When money suddenly becomes an issue
Doris prints around.
My friend Marion had asked her three best friends to organize their 50th birthday. "No presents, surprises me," she begged us, "just distracting me from the gloom of my age." Marion is a good, very generous friend, on whose Mallorcan finca we have spent many a short break, so we wanted to show our appreciation. "How about a concert in Berlin and then an overnight stay at the 'Adlon'", Uschi suggests, "I know the PR woman, maybe we'll get a special price." Sounds expensive anyway, I think, but for the 50th you should let it rip. "Exactly, only the best for our Marion!" Exclaimed Inka. We laugh, talk, organize, have fun. Only Doris, the fourth in the league, listens silently. Three days later, she says, mumbling something about an important family appointment, which unfortunately, unfortunately, they have forgotten.
We celebrate the birthday in Berlin without her. Somewhat annoyed because our share was so naturally larger, but without suspicion. But when Doris quits our annual ski holiday shortly after saying "I'm too old to break my bones", we also have the uncomfortable feeling that she's keeping something from us.
Since it's important to me, I ask her what's going on. "What should be?", She defends. I insist. They are printing. I will not let up.
Money was never an issue between us
"I just can not keep up with you anymore," she finally says, "I do not have the money anymore, I do not fit in anymore."
I confess that I am shocked. And at the moment something changes between us. Almost as if she told me about a bad illness. Of course I know that as a freelance camera assistant she had to fight for every job in recent years, that it was difficult for her eldest daughter to finance the expensive art school in London as a lone parent. Just recently she had told me about the trouble with her health insurance company. "I pay 352 euros a month, and then there's not even new glasses in there," she had berated, and I had a slightly bored "I pay over 500" thrown in. A remark that I'm sorry for now. How arrogant that must have sounded in her ears.
Money had never been an issue between us, and being suddenly one touched me uncomfortably. Obviously, we had emotionally and financially diverge in the last few years, without me, the "good" girlfriend, had noticed something.
What had happened, what had I overlooked?
We both worked freely in the media, so I knew the ups and downs of this profession. But as an ambitious little typewriter I had made provisions for my age, always had "a Spargroschen under the pillow", as Doris called it, which found me a bit stuffy and kleinbügerlich. When I threw in the word "old-age insurance," she said, "No topic, next topic," and lit a cigarette.
How should I react? Lend your money? And then secretly annoyed when she could not pay back or wanted? From a colleague who had often lent money, I knew how petty you could react. "I just got annoyed when I did not get my money back, but I found a new coat in my girlfriend's hallway," she said. So you better give?
The topic of money confuses the balance of friendship
Until then, I had experienced our friendship as absolutely equal - we had known each other since the school bag of our children, had shivered together on rainy summer festivals in front of various bouncy castles, coached each other through some marital crisis. We had always been on the same level, and I was afraid to disturb that balance, even though, as I now knew, it had not been one for quite some time. "Do you need money?" I asked anyway. She shook her head. "I'll be fine," she said, "but thanks for asking."
With our friendship it went downhill.
We looked at each other, and there was a small distance in their eyes that I first saw.
From then on, our friendship went downhill. Creeping, but steady. Now that I knew, I was self-conscious, the monetary issue was unspoken over all the others. Weekend trips, as before? Rather not mention that we drove without her now. The expensive jeans I had afforded? Not a word about it. Our phone calls, which used to take two excited hours effortlessly, were now trickling. Because I concealed much of her and rightly assumed that she did too.But why should I swarm with her about the great evening at a sushi restaurant when she'd just told me she could not afford the expensive dental implant right now? Why moan about artisans who had painted my kitchen pop instead of gently yellow when they considered "scaling down", as she put it.
I could only guess how hard it was for her to maintain an immaculate frontage in front of me.
"In old age, the life benefits are reflected, there is an economic differentiation instead," says the Hamburg psychologist Oskar Holzberg, "who has worked well, provided for or just been lucky, is then better than the one who lived well, not Provided or unlucky. "The customer review has been automatically translated from German.
The topic of money did not matter in the past
In the past, our worlds were the same because money did not matter much. Whether one owned a car or rode a bicycle did not matter. We were young, attractive, healthy, at the beginning of our profession and our partnerships. And we were pretty, no matter if we made our own minis out of a fabric scraps or bought them on London's King's Road - we always looked great! Financial differences? Unimportant, after all, our horizon was so limitless that everything seemed possible in the future. And today? While some of us are opening up new opportunities beyond the 50, others are getting closer and closer. Some hibernate under palm trees, others can not afford holidays for years. Some have a golf, others a dramatic life handicap. Some are childless or have children who are self-employed in their own right; in addition, they have inherited, others have to pay both for the education of their children and for the care of their parents.
In the meantime, I feel like I am in my great circle of friends, as in the constant balancing act.
On the one hand my wealthier friends, on the other hand those who are getting tighter and tighter. I know third-party refrigerators only for the vintage champagne and storage cabinets, store in which only discount store food.
Altwerden is undemocratic
Some of my girlfriends are always botoxjünger, others act natural older and older. I have friends who follow the motto "How can we make ourselves more beautiful?" and many others for whom the term "old-age poverty" is not a specter, but a bitter reality. Not so easy to hit the right note in both worlds. Sighing compassionately when a friend complains about engine damage to the new yacht after being in the police with another because her son stole priceless adidas sneakers.
Getting older, getting old is unfortunately undemocratic. Because you can not buy health, but good health insurance, not attractive, but expensive plastic surgeons, beautiful hair least, but a really good barber. If you have enough money, you can live more beautiful, travel more often, enjoy a phase of life that can often feel like a scratchy, too tightly knit sweater without enough money.
Money can not be talked away.
Especially if you were able to offer your children everything and now you can not afford to study abroad, you can not travel with your grandchildren, because you still have to work beyond the age of 65 or the pension is slim. From the age of 50, the psychologist Oskar Holzberg has noted with his patients, most reorganize their lives towards satisfaction; The aim is to do only what is good for you. But if you can not do that, it's hard to make friends who can afford long-distance travel, yoga teachers, or charities - even if you're worried at the end of the month about whether the money is still enough.
Some friends make themselves scarce or are suddenly gone, because they can no longer participate in the well-being of their old clique and are often ashamed to admit this. A big loss for the "leftovers", because a positive life balance also has to do with good, grown-up friendships. Especially as you get older, a tightly knit network of relationships becomes more and more important. "But money is a fact, so unchangeable and therefore not arguable," says Holzberg, "therefore we all have the instinctive need to keep this annoying topic out of our friendships."
In the meantime, I have become accustomed to paying in the cinema or restaurant for friends who have significantly less money than me. "No debate," I say sternly, and when the friend says, "Next time I'm on my turn," I reply, and I hope she forgets that. And she probably hopes that I'll forget that soon.
For though our definition of friendship is a relationship among equals, it is difficult, if not impossible, to always maintain that equality.
"Money just creates differences," says Holzberg, "because it's rechargeable with every meaning, it's power, security, love or guilt, commitment, dependency."
But that also means it does not have to be a problem if I have a girlfriend who gives me her decommissioned designer clothes, invites me to expensive restaurants or takes away traveling. It's her way of showing me her affection. And instead of feeling guilt, obligation, dependency, I can just as well admit that taking can sometimes be as much a proof of friendship as giving.
Money theme: cards on the table
Wherever inequality pushes - we have to be open about it, talking about it, classifying it. Whoever starts from both basically does not care. But the financially stronger will be easier.
"Cards on the table!" Advises another friend of mine, who has recently inherited. "I explained to my friends, who have less than me, that I can spend money in the future, that I do not deserve and I like to share with them, knowing that none of them will take advantage of me the best solution."
I think she is right.
I'll give Doris the next Skitrip for Christmas. If she manages to accept that, I'm glad.
And if I also have a wish with her: to get one of her delicious cakes, which despite the recipe I can never handle like that - that would be perfect.
