t think he was used to women not liking to be touched by folks they barely knew.
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#4
How much easier it is to make money when you already have money.
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#5
My wife’s family has no concept of what a workday is.
Image credits: chumabuma
#6
You’ll miss the lake house more than them.
Image credits: ch1kita
#7
I dated two dudes with trust funds.
I learned no amount of money can make you forget your mommy/daddy issues.
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#8
Dated a man who didn’t work – lived off of a TrustFund. Oddly, since he could afford nearly anything – nothing had any value. He’d buy a $400 KitchenAid mixer – and burn it up making Christmas candy the first week. If he decided to make more candy – he’d just go buy another $400 mixer. Nothing meant particularly ANYTHING to him.
Image credits: BlitheringEediot
#9
If you have a lot of money, people give you so much free stuff all the time trying to earn your business or procure donations. Ironic that the people who can best afford to pay for the items get comped the most!
Image credits: redbradbury
#10
How real the ‘network’ or ‘bubble’ of it is.
It’s like the other side from the ‘it’s expensive being poor’ concept. It’s this weird internal community of people with money, and thus power, who are willing to make things happen as long as you’re ‘in’. I mean, I would meet people at a fundraiser or something and five minutes later, they’re happy to make a call that will get me a job at some huge firm. Or like, my then-boyfriend would say let’s go this concert. Tickets are $180 but it’s okay but a friend’s parents have a box, so we’ll just join them. Or even one time the dishwasher in our flat broke – but we didn’t have to pay a dime for repairs, because his friend from high school’s parents own the building, so they’re fixing it for free as a favour.
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#11
Grew up poor (now middle class) and at 18 dated a superrich guy. First thing I noticed was the food. Not just quantities but I also discovered so much food (like oyster, fresh fish, olives,..) things my parents could never buy.
I also had to learn etiquette. My parents brought me up well, I read books all the time, was a decent student and well-behaved kid.. but the way his family interacted was SO different. I had to learn a lot of unwritten rules that I wasn’t aware of.
I think in the end what I actually learned was that even though my childhood was rough (the amount of stress of not having enough money has probably impacted me for life), I valued my parents so much more. Once I had seen what life was like for rich people, I was just so proud of my family for making it work with so much less.
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#12
That we’re hardly even playing the same game, nevermind by the same rules.
I dated a girl from old money, generational inherited wealth. Grandpa’s money, some corporate bigwig banker or something to that effect. I don’t think her father ever worked a day in his life, and her mother clearly came from money as well. Outside of her, I found every one of her family members out of touch and completely unrelatable. I got real good at biting my tongue when my ex’s siblings would complain about not getting a new car for their birthday when last year’s model is sitting in the driveway. They had no concept of the value of money and never had to do anything for themselves to get what they wanted. I wasn’t exactly poor growing up, but for the most part if it wasn’t strictly necessary for survival I didn’t have it. It was really eye opening how everything was taken for granted. Those specific people would be helpless in the real world if they lost all their dough.
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#13
Just made me realise how expensive being poor is. They never have debt, never need to look at their balance too see if they can buy food, never pay interest on overdue bills etc.
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#14
How much their rich parents resent/think you’re not worthy of their precious angel.
Overheard my ex’s mum telling her that she wouldn’t be happy with me and that I wouldn’t be able to provide the kind of lifestyle that she wants (my ex was into horses that cost upwards of 100k). My ex sort of fought my corner a bit, to which her mum replied, “you need to marry someone rich.” When my ex asked what if she doesn’t find someone rich that she loves/is attracted to, her mum told her that she can always have a f**k buddy on the side.
Suffice to say that that relationship didn’t last. She’s now married to a millionaire that cheats on her constantly. Their marriage is a toxic shitshow. You reap what you sow I guess.
Image credits: A_Furious_Badger
#15
My ex was having problems with roommates at university. Her parents bought a $300000 condo for her to stay at while she finished her degree (2 years). They sold it for a profit immediately after. I can’t imagine not only being able to solve my problems with money, let alone make more off of them. She also assumed her family was lower middle class because she didn’t live in a mansion like her friends. She was very humble and was smart with her money, but it was very clear she could just call her parents if something didn’t work out. Meanwhile my parents were struggling to pay rent, meaning I was their fallback. Not the other way around
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#16
He didn’t have any concept of saving money, it was always just there because his money was always earning money. Having money was an income stream of itself. Also he had no concept of how much anything cost. Was going to get some groceries for dinner and he gave me $300 to pick up some basics.
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#17
I have been both really poor (chapter 7 bankrupt) and then pretty well off years later. I never thought of myself as rich until we replaced the roof on our house because it was time to. No insurance claim, no hail damage, just it was time. We had that “remember when we lost our home in a foreclosure sheriffs sale? Now we just replace a roof cause we should”.
What I’ve learned is that you make up new ways to stress about financial stuff but it’s all extra discretionary spending issues. New cars, new flooring, redone bathrooms, nice restaurants, kids colleges etc. Lifestyle issues, not life issues. The ability to just handle the necessities is such a massive relief to any family and should be really humbling to any of us fortunate enough to live that way.
Image credits: NewOldSmartDum
#18
I’ve thought about this a lot as someone who grew up poor, but has been in a number of relationships with women from upper or upper middle class castes. I think what it boils down to is that they have a kind of certainty in the idea that things will work out for them that I don’t. Growing up, it felt like we were always at the precipice of catastrophe. I always felt that one wrong move would result in us losing our house or all of our money. As such, I kept immaculate care of things that I bought knowing that I could not replace any of it if it were gone. The women I’ve been in relationships with, though, seem to have none of this fear. They always assume that things will work out. Plans don’t need to be made because there’s always some way to solve a problem with money. Objects don’t get much respect because they’re always readily replaceable. I always think about Nick Carraway’s quote from *The Great Gatsby*: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy–they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
Image credits: captain_flak
#19
Dated a girl for 3 years who came from old money.
She was fine but her family was beyond out of touch with the real world. They were nice people but incredibly removed from the rest of the world. They looked at me like I was zoo animal in the sense that they were so curious about my life/family. They’d ask me what it was like going to public school. How my parents immigrated. They were baffled that not everyone had vacation homes or traveled a lot.
The most interesting thing is that old money is much more powerful than new money. They belonged to these “clubs” that consists of other rich families and the influence they had was mind-blowing. Want to build a factory in an area not zoned for it? Within a week that was changed.
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#20
Some of them are pretty down to earth. I dated a woman who was the daughter of a near-billionaire. I had no idea for a while. I took her to a museum with a $35 ticket price and for pizza on our first date and she thought that was too extravagant. Admittedly, it’s more than I normally plan for a first date but I was super into her and she mentioned really liking an the artist behind the museum.
She did live in a ridiculously expensive condo and not work but she had a chronic illness that made school and work very difficult for her. It was certainly a lesson on how differently disability affects people with and without money.
Her illness was actually a mystery. Doctors couldn’t diagnose it. So she tried to get an appointment at the Mayo Clinic. They said there was a six month wait. Her father called them and mentioned how his company handled their pension plan. She flew there a few days later and was quickly diagnosed.
Her parents’ home was huge and filled with original and custom artworks, including from the artist whose museum we visited. It was really weird walking into that level of excessive wealth.
Edit: not going to specify the illness. She’s not exactly identifiable from it but it feels wrong.
Image credits: Brainsonastick
#21
They don’t really have a concept of how rich they are. My ex boyfriend was WEALTHY, but had a complex about how he was super poor. It was because all of his friends were also so wealthy, and he was maybe marginally less rich than some of them, he considered himself on the lower end of the scale. They don’t really have a point of reference for how poor some people are. When we were together I was living on a food budget of £50 a month, and he absolutely could not wrap his head around how a person could spend that little.
I lived with a horrendously rich friend, his family are aristocracy in his home country. One thing I’ve noticed about him is that he’s completely incapable of grasping that if I stop working, I just stop being able to eat. He was confused about why I was worried about taking a week off work, and didn’t understand I was worried I’d lose money. He seemed to think that most people work because they choose to, because he’s never *had* to work.
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#22
Dated this wealthy girl who instantly had an anxiety attack when I told her I was thinking about buying my own car, she believed I’d break up with her because I won’t need her car anymore. Make your own conclusions.
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#23
They live in a mindset that someone else will take care of it. My ex’s family had money. He did not. Told him that one month there was no money for food in my budget and he’d have to hand some over for it. He told me he had none and I’d have to fix the problem. Then he went on to describe for me in detail a toy he was saving money for. Asked him how much the toy would cost. He had $200 set aside to buy this toy that wasn’t going to launch for more than 3 months. But he wouldn’t touch it for food. I literally could not get it through to his head that there was no money for food, and no food NOW. It did not compute at all. Had him take me to local food banks. He did not come in. He went shopping while I was filling out paperwork for food. Came out of the food bank to find he’d dropped $80 on a book. “That money was from what I had set aside to buy new books.”
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#24
Well, I wasn’t that poor, and she wasn’t that rich, but it was enough of a difference that I was shocked at how often she just took planes. Like, she flew more in a summer than I had my whole life.
That and apparently they go to Hawaii for a week every year, which was fun the time I got to tag along, but it’s pretty wild to me that they can just do that. Even if I could afford it, I don’t have enough vacation time to do that every year.
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#25
The difference between having money and having wealth.
You grew up poor and worked hard and finally got $10,000 in the bank and your income keeps you afloat? Cool. But that is nothing compared to a 50 acre family farm with a couple houses on it, several generations of inheritance that will fall in your lap someday. Family business or family connections to lucrative opportunities. Savings, investments, cash hidden in safes, piles of gold jewelry.
If they suddenly lost all their checking and savings accounts, they’d still be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and wouldn’t have to worry even for a second where their next meal would come from.
Edit: also, owning cars you don’t even need or ever drive. Hoards of stuff sitting around cause you never had to move or sell stuff to buy food. Lines of credit being thrown at you.
Image credits: Listening_Heads
#26
His parents had money, not him, because we were teens at the time. Even though his dad tried getting him to work to earn his money and not just give handouts it was still a very different mindset of he wanted a luxury lifestyle but wouldn’t go to work more than a couple days a week, dropped out of college with less than a semester – just couldn’t stick to things if it was too long delayed gratification. Meanwhile I was working 2 jobs and had a full courseload. My parents helped and I lived with them but we still scraped by and I had to pay for my own things.
I learned I was satisfied with a lot ‘less’ material things, I was better ready to be on my own than he was, and I had a higher work ethic / more realistic view of the world.
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#27
Quality really does make a difference in everything from clothing to ingredients.
Image credits: LatterTowel9403
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