But what makes people go that route, almost as bad as MLM people
Anyone else have friends like that?
In a previous line of work I routinely worked with very wealthy people pretty much on a daily basis. I don't mean your average rich, but your really rich. For example I had a client that had over 1,000 of his employees earning over $1m per year, another kept over $300m in a simple savings account, and another was listed (at the time) by Forbes as having a $22 billion dollar net worth. Another guy had a staff of almost 25 people just to keep track of his various investments. These are just a few examples among A LOT more.
Truth be told there is a whole different type of psychology when it comes to money and even people that try to hang around money. Where did the money come from, where did the person come from, and about 10,000 other factors all play a role.
While there isn't nearly enough info to make a call, most people with real experience know their place in the pecking order of things. For example if someone gets to talking smack about their new bass boat to a guy with a couple hundred million dollars sitting in a checking account is sort of like trying to talk shit to an 'in his prime' Mike Tyson.
Keep in mind there are exceptions to that. For example I knew a guy that was wealthy by normal people's standards but not even on the radar for the stratosphere mentioned above. This guy was a car fanatic. He LOVED cars. It was his passion. In other words he could talk about his new Porsche whatever and it totally didn't come across as being a dick thing to do. It was like 'this is my passion, this is my hobby and I like it' kind of thing. It was quite good actually at motivating people to be interested in cars too primarily because he wasn't doing it as an 'in your face poor boy' manner.
On the other hand you had some people that just bought a McLaren for the sole purpose to try and fit in or to brag, or just to be an asshole about it. Inevitably you would see them with a 22 year old college girl that took the bait. As for everyone else, they hate assholes like that. People like that truly try to plug craters in their life (and personalities) with false praise over 'who they are' and worse even, what they have. In the end they are miserable and eventually it makes everyone around them miserable as well.
I can share lots of stories, but one in particular comes to mind. There was this hot shot asshole with an office across the way from our office at that time. He had maximum a couple of million in sum total, nowhere NEAR the others, but he tried to compensate and 'fit in' all the wrong ways. He was an asshole to EVERYONE. Waiters, waitresses, the cleaning lady, whoever. He did that (I think) because he let the money go to his head, and secondly he erroneously had the stereotype in his mind that 'that's how rich people act'. Long story short he tried that shit with me and I called building security on him, personally closed every account he had and handed him a check for every penny he had in our bank, and told him if he ever stepped foot inside our place of business again he would wind up in jail. Then I had them (and the cops) escort him off the premises. Keep in mind this was being done in front of a whole lot of people that had a whole lot of money. It was amusing to them because everyone knew how big of a dysfunctional dick that guy was. For the next several months I got more business and more invitations to events than I ever had before. People I had never met before were bringing me money.
I am not sure where your buddy fits in, but it sort of comes across as good intentions but annoying as hell.