My point stands - if anything a cocktail party is potentially less expensive to host since you know in advance numbers and preferences.
> These are somewhat normal things as part of a knit-community adult life.
As something of an adult myself (I'm 46), I'm well aware of how community functions. I'm also aware of the 'keeping up with the jones' nature of wealth and how corrosive that is to community - being entirely founded on the selective and exclusive nature of spending.
My contention stands, there is no need whatsoever to spend thousands on a cocktail party. One doesn't need to 'opt out' of social life. It's perfectly possible to serve cocktails yourself, to buy 'off the shelf' brands rather than expensive whiskey etc. It's perfectly possible to prepare your own food, or work with a chef who organises 'super club' style catering, which does not cost thousands.
It's a choice to live this way, not a fate. And doubtless it affords status among other high worth individuals - just as it dooms you to a life of fruitless comparison and ostentatiousness.
This can be said of literally anyone living in the first
World.
I find it deeply laughable anyone would stand on a soap box who lives in a modern first world environment and lecture like this while not seeing the irony that they do it themselves at their level as well.
Please. Stop. Look around. And maybe visit a place where you see how the other half of the planet lives. Likely your world is wildly ostentatious and unnecessary comparatively.
The plank in your eye before your neighbor and all that.
> These are somewhat normal things as part of a knit-community adult life.
As something of an adult myself (I'm 46), I'm well aware of how community functions. I'm also aware of the 'keeping up with the jones' nature of wealth and how corrosive that is to community - being entirely founded on the selective and exclusive nature of spending.
My contention stands, there is no need whatsoever to spend thousands on a cocktail party. One doesn't need to 'opt out' of social life. It's perfectly possible to serve cocktails yourself, to buy 'off the shelf' brands rather than expensive whiskey etc. It's perfectly possible to prepare your own food, or work with a chef who organises 'super club' style catering, which does not cost thousands.
It's a choice to live this way, not a fate. And doubtless it affords status among other high worth individuals - just as it dooms you to a life of fruitless comparison and ostentatiousness.