I have a motto in life: money won’t make you happy, but poverty will undoubtedly make you miserable.
I’ve experienced both middle-class money and the throes of poverty. My experiences have informed my judgment. I’ve seen all sides of the coin, I know how it shines, and I understand how it spends.
I was dirt poor for most of my life when I was young. I was one of the lucky ones who had to claw my way out of obscene poverty to make something of myself. While I’ve technically been in the middle-class tax bracket for years, I’m only beginning to take my first full breath and let out a sigh of relief.
Back when I lived in Los Angeles, I met a lot of strange, weird, and fascinating characters. Brent* was one of them. His story was the polar opposite of mine.
His dad created a private stockbroker company that ended up being wildly successful. Brent had it made. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and grew up in the luxurious hills of Los Angeles County in a mansion that overlooked the city.
When I met Brent, I was a humble wage worker working as a technician for a computer shop. He came into the shop and was looking at computer parts. They called me out to talk to him about what would work best for what he was trying to do, producing electronic music. I was also an electronic musician, so we immediately hit it off.
At the end of our conversation, he handed me his phone number (back in the day when you used to have to write it down on paper) and told me to call him. He said we could make some music together, and I could help him with more tech work he needed at home.
I accepted. Once I got to his place, I walked into a stunning mansion on the hills that floored me. He asked me to do a few menial tasks, like copying photos from his trips onto backup disks, which just about anybody can do. He agreed to pay me $40 per hour. After about five or ten minutes, he asked me to finish up and come hang out with him.
Here’s where the story gets weird.
We sat and chatted, and he reassured me he’d pay me for my time as if I was working on his computers.
Brent was profoundly lonely. He had no one to hang out with. Things got worse after his father died, leaving him everything. It reminds me of the lottery curse you hear about when people win the lottery and wind up with a ton of money that ends up ruining their lives.
He couldn’t get a girlfriend. Brent was woefully inadequate at charming the ladies. As I sat there collecting my pay, talking about life, the universe, and everything in it, he lamented failed relationship after failed relationship.
He told me he went above and beyond for the women he would take out on dates, but nothing seemed to work out. He’d pick them up in a car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and would wine and dine them at fancy restaurants that cost hundreds of dollars per plate.
My first thought, a thought I kept to myself, was, “Don’t you think that might be intimidating for someone of are more humble background.” I let him talk.
When he did get a call back from one of the women he’d taken out, she’d hang out for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, before she’d break it off.
“I just don’t understand it. I put so much effort into these women, and I sense they only want to hang out with me for my money.”
We had a few of these sessions before I finally just told him the truth:
Look, man, you’re a really nice guy. But I think you’re going about this all wrong. Showing up to such fancy dates like that puts a lot of pressure on people. And consider this: what message do you think you’re sending out when you pick someone up in a super fancy car and treat them to obscenely expensive food? You’re communicating that what you have to offer is money. You aren’t trying to win them over with anything else. How else should they respond?
That stopped him dead in his tracks.
It was a lightbulb moment. That whole time he’d just assumed that relationships were uncomplicated, you show people what you own, and they’ll swoon over you from that point forward. But relationships are complicated, and people don’t work that way.
I’ve learned that people care much more about how you make them feel than what you can buy.
I hope he eventually learned there are other ways to communicate with people and ways to show them who you are. In dating and relationships, people aren't concerned with the stuff you have so much as who you are.
Even if you’re filthy rich and dating the most shallow person on earth, it doesn’t change the fact that you'll be insufferable if you have no personality or are miserable.
Today, things are going awry in the world of dating. Men all over are struggling. I see them repeatedly making the same mistake as Brent. The messages they’re sending out are neither what women want nor what they want women to want.
They want others to be attracted to them. But somewhere along the lines, we have gotten lost while swimming in the abyss of our consumer culture. We assume that attractiveness, pleasantness, and other traits that magnetize people can be bought off a shelf.
It makes sense that we’d reach this conclusion. When we have a problem in American life, we usually buy something or hire someone to take care of it. Brent was doing precisely that when he hired me to assuage his loneliness for $40 an hour.
But the intangible traits people find magical aren’t things that can be bought. They must be earned through effort, exploration, curiosity, and learning.
What’s worse is today, there’s an abundance of dating “gurus” online who all give awful advice. I was reading literature from a male dating coach the other day who told his followers:
You must assume attraction from all women until proven otherwise. And by “proven otherwise,” I mean until she literally walks away or flat out tells you she isn’t interested.
Yikes. No wonder men are having so many difficulties in their romantic lives. That’s a recipe for sexual assault if I ever heard one.
Unfortunately, there are so many unhealthy messages out there telling men they aren't lovable if they aren’t ripped like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime or loaded like Jeff Bezos. So many people have come to believe that if they don’t have what our consumer culture has told us must be desirable, they won’t be desirable.
This is a lie.
But there is good news. And the good news is that almost everything people love in others costs nothing. A personality is free.
Charisma won’t cost you a dime.
One great place to start is being more present in your current relationshipswith friends, family, and acquaintances. Learn how to really listen. Learn how to be fun and friendly in all of your encounters.
Try every day to become better with each passing day. Aim to become someone who makes people feel incredible inside.
Trust me, people care much more about how you make them feel than what you own.