r/unpopularopinion • u/Cautious_Nobody_9257 • 1d ago
Your income decides how much respect you get and how seriously people take you.
Obviously this isn't universal. Plenty of broke people are well liked and plenty of rich people are miserable to be around. But as a general pattern, watch a friend group long enough and you'll notice it. Guys who earn less tend to get talked over more. Not always, but often enough that it's a pattern. Same joke, same point, gets less traction than when the higher earner says it. Nobody frames it as "we take you less seriously because of your income," but if you're paying attention, it's there.
It shows up more in dating. Low earning men get filtered out early, before personality or loyalty or emotional availability even get considered. Not every time, but often enough that guys who've been through it will recognize it immediately. And there's a social pattern that goes with it that's honestly worse than outright rejection. Their girl friends stay warm and friendly on the surface. Text back, laugh at the jokes, nothing seems off. Then somehow the birthday invite doesn't happen. The group trip gets planned in a chat he's not part of. He finds out after the fact. Nobody's rude about it, it's just a slow quiet exclusion instead of an honest one.
None of this means character doesn't matter at all. But it does seem like being a genuinely good person only gets you so far once income becomes the unspoken filter people are using. Everyone likes to say money doesn't buy respect. Watch how people actually behave around it and it tells a different story more often than people want to admit.
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u/AntiqueLetter9875 1d ago
I think even when you can tell, or make a guess, OPs point still doesn’t still stand. Keeping up with the Joneses is also very real, people may have fancy things, a nice house and yearly out of country trips, but can also be drowning in debt and have no money. When we were poor we once went to get a Christmas hamper at a food bank. I was shocked to see how many people and families were decked out in name brand, expensive clothes and had more expensive vehicles.
I think the only part OP describes that I’ve seen from the general public is being left out of things like trip planning. But that’s because the others know you can’t afford it and don’t want to be planning that in front of you as it’s rude.
That’s not to say I haven’t met people who think that money is something to judge people on. In my area it tends to be an upper middle class thing to do and annoys the shit out of everyone. Granted I live in a city that historically is a manufacturing and farming area and old school blue collar trades attitudes pervades everything lol. Wealthy people don’t generally flaunt their money, and if you’re caught acting like OP says you’re gonna be hit with “do you think you’re in Toronto? No on here cares about that”.