Anyone have friends who make them think "they have it easy?"

[UnquietDad]

I know we never see the full picture, grass is always greener, etc. But I don't think this is uncommon.

Thinking of friends we see quite often in another part of the country, and like a lot and have known for years. Their 2 girls are about the same age as our DD & DS and we always enjoy visiting. But we always come away with the feeling that (as DW's mother says) "if they fell in a bucket of muck they'd come up smelling of roses."

They seem to have lurched with no game-plan from one set of fortuitous circumstances to another for about 15 years, without the wheels having come off the wagon yet.

They live in a lovely rural part of a very nice city - we are talking "stockbrokerish" prices. One of them is an academic and the other freelances, so how the hell they afford it I just don't know!! I know they bought their house at a good time, but then again so did a lot of people. And they've never had to venture more than a mile from their front door for work - it just seems to be that kind of place. No getting up at 6am to defrost the car, or travelling to a horrible place for work, or living in one for a couple of years.
It seems to be the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and does favours all the time. And they got their DDs into the local school with no trouble, even though some neighbours didn't.

It's odd - I can't decide what this feeling is. It's not envy exactly, as our life is fine. But maybe there is a whole story there and a whole load of suffering they haven't told us about? Or maybe some people are just really lucky?...

I'm going to get flamed now for saying people should have to endure a bit of annoyance to have a decent life. Aren't I? Go on, go on.

Some people also work very, very hard and don't complain - they just get on with it.

While others moan and groan if they have to lift a finger.

Can be quite misleading

This is about the inside and outside thing you mentioned. If someone asks us how things are, we'll say 'fine thanks, all's well' and actually it is - we have our health, our DS is happy and thriving, we own our house, we are living the life we want, etc etc. But we don't often mention the constant expensive and stressful problems that arise for us here because quite simply we don't like whinging and people are rarely that interested in hearing about negative stuff IMO. It may be the same for them - they don't want to burden people with the negative stuff, they just reassure people that the basic stuff is going well. Make sense?

Get them plastered and make them spill the beans about every last detail of their lives and you may find they do have less perfect stuff going on.

Does there have to be a reason these people are happy?

Come off it UQD, you're a writer who works from home.

'Tum-te-tum, erm...Daleks....erm...oh, maybe just a cup of tea and Cash In The Attic, then I'll crack on.' Sounds like bliss to me.

Some people are glass half-full, some are glass half-empty.

We have great friends who i love very much, but you can guarantee that their life is one disaster after another. At least, that's how they see it! And they feel like they are hard-up compared to their other friends, yet they earn twice or three times the average salary.

Unquietdad, you sound jealous

UnquietDad - something I think that was interesting about your OP was that your friends live in a a lovely area of a provincial suburb and have no commute.

Frankly, that lifestyle choice removes a lot of the everyday stresses that ruin other people's lives.

One of the reasons I like living in Paris is that no-one expects to travel far to work or school. It does make life a lot better not having to get up early/travel a long way to work.

I once grumbled to a friend that a mutual friend of ours was always so lucky. "He works damned hard at being lucky" replied my friend.

Wise words, I thought. Your friends, UD, didn't land up where they live by accident, they obviously very carefully selected an area. They probably spent a good deal of time researching and plotting to get convenient jobs.

Some people seem to have it all on a plate, but they quietly scheme and plan to the best effect, be it choosing a good career, a rich spouse, a spouse with ailing parents (with big house), or an area with good schools.

I know lots of these people... but I think I am definitely missing the "planning my easy life in advance" gene.

Aren't some people just good at being happy, whatever happens? I know someone who's widowed, living in a wheelchair & in constant pain but out of all my friends she's the most positive, friendly & easy-going. She's not well off but I imagine she'd be just the same if she won the lottery, just a bit more comfortable.

I envy her personality and sometimes find myself thinking, 'gosh she's so lucky' before remembering that she's not, she just deals with life better than I ever could.

i don't think the OP is talking about people who are good at being happy, but more about people who seemingly find it easier to be happy because their lives appear to run very smoothly.

My dad has friends like these. 'Lucky G', he calls his friend. And so did everyone else they worked with. They used to say that if the world was going to end, they wanted to stand next to G, because he was sure to be OK. But I wouldn't want his life - there's a lot of bad in it too. It's just not what he projects, IYKWIM.

Perhaps they earn much more than you think. I know academics are generally not well paid but being freelance does not preclude high earnings. My DP is a consultant but he often describes himself as freelance as he feels consultant can sound a bit pompous.

Also some people are just good with money and can run a nice lifestyle on not that much money. Others spend a fortune running lifestyles that nobody would want. IME being time poor is the biggest killer to a nice life.

Perhaps they only present the positives to you UQD.

I knew a bloke years ago, a friend of my ex. They were all into cars, bikes etc (yawn!). This particular bloke always had the best ones but always seemed to get lucky - got them cheap etc and bragged about how he had managed to negotiate etc.

He had a ferrari and one day got a personalised numberplate for it. He claimed that he had bought it from an old lady for £1000 - because she had not realised it was worth many times that. It was at that point that I suddenly realised that it was all bullshit - he had almost certainly paid the full price for everything but just altered the story to make himself look more of a player and less of a ridiculous spendthrift.

I suspect your friends' life is not quite as easy as it comes across. No one has it that easy, IME. As for everyone helping each other - where do they live, Albert Square?

Perhaps they have inherited a lot of money from someone in the past - their mentioning which would have been bad manners at the time (who tells their friends "hey guess what, X has just carked it and left us £xx, isn't it great?!" Or they are just maxed out on their credit cards.

As for the school - great they got their DCS in but if they had to do a huge amount of greasing to achieve this and their neighbours didn't, they are hardly going to boast about it.

I agree that their life appears perfect, but "appears" is the important word. For some people, appearance is EVERYTHING.

I can so relate to this. I do believe in luck.

I have a school friend that has had the most incredible path of life. We are exactly the same age and at every milestone I would struggle and encounter trauma, adversity and heartache whilst working hard and fighting for things while things would just drop into her lap. On leaving uni with a 3rd her 1st interview landed her the most glamorous job at a top magazine, then she quit it to go traveling and she got work as an actress, then she decided she wanted to start her own business which has gone incredibly well for her. She is also impossibly beautiful, never studied, never particularly intelligent just a nice, but very shrewd lucky lucky girl.

I have another friend who as someone said works very hard at being lucky. She talks things up, she makes out all her troubles were the way she worked it and is happy with the outcome, she has incredible self confidence and the gift of the gab so it always looks on the surface like she is a winner but I know when you go deeper she is not she is just afraid to admit defeat.

You know, perhaps they did win the Lottery. There are hundreds of winners every week, and Premium Bond winners.

Dh's brother and family suddenly had a big hike in standard of living : small 3-bed house to big 5-bed, Range Rover, designer clothes... And no-one had died, no change of job - it just had to be a decent, but not huge, Lottery win.

I don't think UD sounds jealous. Bemused maybe?

Also might they have inherited a big chunk of money from a relative? My BIL inherited £250,000 from his godmother in 1987. It was a big leg up. Most people assume he bought his property portfolio by hard graft.

Message withdrawn

Yeah, what does he do in acedemia? My RL BF has a v. important job in a red brick uni and earns a very decent salary, plus the poss of well-paid consultancy work......

doodle - you are quite right, I am bemused.

fircone - you said "they obviously very carefully selected an area. They probably spent a good deal of time researching and plotting to get convenient jobs" No, the point I made in my OP is that they didn't do this. They just sort of fell into it all by accident. And stayed in the place where they did their PhDs.

Tilly - nothing like that. Succession of untenured lecturing posts...

I know other people who are academics who are having to move all the time because of where the work is. basically if you want to progress you have to move, because new jobs only seem to come up when someone dies.

some people are lucky. I aspire to being lucky.

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

i was talking to dh about thsi at the weekend. we popped in to see some friends - gorgeous kids lovely house and garden everytrhing great but then we thought about it and they have both worked v. hard to get were they are they just don't bang on about it all the time. oh and their aunt gave them 50k to buy a house!

Things are seldom as they first seem in my experience. My brother seemed to be doing well, married a high earner, bought his own business, very showy, chartering yachts, full time nanny and 5k hols. Turns out his wife can't keep her knickers on and the business isn't making any money.

Some people strive to give you the impression that they are to be envied.