the 'will people feed you' discourse rn is very funny and hopefully a wake up call to some of the rude freaks scattered out there across europe, but I do want to note that the cultures we're talking about are cultures of the affluent. literally everywhere I have visited, working class people share food as a matter of course. everywhere I have visited, working class people push drinks and snacks on you the moment you walk in the door. there's a layer to this conversation that only exists among people who have the choice to be miserly and unaffected by their neighbours behaving the same way.
the first time I experienced being completely shut out of another family's mealtime, it was when I was a teenager on an exchange trip to the netherlands. I was staying with this family, and literally reliant on them for food and housing. The day I arrived they explained to me what time mealtimes were, and that I would not be fed unless I arrived at the table on time. One morning I was running a little behind because I had trouble figuring out how the shower worked, and when I came downstairs my hosts were already eating. They hadn't set a place for me, and they all ignored me and continued conversing in dutch. When I timidly tried to serve myself, they gave me look as if I had just walked in off the street and started raiding the refrigerator. They were an intimidatingly affluent family.
one morning the mother had to drop me off early at my work placement, before the building opened. I was sitting outside on a wall for like 50 minutes by myself with nothing to do, and an older lady running a food cart nearby started chatting to me (she wanted to know I was okay, because I was like 15 and not in school, and was very interested to hear that I was on exchange from scotland). she offered me a free breakfast, and when I said I'd already eaten she gave me a drink and a packet of crisps to keep for lunch, and kept trying to make me try fried things that were apparently dutch specialities but were way too much for me at 8am. she was very sweet and funny, and had infinitely more in common with the poorer dutch students who I would meet at a separate pan-european thing later than with any of the kids or parents around the upper middle class academy we were paired with that year. people are people everywhere, some are just more inclined to worry about appearances than others.
There’s a sort of, “do for yourself and I’ll do for myself” that unnerved me about learning to navigate upper-class friendships and homes. After thinking about it for years, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s ultimately about maintaining independence and avoiding the class shame of appearing to need others — but the effects manifest as a bizarre standoffishness, an artificial separation of “yours” and “mine”. The class standards they impose on themselves, are imposed on guests.
I was initially baffled that, for instance, family members or friends who come to visit you are often expected to stay in a hotel or at an AirBNB, not at your house. “But you have a whole-ass house”, I would think. “Or floors. And blankets. Lots of things. You can put them in your beds and sleep on the floor, if they don’t want the couch.” Often, they would have guest bedrooms, but these bedrooms were not offered to most visitors. So, you’ve literally got an EMPTY BEDROOM FOR GUESTS, but no?? You expect them to house themSELVES? Elsewhere?? On THEIR dollar? That’s so expensive! Also, to my mind, frankly rude!
I also noticed that my wealthier friends never pick up groceries for each other. They never call or text each other like, “yo, I’m at X, do you need anything”. I think they would risk confusion at best and deep offense at worst, if one of them got a wild hair up their ass and tried it. It’s too personal, implies some degree of inter-reliance.
It makes relationships look and feel artificially constrained.
This is all completely accurate to my experience too. I think a major cultural absence in wealthier social circles is the concept of ongoing reciprocity / gifting relationships. For me, and for more or less everyone I've ever met who grew up poor, it is a normal and natural gesture of closeness to offer resources when you have them and to accept resources when you need them. It's a way of saying that you trust somebody - either you trust them to have your back when you need it, or you trust them to care for you without ulterior motives. I'm talking about small costs, grocery money, meals here and there, maybe a movie ticket if everyone is going and one person can't stretch to afford it this month. Nobody keeps track of the expenses, you just remember who you have built those relationships with, and you share in return when you get the opportunity.
Larger costs tend to be more difficult, and that's because often it's impossible to be sure that you will ever be able to adequately reciprocate. As a teenager I had one friend in particular who was much more wealthy than the rest of us, and he was a wonderfully kind, warm hearted, generous person who would often offer to pay for entire outings or trips on his own so that the rest of us could participate. And it was really, really awkward, because what was a small gesture in his eyes was something that the poorest of us knew we could never pay back. He might not have cared about keeping track of the cost, but we would never be able to forget it, and that would upset the balance of the reciprocal relationship. I don't think he ever really understood why we would turn him down, it's nearly impossible to explain what a strong instinct it is when you have grown up with that dance culturally ingrained in you.
All of that is to say that I think my friend's behaviour ultimately comes from the same background as the people who go through the world hoarding their resources. When you have never been in a position to need a strong relationship that afforded you emergency childcare or a meal of pizza and beans once in a while over, idk, a ski trip once a year, you can't understand why big sporadic gifts are turned down. You can't understand why your poor friends keep insisting on paying for their own gas or trying to do you favours you can easily afford yourself. You can't understand why kids expect to eat dinner with you (because their families would feed your kids, if they ever needed it, and your kids will never need it).
