Friday, January 6, 2012

Sustaining friendships through spending money


Rambling.
Us broke post-college "Millenials" seem to share the idea that people and friendships come first- before, say, work- but that “networking” can be exclusive of a day job and that we don’t need to climb the ladder TOGETHER. We’ve been told competition and jealousy is bad (I’ve read a lot of this “overcoming your jealousy” articles geared towards ladies, as a side note), but I wonder if that is getting in the way of a drive to advance yourself.
-Christine is getting married and it’s important that I stay around, even if it means adjusting my career/education goals
-being a student, I can id with other friends who are students
-working this hard, I sometimes don’t identify with friends who don’t work as hard; however, I can discuss these feelings with mutual harder-working friends.
-I have no idea how to talk to friends who, to me, aren't working at a similar level as I am, whether it be in school or jobs.
-this is good and bad: I want to be friends with people who are similar to me- driven, prioritizing, responsible, not just accepting their debt- but this also pits us against some of those who were our friends. Also I can look snobby or pretentious to those who are friends with those people (friends of friends, who don’t work, used as examples)
-Why do I work? I got a job to have money to go see each other (train tickets, gas) and do things (buy food, go to bars, see the opera) but now I'm always so busy and too busy to see each other (saving up money for a plane ticket to see Alex H means I can’t afford to go to see Alex H yet) (working meant I missed Matt’s bday entirely) (I work the weekends and evenings, which doesn't line up with a lot of my friends)
-However, not living together (dorm) means we have to make time to see each other anyways. Needing to go to the mall to buy things for work meant I actually contacted Alex T. to see if he was free and got to see him. This led to us scheduling a weekly playdate!

Generally discussing money would be see as uncouth; but when money is already an issue between friends (eg roommates paying rent) how much can other friends pass judgment? Was it ok when we thought that one friend's handling of money could hurt another friend? Money is already an issue for us eg jobs, debt, especially when we all went to the same school and therefore have some idea what it all cost us.

Ramble over.




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