“Why don’t you want to come to my wedding?”
“I want to come but I can’t afford a ticket overseas.”
“Whatever, if you want to stay home and miss out on life that’s your decision I guess.”
Apparently me saying no to this wedding was the last straw for them, because they’re always asking me to do things I can’t afford and they don’t seem to understand why I can’t despite me telling them every time that I am poor. So now I’m the bad person because I’m totally being poor and “holding myself back” on purpose.
If they want to burn this bridge they can fuck right off. I’ve had enough of this shit.
At my first internship my car’s timing chain snapped on the bw parkway. Harrowing is… An accurate description of the wait for a tow.
It took weeks to get a new engine, luckily my dad was willing and able to pay for a used engine to be installed and I could use public transit to get to work from my newly acquired sublet.
I was doing the “subway to bus to half mile walk” thing for two months or so (almost the whole internship).
I mentioned that I needed to leave at 345 to catch the 4 o’clock bus to a senior coworker and he asked why. I explained the car situation and he said “why don’t you just get a new car, they’re much nicer.”
It was the first time I realized that there were people who simply assumed that driving a 20 year old shitbox was an aesthetic choice or something.
Mind blowing.
AAAAAAAAAAAA I have had this said to me so many times and some folks just DO NOT GET IT. Like, I am a lucky person who probably could afford a new car, but I’m also a mechanic. I fix my 25 year old rusted out truck because I FUCKING LOVE THAT TRUCK. Which, shit, I guess is an aesthetic choice. Shit! I’m the reason your coworker was a prick!
That said, it’s, like, A LOT more reasonable to keep a shitbox running than to sign up for fucking years of car payments on something shiny that also might just fucking break AND that I’d have no fucking clue how to fix.
Oh my fucking g dash d this TRIGGERED a memory of a coworker who was so fucking into their cars shininess and newness that they spent almost their entire salary on cars. Tiny apartment, new car every six months, bought not leased, would sell the old one. Like, there’s neurodivergent and then there’s my dude it is clear you have never had to have sleep for dinner.
sleep for dinner.
You just dug up some very old painful memories of me doing just that once upon a time. I buried that well.
Thanks.
I’m in a much more comfortable place and I have plenty to eat now, but I may well be a leftist today because I didn’t want anyone else to go through that.I think it really is the empathy from that that makes us leftists. Or maybe that being leftists gives us the empathy in that situation. Either way it’s all tied together. Then there are folks who come out of it and think “well nobody helped me and i survived so fuck you” and become
fascistslibsOne of the most fucked up things about
is that he watched his son die of cancer, and his take-away from that was telling people afterward that no one deserved a better outcome and he used that as a basis for blocking attempts to nationalize medicine.
I definitely attribute my leftism to my upbringing. My mom worked three jobs at times raising me and my siblings. The meager gov assistance we got helped us eat as kids. We still got our heat shut off in the winter, luckily we still had electricity, so all four of us slept in one bed in the room with a space heater.
When my wife and I were young and we were just starting out WIC and EITC let me finish school instead of working more than one full time job while going to school.
I worked so hard to make our lives better, but I have been lucky enough to have someone willing to help me in situations that could have been catastrophic.
So many people don’t have that and that first catastrophe derails everything for them. It shouldn’t have to boil down to luck. It hurts my heart to think of all the suffering we could avoid and all the good we’re not getting because we let luck decide more than effort and innate ability.
Nobody asked to be born. Dignity, food, shelter, water, freedom, are all human rights.
I worked with a guy many years ago that bragged to everyone that he had the same kind of car as the general manager of the store and had one of those extremely sensitive car alarms installed. People made a game out of kicking his tires and watching him come running out of the store because he had a dongle that would alert him when it was going off.
I still drive a 20 year old car lol.
In part because I’m not sure how anyone can afford a new vehicle large enough to hold my family.
And in part because new cars are data collecting machines used by capitalists to further exploit the working class and squeeze as much value as possible from us. Between the abusive hardware/software interactions, the intentionally difficult to service designs, and shitty end user experience I tell everyone to buy old cars or at the very least clip all the antennas they can on their new one.
Not long before going over 5 mph is a monthly subscription and you have to watch a two minute thirty second ad before you can turn on the radio.
Not long before going over 5 mph is a monthly subscription and you have to watch a two minute thirty second ad before you can turn on the radio.
Let me be the one to say please step away from the lathe
Nah this site would cheer that because “kkkarbrains owned” never mind the people who live where there is literally no public transit
5·2 months agoWhich, shit, I guess is an aesthetic choice. Shit! I’m the reason your coworker was a prick!
Me going out to buy a 48 year old Lada.To be honest, if I didn’t live in Amerikkka and instead somewhere where Ladas were common I’d do it. Aesthetic, simple, cheap, and no built in capitalist spyware.
“Just have even less comfort and joy in your life. Sleep less. Turn yourself into a revenue stream for capitalism and accept the fraction of your labor value you get back from your sacrifice.” /r/GetMotivated
I have douchebag petite bourgeoisie relatives that have a similar attitude as OP’s situation about their life-changing epiphany-laden “you haven’t lived until you bungee jumped” world-hopping vacation flexing.
“You haven’t lived until you’ve had authentic Turkish tea. Why haven’t you gone to Turkey yet? Oh right, you’re scared of trying new things. No excuses. No excuses is why I can get Turkish tea and you let life pass you by. Carpe diem. That’s Latin, you know…”
Oh I hate this so much. If you want someone to try something you like, Gift it to them! Just buy them the treat rather than making them spend their own resources so you can feel good about your own taste in fucking treats.
The authenticity of tourist traps
You haven’t lived until you’ve died and been reincarnated as a 16th century polymath in the Ottoman empire and write more than ninety books on a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics, and natural philosophy
I’ll never be “a 16th century polymath in the Ottoman empire and write more than ninety books on a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics, and natural philosophy”
reincarnated as a 16th century polymath in the Ottoman empire and write more than ninety books on a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics, and natural philosophy
You haven’t lived until you’ve died and been reincarnated as a 16th century polymath in the Ottoman empire and write more than ninety books on a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics, and natural philosophy
Man those isekai anime titles are getting longer every day
You haven’t lived until you’ve died and been reincarnated as a 16th century polymath in the Ottoman empire and write more than ninety books on a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics, and natural philosophy
Throw some slime and dungeons and you’ve got yourself an isekai anime there, friend
Best I can do is sail from Venice to Naples in the 17th century and be kidnapped by the Ottomans, in whose custody I become the slave of a man with whom I share a strong physical resemblance, and whom I instruct in Western science and technology, from medicine to astronomy.
No excuses. For the terror
for real, jesus christ. does “I can’t afford it” mean something else for other people??? I remember I had an acquaintance back when who just didn’t seem to get the concept of not affording something.
“come to the thing!” sorry I’m broke, I can’t afford it. “yeah okay but you could still come” bro what I literally have seventeen cents to my name “oof yeah I get it, but you could come though?” What, just fucking smooth-talk my way in without a ticket? “no man the tickets are cheap, come on, it’ll be fun”
They weren’t even out-of-touch-levels of rich or even all that well off. I never understood, and I never thought to ask them what they think “can’t afford” means. Wild.
“I can’t afford it” to someone who has never been poor just means “I would have to dip into my savings for this.” they can’t even imagine that for most people it means “my bank account doesn’t have enough numbers in it and I would become homeless or unable to eat if I paid for this.”
💡❗so when I say “I can’t afford to visit you” it means to them “my savings are worth more to me than spending time with you” and their feelings are hurt!
That’s a much more sympathetic angle than I was thinking of, but it would explain a lot about how this sort person can be so easily offended, it’s a miscommunication.
It probably depends on the person, there definitely are people who only want to hang with others of at least the same social standing, but I have had someone whose reaction just didn’t fit the pattern I had already observed with them. This way it would make sense
Yeah exactly.
“I can’t afford it” mean something else for other people???
Yes.
Some people have so much money laying around that they don’t really have an excuse not to help people, so they put an arbitrary amount into savings so they can pretend that they don’t have the money they are continually putting away. Just oh I have 1 million dollars and I put 999,999 into that one account, so I actually can’t afford to buy you this hamburger right now.
Yeah I wish I could find that webcomic where the dude says to someone “why don’t you get a new phone if you hate your old one” and the other person grabs a new phone, attempts to buy it and their card gets declined while giving a dumb expression at the first person because it sums up the mood
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
“no man the tickets are cheap, come on, it’ll be fun”
Apparently not as cheap as you refusing to foot the bill for the “cheap” tickets. It’s all “this isn’t even that expensive” until their own money is involved.
This is just the long form of, “I don’t think of you as a person unless you’re equally financially secure.”
This is the classic coping mechanism of wealthier people (and others emulating / sucking up to them).
They have to regard being poor as a choice, or otherwise face that their own wealth is unearned and it’s morally wrong that they have it while others don’t. To them “I can’t afford it” is synonymous with “I don’t want to” because thinking otherwise destroys their world view.
deleted by creator
100%
And it’s a trope that nobody really enjoys a destination wedding in the first place
Like there’s multiple avenues that tell you it’s a bad idea
But they just keep doing it
It’s so presumptuous. Unless you’re paying for your guests’ travel and lodging, you should not have a destination wedding. People who decide to have weddings in other countries and don’t pay for guests just reek of “I’m irresponsible with money but I’m also a trustfund baby so I can’t fail. I definitely do not have the money for this thing, yet I’m doing it anyway to make myself look successful.”
Then they do shit like a bachelor’s party at a strip club and a bride wanting her special day before they get divorced in 3 months.
Some friends of mine recently had a nice compromise. A local ceremony that was easier for their friends and family to get to, then an optional trip with them to Hawaii that you needed to RSVP for ahead of time cuz they were arranging group pricing for some stuff. Kind of like tagging along for their honeymoon.
And that makes sense because it’s more like a group roadtrip. I’ve seen shit like people having a destination wedding over a weekend. Like of course no one wants to spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to fly 8 hours, stay for a day and watch the ceremony, then fly home.
not actually relevant to the thread complaint about family and destination weddings
I moved away from my home city, and the vast majority of my extended family hasn’t. Lots haven’t even ever left that city, like, ever. So we send out wedding invites, and my mom’s all “everyone thinks you’re very rude for having a destination wedding and nobody’s going to come.” I wasn’t having a destination wedding, I was having a wedding in the city where me and my partner have lived for years.
lol, great bit mom
destination wedding
the destination is Chicago
no one from Rockford IL wants to come
they all think i’m very rude
i’m literally getting married at the courthouse and having a house party
mfw
Anyone who won’t drive a couple hours on a whim should be deported from the Midwest and shipped to the east coast. They’d be much happier. Like, there are literally people who commute Rockford to Chicago and think it’s normal. (It’s not they’re weird, but to each their own)
A lot of Email job types think that “I can’t afford it” is “It will mean I have to not go to a fancy resturaunt twice a month” and not “I literally will be unable to pay for rent and food if I do this.” The idea that they’re friends with actual poor people is hard to process.
Weddings held abroad are ways for couples to deter relatives and friends from joining; cutting costs and giving an out to people who don’t want to go.
Your former friends were in search of an excuse to ostracize you
destination wedding?
just fuckin elope and enjoy the destination shit with the person you love, and then have a wider celebration with friends and family in a way that can actually involve your friends and family. jesus christ
Final Destination: Wedding
i chose to be wealthy and that’s what happened!Come on, Dirt_Owl, you have bootstraps just like everyone else. If you really wanted to, you could pull on those a little harder. The fact that you don’t just means you don’t care about other people, especially people who do. If you keep being so selfish and expecting everyone else to accommodate you just because you’re “poor,” then what’s next? Are you going to start whining like all those welfare-sucking dirty homeless who have it so easy with no adult responsibilities but are always complaining about how those of us good and hard-working people who did make the right decision to pull on our bootstraps owe them a mansion or something? Ew. Don’t pretend like this isn’t entirely your decision to be this way.
AAAA
I’m sorry. I feel almost tainted having even written that. For reals, only compassion to you, comrade.
“If you can’t afford to come to our wedding you are choooooosing to miss out on life because attending our boring overpriced shitty divorce prequel is the epitome of human experience!!”
Capitalist ideology and unwarranted self-importance is one hell of a combo. Fuck those stupid morally bankrupt goatfuckers.
overpriced shitty divorce prequel
Holy shit you didn’t have to go that hard
overpriced shitty divorce prequel
That’s both funny and quite often true when it comes to the shallow fucks that peacock like that to begin with.
Another Dirt_Owl banger
I thought this was going to be something way cheaper than a destinarion wedding holy shit
I hate people like that. People who rub all their traveling in your face as a status symbol. It’s so much more common to see these days. It just ruffles all my left populist feathers.
“Influencer” culture itself feels like a fake friend doing exactly that while being effectively paid by their fans to continue doing so.
On the upside, you won’t have to hear about them complaining how they had to put $60,000 on credit cards to pay for the destination wedding
