I know what you mean. When I was really young my parents took us to Florida to see our great-grandfather a couple times and that was the closest thing I had to vacation for a long time. The past couple years my wife and I have had a couple of long weekend trips to cities we can drive to in a couple hours, but nothing extravagant. Well, except flying out to Boston for a wedding, but I would have preferred to opt out of that.

Seems everyone I work with, my parents, my in-laws, friends, everyone goes on cruises. I honestly think I would hate it even if it were free. People dropping a few grand real casual just to binge drink for a week. I could do that for like $200.

I know this is a meme, but j do often find myself frustrated with how often my friends and family want to go out to eat.

I did some annual budget analysis and found my wife and I averaged almost $500/month on bars and restaurants in 2025 (also including takeout). I make over 2x the median household income in my area, but I still think it’s extravagant and luxurious to constantly be going out to eat or drink, or to be ordering takeout. The same friends who are working multiple low-paying jobs and complaining about money are also the ones making plans that involve Ubering both ways to a bar to drink.

You can’t budget your way out of poverty and we should absolutely try to fix the systemic issues we are faced with. Poor people deserve to have a good quality of life too. But also people need to review their consumption and ask if they really should be going out to eat 3x per week, or going on cruises every year.

I have a vague memory of reading an article years ago (can’t find it now) about how pre-industeializarion, the average number of people an individual interacted with and knew wa much smaller.

We used to live in small villages. Houses would contain extended families. You’d probably know your neighbors pretty well. You’d know the people you went to church with. It was not uncommon for someone to be born in a village and live their until their death without ever leaving that village.

Whenever I hear people talk about how humans NEED social connection I’m reminded of that. My college graduating class was perhaps more people than several generations of my ancestors interacted with. There’s a strong argument that we have hyper-optinizsd socialization today. Constantly connected to dozens of people we know and millions that we don’t. Stimulation, novelty, and distraction enough to last more lifetimes than I can imagine.

Perhaps in this modern age, the person most difficult to engage with and the most important, is the self.