Unaware of privilege - end friendship?

[Selman]

I have one friend who is ridiculously well off, at least to me!
His parents owned a company they sold in the mid 2000s, no idea how much for but a good amount!
He has a house worth I'd say around 5 mil in London, 3 other properties he rents out, 2 holiday homes which sit effectively empty all year (all purchased with his parents money) and must take home around 200k a year. He has one child who he sends to a very expensive prep school, has a nanny for and spends thousands on her hobbies.
Tonight we were talking about politics etc. when a friend mentioned that he is extremely privileged. He became very defensive and disagreed as he works like everyone else and his daughter will have to as well (she will be gifted a 3 bedroom flat worth over 1mil and a trust fund).
He made a big deal about his parents not being very smart with the proceeds of the sale of their company in his opinion as "other than rental income" they don't have any real investments. He kept going on about how he HAS to work. When it was pointed out if he sold his house and moved into a perfectly lovely 1mil house he wouldn't have to work he got more defensive.
Now generally I don't care how well off or not someone is, I have friends from every background and as long as they are a decent person I couldn't care less about income.
Now I'm thinking - he is a twat! I don't care about how much he has as long as he knows he's privileged and I genuinely think he views him self as an average joe putting in the graft to get by when the reality is he's ridiculously well off and must own nearly 10mil in property!!
AIBU to end a friendship over this and tell him exactly why?!

“I make my own luck” says male born into wealth.
I couldn’t be doing with that lack of awareness and insight in a friend and would say why. He will be defensive and deflective (“you are jealous”) but ask him to reflect on his true beliefs - does he think he works harder than everyone else? Is cleverer? More deserving? Why does he think this.

Exactly. Nearly everyone could be described as privileged to someone else.

If the friend earns £200k a year that is likely to be a pressured job. So he's not just sitting at home playing tiddly winks. And as the well paid on MN would tell you, lifestyle expands to fit salary.

I think the issue with Op is that she’s gone from being friends with the guy to suddenly deciding he’s “a twat” based on a single exchange in which her friend was trying to defend himself to a third party. If this guy genuinely was a friend, I think that’s pretty poor.

Who starts pontificating about what their friend could afford if they downsized, to win an argument about how privileged they are? That's really intrusive. Even if he doesn't get how fortunate he is, it's incredibly rude to start dissecting someone's finances like that because of a disagreement over politics.

Why on earth would you end the friendship because of that?

Someone living on a council estate in England might not realise how privileged they are compared to someone being physically attacked in Sudan. So what? Reason to end the friendship?

Only if you yourself are a heartless person who was never their real friend in the first place.

he Sounds very out of touch and unsavoury, I have an distant in law who likes to profess how ‘hard up’ they are, but constantly brags about how much they earn as how much they spend, 20 grand holiday, 100 a week on wine etc, it’s highly unsavoury. I don’t think it’s polite to discus money so ignore but I’m itching to say do you want to know how much I earn! How much my weekly food budget is, you are so out of touch and dare to main about being hard up!

My question would be is he a good friend to you OP? Good friends are worth their weight in gold.

God you must be fun at parties

OP, One of my best friends inherited the family farm - literally. With probably 15 rental properties. She also 'married well', although not someone I would choose to share a house with.

She works her arse off and has her problems, just the same as I do. We are friends, equals. The fact she's probably worth millions (in trust) is irrelevant. I value her for her kindness, and her humour. Why should she have to parade her 'guilt' for an accident of birth? That's horrible. Her finances are none of my business.

I can see why was upset by the conversation. The wealth is his parents' achievement. He needs to work and earns well, so he must have worked hard, whatever his background, to be able to get a job that enables that. Saying he's had it all handed to him invalidates his own life work and achievement for himself.

He might also be fortunate financially due to an accident of birth, but I'd rather be fortunate in health and those around me being well and healthy. No money can make up for those things.

Even if my parents handed me a million tomorrow (ha! Won't happen), I'd consider that lucky but there are other things I've experienced in life that make me much less privileged than many. Someone telling me how easy I have it is invalidating all the significant battles I'd had to fight, and still do. I'd be moving onto friends who understood that.

Lol - yeah, it does sound a bit pious reading back 😆

I presume he has other qualities you enjoy and not just one minor disagreement over money?
Best just to stay away from the money chat. People seem to drop friendships so easily nowadays.
Obvious he’s incredibly privileged but sounds like he wants to be seen as working hard too.

YABU - we are all ridiculously insanely privileged and never throw half a thought at it. You understand less than half the world's population has access to a flushing toilet right? How many toilets are reserved exclusively for the sole use of just your family? If the answer is one or more, you are in the richest 20% of the world, and enjoying wealth beyond the wildest dreams of most.

How awful someone is better off than you. End the relationship immediately.

if the entire world's population was lines up in order of privilege and wealth, I suspect the difference between him and you would be a measly couple of percent, if that. You have access to drinking water? flushing toilets? health care? education? food? shelter? electricity?

Check your own privilege.

I'm struggling financially, especially this month, but I needed this reality check for perspective. Thank you. Genuinely, it's good to remember. Running water and a bed.

When it comes to money I try not to make judgements. I was born into poverty and am not well off now, but compared to where I started I am “privileged” in many ways. When I talk about my struggles people from my early days have no sympathy because I own my own home and car and am now highly educated. I feel that most of us don’t really understand wealth. We think someone with more (in your case much more) than us is privileged and should shut up in the face of our own privations, but I am not so sure. It’s like a moral judgement.

You and your other friend sound jealous. I think he was in a no-win situation. His financial situation should be nobody else's business. And he shouldn't feel the need to defend himself to anyone. His parents were obviously hardworking, smart people. He, despite his wealth, is also hardworking and is not sitting back living off the money that came his way due to his parents hard work and good business sense.

If he was doing that I'm sure you and the other friend would have some other comment about how much of a twat he is.

Maybe ending the friendship is for the best. But not because he's the twat.

Maybe I’m missing something but I’m not reading anywhere how this friend could have felt under attack. The only part directly about events which transpired that I can see is here:

“Tonight we were talking about politics etc. when a friend mentioned that he is extremely privileged.”

It’s not an attack to call someone privileged, and to do so doesn’t negate the fact they’ve worked hard. But I think sometimes when people hear ‘privilege’ in one area they can assume it’s negating anything else that may have happened in their lives. As the child of an alcoholic parent who lost my youngest brother to suicide, I could imagine being frustrated for example if someone told me my upbringing was ‘privileged’ and yet, i still went to a great school and grew up in a decent part of the uk and could access the privileges that afforded me so i should recognize this in comparison to many others. I think it’s good to work on our ego responses at times like this to realise that 2 things can be true at once, having privilege in one area does not negate having struggle in another.

I think the takeaway here is that, if it’s your mate, you want to listen and not assume the worst on both sides, and this is where learning and growth happens through opennesss i guess. But if he’s getting the hump and you’re calling him a twat so easily, maybe there’s not much of a friendship either of you feel like working on

if the friendship group is mixed, ie some very well off, some comfortable, some just getting by, I can see why he's downplayed his level of wealth. He might not want to flaunt it knowing how much some people are struggling and also might not want to deal with people asking him for a loan, pick up every drinks tab or invest in a business etc.

But, he knows he's rich, you know he's rich, he's not really kidding anyone.

You do seem to know a lot about his properties and how much they're worth, so I guess he's made this information available.

The thing about friendship is ..... do you like this person ? or not ? If the negatives outweigh the positives then back off for those reasons.

On the other hand, to end a friendship with someone because they own more houses than you is probably also a good idea because nobody needs jealous friends.

Of course he wouldn't admit it - because then the next thing is you say he isn't allowed a view on xyz because he doesn't understand it cos he's rich.

It is all about perspective. If his current wealth is all he has personally know, it is his norm, and bench mark. Saying he should stop working devalues what he does, and his meaning for contributing to society. If he is on 200k a year he is clearly working hard and has invested time into his career.

It sounds like a lot of judgement is being cast his way.

Your friend was wrong to criticise him in that way. What’s he supposed to do, apologise for his wealth at the beginning of every conversation?

Unfortunately, this is exactly why wealthy people end up hanging around with other wealthy people. Then people complain about snobbery or cliques etc.

Everyone wants to be friends with someone who ‘gets’ them, not someone who’s taking swipes at them or resenting their background.

Your other friend owes him an apology to be honest.

Just out of interest, look at Lady Edwina Grosvenor for an example of someone using huge wealth and privilege in a constructive way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Edwina_Grosvenor

She is pretty impressive, but she could just lead a life of relaxation and leisure if she wanted - and she would still deserve to have friends who don’t take swipes at her!

And what about you - do you use your own relative privilege to help those less fortunate than yourself? Or do you just enjoy what you have and look after your own family? Because that is no better or worse than what your friend is doing.

I'm trying to comprehend how he is as wealthy as you say due to a company sold in the mid 2000's when we aren't yet past the first quarter of the century. Are you time travellers?

If you meant the mid noughties, it's reprehensible he was made to defend himself. I take my hat off to him for having a work ethic and not eroding his capital. He's far more in touch than a trustafarian who doesn't work, but if with a £10m "fortune" they don't, the fortune will erode.

Ultimately, we have to respect our true friends. You don't respect him and frankly, he now knows it. I bet if you don't contact him, he won't contact you.

People like to feel they can be themselves and comfortable with their friends. You have decided to put a condition on your friend ship ‘I don't care about how much he has as long as he knows he's privileged’

like you feel that he deserves to have you teach him a lesson

how would you feel if he decided you needed to think X and he was going to try and make you?

no friend is perfect and it’s up to you if what you see as his faults is something you can live with or not

but no don’t try and teach him a lesson - that’s not what friends are for