He sold his company, joined three clubs and bought a house south of the highway. What he could not buy was someone who knew him before any of it. Why old friends became the rarest luxury on the East End. Part of our series on what the rich now pay for that used to be free.

Three Memberships and a Table for One

Call him Jonathan. He is a composite, drawn from a pattern that shows up every few summers on the East End.

Jonathan sold his company at fifty-one. Within a year he had a house in Southampton, memberships at two Manhattan clubs and a waitlist spot at a third. He was invited everywhere. He went to everything.

On a Thursday night in late July, he ate dinner alone at the bar of one of his clubs, scrolling through a phone full of contacts and finding nobody he could call just to talk. Hundreds of acquaintances. Dozens of people who wanted something. Nobody who remembered him at twenty-five, broke and funny and certain about everything.

Across town, a man with a fraction of his net worth was eating at a crowded table in Sag Harbor with four friends from college who had been coming out east together every August for thirty years. If you had to guess which of the two men felt rich that night, you would not guess Jonathan.

Why can’t money buy old friends?

Money cannot buy old friends because the thing that makes them valuable is time already spent. A friend who knew you before your success can tell you the truth, remembers who you were and wants nothing from your money. You can buy access to rooms full of people. You cannot buy shared history, so it has become one of the scarcest things a wealthy person can have.

That scarcity is exactly what turns something into status. The brand strategist Eugene Healey lists community among the basic human experiences that modern life has made scarce and luxury has repackaged. A membership can sell you the room. It cannot sell you the people in it who have known you for decades.

What the longest study of happiness found

The Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed its participants since 1938, starting with 724 young men: 268 Harvard sophomores and 456 boys from some of Boston’s poorest neighborhoods. It is one of the longest studies of adult life ever conducted.

Its clearest finding is about relationships. The study’s director, psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, has said that the people most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80. In his widely viewed TED talk, he put the finding simply: “Good relationships keep us happier and healthier.” The study also found that quality matters more than quantity. You can be lonely in a crowd.

That is Jonathan’s problem. He has the crowd.

Why success can make loneliness worse

Wealth can quietly erode friendships. A 2020 study led by Deborah Ward at the University at Buffalo, with researchers from Harvard Business School, found that people who base their self-worth on financial success feel more pressured, spend less time with family and friends, and feel lonelier and less connected. The pursuit of the number crowds out the people.

Money also poisons the read. Once you are rich, it gets harder to tell why someone is being nice to you. We explored this in He’s the Richest Man in the Room, but He’s Still Bad at Making Friends, the story of a man whose twenty years of focus built a fortune and skipped the part where people learn to make friends.

What the best clubs actually sell

The smartest clubs understand this. In our profile of Zero Bond, the members who love it describe it the same way: it is the place where they always run into someone they are glad to see. That is not a feature of the building. It is what happens when a host is careful about who comes in, and when the same people keep coming back.

The same is true of summer rituals out east. Events that repeat year after year become reunions. At Polo Hamptons, which has run since 2016 and caps attendance at 900 guests per date, cabanas seat about ten people, which is roughly the size of a group of old friends. People come back every year, often with the same group at the same cabana, and over time the event has become a social ritual: as much a summer reunion as a polo match. Our piece on invitation-only events notes that the same people appear at polo, the Hampton Classic and the summer galas. Repetition is how acquaintances become friends.

For the different kinds of people you meet in Manhattan’s clubs, see our field guide to club members.

The Catch: you cannot shortcut history

There is no fast track here, which is the point. A new friend made at fifty-one can become an old friend at sixty-one, but only if both people keep showing up. The wealthy are used to buying speed, and this is one place where speed does not exist.

The good news is that it is never too late to start. The Harvard study found that people who leaned into relationships with family, friends and community fared best, at any stage of life. The work is simple and unglamorous: call people back, show up when it is inconvenient, and go to the same places often enough that people expect you.

Back at the Bar

Jonathan did eventually make a call that night. Not to a club contact, but to his college roommate in Connecticut, whom he had not spoken to in six years. The roommate picked up on the second ring and said, “Took you long enough.”

They talked for an hour. In August, the roommate came out to Southampton for a weekend, and they spent most of it on the porch, laughing at things nobody else would find funny. Jonathan still has the memberships. He just stopped thinking of them as the point.

Frequently asked questions

What did the Harvard Study of Adult Development find about happiness?
The Harvard Study of Adult Development, running since 1938, found that close relationships are the strongest predictor of long-term happiness and health. Participants who were most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80, and the quality of relationships mattered more than the number.

Can money buy friendship?
Research suggests that focusing on money can hurt friendships. A 2020 study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that people who base their self-worth on financial success feel more pressured, spend less time with family and friends, and report more loneliness.

How do wealthy people make real friends as adults?
The most reliable way is repetition: showing up to the same places, events and groups over years so that acquaintances become friends. Rejoining old friends from school or early careers also helps, because those relationships were built before money changed the dynamics.

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