Chinese New Year. On this day, Chinese kids get pocket money in red envelopes. My best friend is Chinese. He likes money, I like being single. He knows both of these facts. Anyways, I just got off a 40 minute phone call with my friend, who didn't get pocket money.

To summarize, he ended up redirecting his anger into a lesson about how money is the most important thing in life. It quickly turned into a lecture, which I carefully listened to.

He talked about family, success, and rich international kids. But the main point I gathered, is that he's insecure about the fact his girlfriend is really wealthy. Her parents make 500k/yr combined. Not uncommon with Chinese families. The thing about Chinese girls though, is that they're pressured to marry "up", not down. This isn't good for my friend, who sees this girl as wifey material.

But my friend's family "only" makes 200k combined. Despite the fact he has three cars and lives in an expensive house in NY, his parents make him work for rent, food, etc. He doesn't "feel" rich.

Add to the fact that one of his friends just started a shipping company at age 20, and he feels even shittier.

What I noticed is that most of his financial burdens would go away if he dropped the girlfriend and got rid of his fantasy about marriage and kids. But that's hard to do I guess. My other friends are like this too. They are adamant in their beliefs in marriage, kids, and money. At the end of the conversation, he tried to persuade me to make more money and get a girlfriend, despite all the issues of having one.

I couldn't tell him what I thought to his face, since, I do love my friend. More stress wouldn't help. But he is a sharp and quick-witted guy, I'm sure he'll be okay. Still, sucks to know the older I get, more of these people that I respect will give me the same shitty advice.

After talking with him, I felt motivated to make more money. But I too felt like shit. I'm sure all MGTOW have experienced something similar at some point.

e.g. "This person is married. This person has a BMW, money, and a family; why don't you get a girl/guy? Don't you try to be different!"

So yeah. Fuck pocket money. That shit ain't worth it.

P.S. I spent my Chinese New Year playing Black Desert Online since early morning. It was fucking awesome. No regrets.