My son took me out for dinner to celebrate my birthday on February 14. My birthday was in October, but we never do find time to celebrate birthdays on the right date. The restaurant was my choice, so I accepted a friend’s suggestion and we went for the first time to RH Rooftop Restaurant atop Reservation Hardware in Edina. Others advised us to go early to first enjoy the beautiful furniture in the store below. I don’t know if black and white are always “in,” but that’s my preference and that’s what we got to see as we wandered through before heading for the restaurant and its beautiful chandeliers. Much as I love my own furniture, I knew it would seem schlocky when I got home. It did, for the first five minutes or so.
At the restaurant I had a glass of delicious wine, chosen from a long list with the help of the wait staff. Price, $20. That’s OK. Doug was paying and it was the least expensive. I think it was even better than my favorite red from Trader Joe’s which, served by myself at home, costs about $3.00 a glass. I didn’t need a full bottle, but one was available from the list for $363.00. To begin with, Doug and I shared a charcuterie board of prosciutto, cheese, and grapes, followed for me by a perfectly prepared petit filet (as close to rare as legally possible) with separately priced asparagus on the side. For dessert I chose a decaf cappuccino. I’ve learned to allow myself to enjoy such luxury even though my mind does go to people enjoying a shelter meal, or even dumpster diving in the cold.
So what’s this got to do with relative deprivation? Or, in this case relative advantage? Well, here goes with a couple more stories. Back in Connecticut, some twenty-five or more years ago, one of the women in my little Lutheran church was aglow with having gone out to dinner with her husband the previous evening– to Friendly’s. Google it. And I remember thinking everything is relative. There really are different levels of creature comfort and – a least those of us who are contented — choose to compare ourselves with people in comparable circumstances. About the prices in the thousands I’d seen at Restoration Hardware before we dined, I had no thoughts of jealousy, or of wanting to acquire sufficient funds to re-furnish my apartment. It was just out of my range of comparison.
And another story. Back in Connecticut I had a client who was enjoying newfound success as a contractor, loving to take friends out to dinner and buying hundred-dollar bottles of wine. Then came the recession of the time and he grieved, comparing himself to where he had been. Relative Deprivation.
By the way, I do have another Friendly’s story. One day after Lou and I had split I took myself out to lunch at Friendly’s. Absolutely thrilled! “Almost like being a real grown-up,” I thought. Or there was the time I bought myself a present of a pretty teakettle on the spur of the moment, approaching the check-out counter like a little kid at Christmas, not wondering if it would be OK with anyone else. In this case comparing myself to me, recognizing the relative deprivation I had been allowing myself to feel.
And therein lies an answer to the question, why is no one apparently concerned that a billionaire is at work cutting away funds designed to help those in need? He and those in his category are just too far out of range for comparison. And why we don’t spend much time comparing our daily lives to the very needy? It’s just plain characteristic of humans to operate within a small frame of reference. Relative Deprivation/Relative Advantage.
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