Best Places for Cheapskates to Meet People Who Aren’t Cheapskates.
Cross economic divides and magic can happen…
I’m a cheapskate. So are most of my friends. But sometimes, conversations about how crazy it is that the price of the supermarket toilet roll has gone up 50c get boring. I don’t want to sell my soul to someone who’ll take me to fancy restaurants, but equally it probably isn’t healthy for me not to know a single person who is currently under an employment contract.
Hence the issue arises: if you can’t afford to go to nice places, how do you meet people who can?
We may be a society of economic divides. But there a few islands on which wealthy meet wealthless. They are:
That Run Down Ethnic Restaurant:
The rich lot come for the authenticity of the food. I come because the tacos are $2.25. Under painful strip lighting and a tattered poster of the Madonna, together, we unite.
The Apple Store:
I had cracked the screen of my iPad. He had dropped his iPhone. It didn’t matter that he had the highest level of warrantee and I was asking if I could fix it with scotch tape; everyone has to stand in line at the Apple Store. It’s a wonder of socio-economic leveling.
The Library:
There are very few things that money won’t buy a better alternative to. But a library is one of those things. You can be as rich as the Queen (who, actually, isn’t all that rich) and I can bet your collection won’t be half as good as the Brooklyn Public Library.
Excuse me, man with a signet ring; would you recommend that book you’re reading?
Flea Markets:
I was going to say thrift shops. But nowadays, as soon as one person with a label on their handbag walks in, the shop gets branded “vintage” and slaps an extra zero on its prices. What makes flea markets magic is that 3 meters from the man selling a broken picture frame for $1000, is someone else selling ten broken cassette tapes for $1. Compressed economic diversity for the win.
Airport Security:
Yes, they separate us for check-in queues, and lounges, and airplane cabins. But for a brief few moments (or, more often than not, a very long few moments) at airport security, we are offered a prime opportunity for hobnobbing with the wealthy. Check the brand of their shoes when they take them off to verify them as a worthy target.
Even Kim Kardashian has to climb down off her killer heels…
Arts Festivals:
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a dense collection of expensive camera equipment as I did at Dumbo Arts Festival. People with lots of money love to take artistic pictures of people with very little. Say cheese!
Online Dating:
The number of rich men on the interwebs looking “to help a young girl out” is really quite staggering. But sadly, for shallow little me, I’d say that next month’s rent ain’t worth having to look at those hair plugs…
images: TitanicUniverse, IvyStyle, IamKimKardashian, Bernstein Medical
