Original post by AnonymousI'll start off with a little about me. I grew up in a working class family with little dispensable income and hardly any luxuries. I studied maths at Oxbridge and joined a start-up hedge fund (our fund is an entirely algorithmic fund and I'm much more of a nerdy data scientist than a corporate city boy). Our fund was acquired by a large institutional investor and early joiners of the start-up were granted sizable stock options. In short, I'm 24 and earn 250k a year. I'm grateful for this but I'm clearly not part of the super rich.
I went to a comprehensive school in an area with great social economic problems. Prior to sixth form and university applications I had a very good group of friends. But as we progressed, my friends started speaking to me differently even during teenage years. I was no longer invited to social events and excluded from WhatsApp groups etc. I have never taken this personally, as unpleasant as it is, as I appreciate their plight. I understand that perhaps they find me unrelatable, pretentious even. In addition, we can't be held accountable for everything we do in our teenage years.
I later went to Oxbridge where again I made many friends through sports and societies. Many of their parents' net worth was more than a factor of ten greater than our family net worth. They were fairly privelliged, well read, well connected. But since graduating, I'm experiencing some of the same ostracizing behaviour from my university piers that I had previously experienced at school. Unlike my school friends, I sense that this is more deliberate - my university friends can't possibly feel so alienated by money, and know my character well enough. It has really surprised me.
I should add that I'm not very materialistic - I still have an iphone 8, MacBook 2017, I don't wear designer clothes and I don't own a car. My only material possessions are property that I have purchased as investments and I've travelled extensively in 2018/2019 because I couldn't afford to do so when I was younger. I don't think I have an arrogant attitude, or at the least, I haven't developed one since leaving university. I'm still realatively shy and quietly spoken.
My dilemma is that out of no choice of my own, my friends are now almost exclusively wealthy international students or financiers. To what extent should I try and reach out to my formative friends when they repeatedly and preemptively are disrespectful towards me. Does anyone have any advice for me? Has anyone experienced this before? Is it typical that friends feel intimidated or alienated by someone slightly wealthier than them?