“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.

  • super_mario_69 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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      3 months ago

      “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.”

      • mathemachristian [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        💡❗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!

        • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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          3 months ago

          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.

          • mathemachristian [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            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

    • SerLava [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      “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.

    • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.netOP
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      3 months ago

      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

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      “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.

    • Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      This is just the long form of, “I don’t think of you as a person unless you’re equally financially secure.”