Last night I had one of the worst "dates" with a person I "met" online EVER. We met at a restaurant bar. She was an extremely well-heeled woman. I learned she and her husband have a house in New England and just bought a second home in the Keys. After a while, I began to notice her conversation circulated around How Much Things Cost: How much more expensive a ticket to St. Bart's cost in winter verses summer. How much she (over)pays her housekeeper. How a certain restaurant couldn't even cook her $40 piece of salmon correctly. While she was talking, I took out $20, my entire drinking budget for the evening, and paid for her martini without her even noticing. That is how badly I wished she'd stop worrying about money.
I encounter this style of conversation often (many of my husband's friends think money is a fascinating topic) and it drives me nuts. Is it supposed to impress me? Is this how a certain class of people in the U.S. get to know each other? Is honestly that some people find How Much Things Cost a fascinating topic? Clearly, I'm a bohemian type, they can see I'm dressed simply, no jewelry, they know I work offbeat jobs that aren't high-paying, everything about me says: not materialistic.
When a person talks a lot about How Much Things Cost, do you find it tedious? Or is just that some of us are overly sensitive because we live mostly paycheck to paycheck?