Thank you so much for welcoming me into your home so often and with such genuine kindness. It meant more than I can say to have a place where I was treated with such generosity and care. I’m grateful for every meal, every snack, every glass of milk, every conversation, and every moment you made feel like I belonged. Your hospitality never went unnoticed, and I still appreciate you deeply for it.

I’ve come to the very very sad realization that Christian isn’t looking for a friend who does well for himself. Christian is looking for a loser he can talk down to so he can “feel big”, presumably because: having lots of inertia like Chandler, not producing wealth until late in life, and having his wife work to support him for a time (and now having to keep working for what’s looking like decades into my retirement) have made him feel small. A decade ago, when each and every sentence from Christian began coming in on a downward trajectory, I cut our relationship in half. I stopped calling Christian and made him call me. This was meant to be a strong warning for him to knock it off. Today, I’m not sure Christian has ever made the connection that I quit calling him the moment he started talking down to me (while also having a lower net worth than me). I find that level self-unawareness and wishful tabulation to be off-putting.

Unbeknownst to and unfortunately for Christian, I’ve always done extremely well for myself, so I’m simply neither eligible nor available for the dynamic he’s seeking. I’ve given Christian 10 years to get comfortable having money and grow out of his presumptuous and boorish behaviors, this “fool’s idea of glory”, but he’s only grown INTO the behaviors. In the meantime, Tiffany and I have joined a church and a country club. Suffice it to say that we have found where we are supposed to be and we have found who we are supposed to be with:

People who don’t make fun of our jewelry and pretend aloud that it’s fake while we actually have multiple appraisals in-hand for insurance purposes. We figured out really quickly that we aren’t allowed to have anything nicer than they have and we had to start leaving our good stuff at home or in our pockets when we were with them, and even had Aria remove her diamond earrings, to avoid unsolicited attempts at wishful appraising (somehow, the appraisal is always zero. Lol). We’re just going to associate with people for whom we don’t have to do all that to keep them from going sideways on us.

People who don’t pretend aloud that cruises are stupid and to be avoided, simply because we’d been on 8 (that they were told about) and they had been on zero. We quit talking about our cruising with him because he stopped wishing us well with it, and we quit posting our cruises on Facebook so he wouldn’t find out and bring it up. We’re just going to associate with people who can look past their own inexperiences and have a desire to hear about what we’re up to without out loud bitterness or silly attempts at denigration.

People who answer yes or no to our invitations like we matter, rather than ignore them. There will be no more invitations given.

People who don’t tell us weeks ahead of time to save a weekend for a big family shin-dig down the street from one of our homes, only to turn around and not invite us to the shin-dig, nor see us while in town for the shin-dig, nor even let us know in any way that they wouldn’t be seeing us at all that weekend (after we cancelled our plans that we couldn’t get back into just to try to see them), and then just never mention any of it ever again and move on with their lives. This is just unacceptable behavior and as a result…there will be no more weekends saved, and all future invitations will be declined on principle.

People who don’t experience out loud grief cycles, getting stuck somewhere between the first stage (denial) and the second stage (anger) upon hearing of or hearing about any achievement, any success, or any acquisition whatsoever, and then conveniently forgetting all about each and every one of them before the next phone call. Each phone call with Christian now might as well begin with, “Well, I’ve been the only person doing anything worthwhile. What have YOU been up to since graduation, Dusty??” It’s been like having a friend with pretend dementia, as though…that’s just the way he needs to look at the world to feel sane in it. It just isn’t worth the bother for me anymore. One grows tired of being falsely insulted by someone one adores like a brother and supports in all things.

People who don’t tell me I have “a lot of inertia like Chandler” the same month I bought a beach house in Italy. We had been in the market for over a year and were excited to invite Christian and his family to come spend a week in Italy with us (for free!) every summer. Instead, we’ve named the beach house “Villa Inertia” so I’ll never forget Christian’s inexplicable habit of pretending to look for me amongst the trash cans at every opportunity (knowing good and well that’s not where I am) and I’ll be sending his invitation to a family we can stand to be around. I’ve never been able to catch Christian up on just how well things have gone in my life because he’s kept me quietly angry, cringing, and rolling my eyes while listening to him tell me otherwise (without data or even pretense of data)….just…fantasizing out loud through a smile about me being “less than”, as though that would be an enjoyable topic of discussion for me, too. The last 20 years of my relationship with Christian has been nothing more than a slow process of cutting off information streams to him in an earnest attempt to get the flow of snide and cruel comments from him to stop, and then, Christian’s 2024 attempt to convince me I have “a lot of inertia like Chandler” (millionaire at 22 here, so he has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about) while having identical inertia to Chandler himself (ZERO net wealth production before mid-30’s) has caused Christian to lose all credibility with me. I just don’t believe he can make sound judgements now. I don’t have my wife and kids around people who make wild, self-serving judgements based on wishful thinking.

People who don’t tell me I “didn’t do anything” with my life the same week I received an award (at a black-tie gala held in my honor) from a Fine Arts charity for having given my one-millionth dollar to them over the previous 20 years, making me a documented seven-figure philanthropist with my portrait in their lobby for a year. I’m bored with Christian projecting his shortcomings onto me and then wanting to gleefully talk about them with me as though they are mine. Barf!

People who don’t tell me my 5 luxurious European vacations so far since retirement (which he knows are my passion and my dream-come-true) are “spartan” and change the subject rather than asking me anything about how any of the trips were, or asking anything about where I went, or asking anything about what I saw. I guess Christian thinks it should be him retired and fulfilling dreams in epic fashion, but it isn’t because he didn’t do the work…he sat on his butt and ran his mouth instead.

We travel between our Texas properties and our friends’ Texas properties on weekends and holidays aboard our own airplane now. We have a group of friends that Christian would really enjoy and appreciate. Two doctors, a lawyer, and a commercial real estate investor…all of us retired young via hard (and/or clever) work plus inheritance, with kids 2-20, and all as kind and gracious as can be. We travel to Europe together, we cruise together, we play golf together, we fly our planes together, we work on our planes together, we have our families together at our properties on the weekends…and not one of us needs a penny from Christian. It’s a shame Christian won’t ever be able enjoy any of it because he’s too busy pretending to be superior to all of it. Meanwhile, Christian’s getting up and going to work on Monday morning and we aren’t. Make it make sense! Our properties and our plane are both subjects Christian has either made snide, jealous comments about or just denied the existence of (either directly or indirectly), so he’s already gotten himself banned for life from all of them, and since Christian doesn’t have any landing strips at his properties, we just won’t have any use for Christian going forward.

We have a full social calendar of people who accept the premise that we are successful people who have a lot to bring to the table, so we’re able to get past that and have actual adult conversations that all parties can enjoy. That’s good enough for us. As I’m sure you can imagine, based on the corresponding difference in conversation alone (Everyone else in the Universe: “What did you see in Europe?” vs. Christian: “How can YOU afford to go to Europe?”), we just won’t have any use for Christian going forward.

Deep down I always knew Christian would end up behaving this way: outwardly pretend to reject me for being “less than” while actually having less than half my net worth himself, while still having to work 5 years and counting into my own retirement, which he hasn’t acknowledged in any way since I told him about it (I told him about it 3 years afterwards to try to soften the blow), and with no retirement in sight for him. I knew this because our entire relationship has consisted of me meeting Christian where he was to be his friend (Examples: Not talking about my money when he didn’t have any yet, not talking about my real estate holdings when he didn’t have any yet, not talking about stock and bond market dynamics when he didn’t have any securities holdings yet, not talking about collecting and tracking the value of gold bullion when he didn’t have any, not talking about being one of the best musicians in the State growing-up when I knew there wasn’t a subject at which he excelled to that degree, etc.), only to have him say (or imply) to me or to others “Look where Dusty is…what a loser…”. I can’t respect a man who pretends to think his disowned shadow (the poorness) is following me now, especially after I so very ably looked out for his feelings for so long while he was getting started, so I just won’t have any use for Christian going forward.

Christian has turned out to be one of the greatest disappointments of my life…the one and only area of my WHOLE LIFE where I feel I wasted my time. I wouldn’t walk across the street to see him at this point. Thank goodness I had the foresight to cultivate parallel relationships with people more on my own level intellectually and financially who value mutual respect and loyalty as I do, and who don’t know Christian from Adam, so that his wishful thinking-based false narratives and self-serving false realities have no audience and zero influence within my universe. Those other relationships have blossomed beautifully, so I just won’t have any use for Christian going forward.

I’ve always been a positive, “big picture” guy, so it’s been incredibly heartwarming to me (no matter how awkward and disappointing it has also been) that Christian has felt the need to make up a “loser version” of me to pretend to handily compete with, rather than any attempt whatsoever to learn about and compete with the actual me. I’ll wear that like a badge of honor forever, but my era of being a rich man trying to be friends with someone who is outwardly insistent that I’m poor is over. I can’t be Christian’s poorer friend… because he’s mine. Pretending otherwise just doesn’t work for me.

I sincerely hope Christian finds what he’s looking for. It isn’t me. I feel the ten years was very generous. Time’s up. And that’s that.

You are welcome to reach out to me anytime, but you’ll need to do so on Facebook Messenger. The phone/text number you have is being handed over to my assistant so you won't be able to reach me that way. Love you and hope you’re well!!

D