either you "carry your weight", i.e., pay your own way and are equally wealthy yourself, or for some reason one of them pays your share. If the they pick up the tab for you, why would that be?

Would these very wealthy people describe you to their peers as "a friend"? So you go somewhere like a pro football game, and they sit in the luxury sky boxes and you sit in the bleachers? You vacation together and they fly private jet and you travel coach on Southwest? They stay en suite at the Four Seasons on Nevis Island and you camp in a tent on the beach? You go out to pricey restaurants and you say you're not really hungry and nibble on the amuse bouche? Do you end up spending money you can't afford in order to keep up with the Joneses?

I belong to an organization with a woman who is constantly name dropping about her very important, high ranking, political friends. In her version, they call her all the time, ask her opinion on what they should do and say, and she is always invited to their parties. In reality, she gets solicitation calls for donations, mailed opinion surveys, and is invited to fund-raising events.

I have some very wealthy family members, and an impoverished, single niece with 4 kids (through a combination of divorce, job loss, health problems, mortgage foreclosure, ending in a homeless shelter - but now thank god, employed again and able to rent a house). The wealthy ones get together every other Christmas for a 10 day, 5 star holiday in St. John's and ignore other family members; those of us in the middle - like me and my adult kids - give as generously as we can to the (working) poor family members, i.e., helping them catch up on their rent, pay their electric bills and getting some fun presents for the youngest children. When I asked my multi-millionaire brother and his fat-ass, never worked a day in her life wife, to help out with a few hundred for his niece's (her dad/our brother died decades ago) auto repair, I was told by my rich bitch sister-in-law, that they didn't believe in charity. It was character building for people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and handle their problems on their own. Oh, and all of the wealthy branch are registered Dems, although I don't know that they ever donate to any candidates

And finally, I worked on the last census, personally tracking down and contacting very wealthy people, often in gated communities or on large estates surrounded by walls and security gates with cameras and intercoms, who couldn't be bothered to return their census forms. My fellow census workers were retired professionals - high school teachers, college professors, engineers, and me - a lawyer. All well-spoken, nicely dressed, well-mannered. You'd have thought we were a band of traveling gypsies, casing their palatial estates for criminal activities.