“In Shanghai, we ate ten Chinese Mitten Crabs from Yang Cheng Lake. They cost so little. In Singapore ten of those would cost a thousand bucks at least.”
“We went for a four-hour massage and it cost next to nothing. In Singapore, it would cost an arm and a leg.”
I find such statements – delivered in tones of such grandiloquent solemnity – extremely annoying.
First, it makes you out as a fucking cheapskate. And I hate cheapskates! I believe you get what you pay for. A four-hour massage costing just five bucks? Seriously?!
An omakase meal costing 30 bucks? Come on! Cold, raw and bland food by a faux Japanese eatery floats your boat? The thought doesn’t send a frisson down my spine but in this day and age, if you still want to eat raw food like a barbarian, be my guest. Knock yourself out. I am unable to metabolize your sentiments. I enjoy Japanese cuisine, but only when I’m in Japan. I go for the real thing.
Second, all that bragging about how much money you have saved is an indirect criticism of me. You are calling me a goondu who is so inferior compared to a super intelligent spastic like you because you know all about saving money, and I don’t.
Third, there are better conversation topics than how much money you have saved, what a good deal you’ve had, blah, blah, blah. It’s also in very bad taste. (My parents taught me to avoid talking about money, sex, religion and politics in conversations.)
The degree of restraint necessary for me to not slap the teeth out of the mouth of a smug douche bag like you is enough to cause me a hernia plus an aneurysm.
Sadly, EQ levels in Singapore aren’t rising nearly as fast as world temperatures.
Fourth, it gives me the impression that you are in dire financial straits. Your behavior runs against my own philosophy which is “Cheap often has nothing to do with quality. I will not bat any eyelid to enjoy myself to the max, I would fly using private jets, I would vacation at 6-star – yes, minimum 6 stars! – super luxury resorts, my suite is spacious enough for the von Trapps, with rooms to spare, I would wine and dine at award-winning restaurants, I won’t stinge, I will spend, I can’t take it with me when I croak, in fact, when I die, I will leave behind the same amount Warren Buffett will leave behind, which is everything.”
Fifth, such talk gives me an insight into your value system. Why work every angle to save a buck? Why journey a thousand miles away just to have a bowl of noodles because it costs only two bucks there? As I’ve said, and let’s be clear about this, cheap is seldom good, you get what you pay for and if something’s too good to be true, it usually is plus life is not all about money. Maybe to you it is, because you are so shallow and crass, but to me, life is more than just about money. It’s something money-pinching jerks like you can never ever understand.
I am bored by the quotidian and the banality of life personified by lowbrows like you.