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I know someone on the other end of the spectrum, always playing the "poor me" card; and believe me, it's just as irritating as someone boasting about being rich. She hints around that people should buy her things and pay for her lunches at restaurants. She'll bring up this topic quite frequently. She occasionally gets free stuff this way. Her husband has a good job, she hasn't worked in 20 years, and they have no kids or significant debts. They are just tight with their money.
<>Have you ever known someone who brags about being "rich" and assumes everyone is jealous and wants to borrow money?
Worse. I had a friend who claimed he was very rich and had grown up down the block from Malcolm Who Ran the Magazine and was buddies with his son Steve Who Ran for President. I was preparing to open a business and the friend offered to help finance the hard parts = capital investment in computers.
So we committed to the plan. Signed contracts. Rented the facilities. Hired people.
Somehow the money just never quite showed up. As an example, one day his mother, who controlled all the trust funds, was headed to the bank to fax a transfer to our account, but a fire truck was parked blocking the driveway and she couldn't get to the bank that day. "Tomorrow." he said.
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death."
My wife and I joke and call ourselves 'honorary old money' because we accidentally fell into a circle of friends who all have filthy lucre running out of every pore.
And what I've always noticed about the people who have always had means? They don't talk about it. It's, to use a word that shouldn't be in disuse, vulgar. The old money will drive a thirty-year-old Mercedes and typically don't have all the bright and shiny bling. Because they don't need to.
I don't think it's that "real" rich people or people with "actual or real money" don't brag about it, I think it's that those people tend to often come from wealthy families, have old family money, and that is what they are used to. They don't have another point of comparison. Their lifestyle isn't something shiny, new, and impressive to them and those who grew up like them - it's just their lifestyle. OP's cousin and Marlow's friend, for example, both grew up not rich - poor or otherwise just not very well off. Then they grew up, went off on their own, did well in life, and now they're probably proud of themselves and want to show it off (not condoning it, I think it's gross, just trying to explain what I think about these types of people).
A rich person is a rich person, if they truly are wealthy it doesn't matter whether they brag about it or not or whether it's family/old money or new money - they're still rich. If two people each have net worths of say $100M and one comes from a wealthy family and the other grew up poor and is self-made, they're both equally rich. One is not more rich than the other, one is not a "real" rich person while the other is a fake rich person or some other idea. I think it's usually the differences in background that makes certain people more arrogant and showy.
I met and slightly knew a man back in the early 60s, when I was sent to Michigan by the corporation I worked for. His name was John Stewart Mott. He would walk around town in his later years in an old overcoat and hat, and looked like any other older retired man.
He was on a walk one day, and saw a young boy with a basketball looking through a high chain link fence at the outdoor basketball court.
He called the Superintendent Of Schools at his home town in Michigan and asked him why he did not let kids play on the school ground. He was told it was too expensive to keep up. He told the SOS that he wanted by Monday a figure what it would cost to open all the schools for kids to play in the yards when not in session, to open rooms for youth and adult club meetings, and open the gyms for local people to use. This was on Friday. On Monday they had the figures, and he told the SOS to start tearing down the fences, that there would be a permanent endowment to cover this set up by the end of the week. The SOS did what he was told, because when Charles Stewart Mott spoke, everyone listened.
This was just one of the many things he financed, such as a college from scratch in his home town.
When the state could not sell bonds to build a bridge between the upper peninsula and the main part of Michigan, he stood up at a meeting on how to get the money, and bought half the bonds, and personally guaranteed the balance. They went from unsaleable to sold out in something like 15 minutes.
Nicest and most humble may you ever saw.
He was one of the founders of General Motors, and was the biggest stock holder in his later years.
You have that type of person who really has it and no one really knows it might not be true unless they know who he is, and then you have the want everyone to think they are rich and try to rub it in everyone's faces. When I was in the furniture business as a commission salesman, I would see a couple come in dressed to the nines, and I would let someone else sell them. I learned early on, that you could spend half a day writing up an order and end up not being able to get them financed. I took on the regular customers, and made as much or more as if I had spent hours with those deadbeats and they could actually get financing. I was on commission and I did not like to waste my time and lose money.
If he moved near you and you didn't know for 3 years then he is no more interested in a relationship with you than you are with him. Move on, be polite at family functions and don't worry about the rest.
If he moved near you and you didn't know for 3 years then he is no more interested in a relationship with you than you are with him. Move on, be polite at family functions and don't worry about the rest.
This. I have to wonder what he’s bragging about lately if the OP didn’t know he was in the area for three years. He couldn’t have been bragging about much. The fact that he might have bragged back in 2007 is hardly relevant to who he is now.
If he moved near you and you didn't know for 3 years then he is no more interested in a relationship with you than you are with him. Move on, be polite at family functions and don't worry about the rest.
Where did I say I was interested in continuing a relationship?
You wrongly assume we both attend the same family functions.
Where did I ask for advice?
Obviously there are some reading comprehension problems in this thread. Am I worrying? Once again, a reminder that the only reason he crossed my mind is that someone recently mentioned him ans asked me about him.
However, you may interpret the situation however you like.
I am a bit confused after reading your post, then finding out that you've had no contact with this cousin for three years....All your comments about his bragging are related to years ago....it is bordering on obsessing.
?
I don't get the impression that the OP is obsessing. Cousins are family members, so even if we haven't seen them in a while, we feel "stuck" with them, in a way. It's not as easy to cut them off as it would be a non-related person. You're will see the person again at family reunions, funerals, weddings; you're going to hear about them from other family members. They aren't going to be totally gone from your life, if that makes any sense.
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