After a decades-long saga, I have finally got engaged to the love of my life. A lot of my friends have followed the story over the years and appear mostly very happy it all sorted itself out.
Naturally after such a long time, we want to enjoy each other’s company and do nice things. Although I am successful and work full-time, I am also spending good chunks of time doing exciting things with him overseas. My dilemma is that everyone is starting to guess how wealthy my new man is because of the lifestyle he leads, the fact he retired early, and the amount of travel he does. He really is very wealthy and not even my family knows the extent.
I am not a kept woman by a long shot and we are not flashy. But a few of my very good old friends have asked me outright: ‘How much money does he actually have?’
I am finding it very hard to wriggle out of this question. I don’t like to lie outright and pretend I don’t know, but I don’t think it helps them to learn the answer and I don’t want it affecting our friendships. Any ideas?
Eleanor says: I always think the best move with nosy questions is just to meet them head-on, like how in jiujitsu you’re meant to use your opponent’s momentum against them. “I’m not allowed to know, he keeps it all in suitcases full of gold.”
The bigger point is that when we’re confronted with personal questions, it’s not the case that the only options are to tell the truth or to mislead. There are also ways to communicate that the question isn’t one you want to answer.
You can make those kinds of silly jokes, which have the advantage of not supplying any information, while still looking jovial and like you’re playing along. You can also say nothing – a little frown with a slight shake of the head or a change of subject should convey to anyone socially competent that you don’t want to answer.
There’s a spectrum: the closer the friendship, the more entitled the other person might feel to knowing the answer, so the harder it’ll be to brush them off with these small redirects. But the flipside is that the closer your friendship, the easier it should be to give the unvarnished truth about why you won’t answer. “I don’t tell people that, it’s too personal”, or “it’s his, that’s not my information to share”.
So I’d have a few dismissive jokes up your sleeve, as well as a brief and firm explanation, in case of pushy friends who don’t take the hint. Practise saying these out loud, literally: actually speaking hard words does a lot to reduce the feeling that they’re in some way existentially unsayable.
That way an acquaintance-level friend can be given a pointed joke (or two) to signal “move on”, but a close friend – if they say “go on, tell me” – can get the more direct candour. The important thing is to not cite a reason that could then be the subject of a debate. You’re giving people a considered decision, not inviting their input about your reasoning.
Be aware, though, that even without naming an amount, this wealth is bound to affect your friendships at least a little. Retire-early wealth is unusual: people will notice it, comment on it, or be envious. Those reactions may be totally fair ones to have, and I don’t think you can hope for a world where people don’t gawk a little. So much of so many people’s lives are constrained or consumed by money that it’s bound to be fascinating to think about what life is like if you have lots of it. It’s the same kind of fantasy we engage in when we watch wealthy people on TV or ask what we’d do if we won the lottery.
The price for being able to have the holidays and do the nice things might be that your friends gawk a bit.
So along with practising these “enough now” phrases, you might also need to practise tolerating it when people find this a bit fascinating. That much won’t cost you a lot.
This letter has been edited for length and to remove some personal information.
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