I order an uber to the airport. I could go by tube, but I mean come on, if we are doing it, let’s do it right. My AI brain trained on some questionable dataset for 21 years immediately springs into action as I get in the car.
– Should I talk with him? Do I want to talk with him or do I want to be quiet? Is he uncomfortable, waiting to say something, because he feels like he should? Does he think I am a spoiled asshole who doesn’t care about him and is used to being driven around? – I start talking. I bring up the Apple Vision Pro, a safe, almost too predictable tech-guy topic, and I ask him if he would buy it. He ends up sliding into a 30-minute long rant about luxury spending, casting some serious judgment on people paying thousands for OnlyFans, and generally a rant about the privileged, about people who are spending a lot of money, when others struggle to make ends meet. This is off to a great start, I think to myself. I had my fair share of guilt-thinking around luxury spending, so it’s almost like hearing me beat myself up, nothing too new.
We are approaching the airport. After half an hour of rejection and strong judgment expressed towards all people who spend money (and me, nodding my head in cautious agreement in the backseat), I wonder how in the world do I bring up to him that actually, we are not going to the normal terminal. We are going to the Virgin Upper Class Wing, so we should turn left a bit early to the private entrance. Fuck it, I am going to do it. I mumble something about following the signs to “Virgin” while really trying to skip over the “upper class” part. We turn into the leftmost lane and stop at the gate. I roll down my backseat window, push the ring button, and say that I am flying to New York. “Yes, in upper class” – I confirm, speaking directly into the mic. The gates open up and we drive in. He clearly has not been here before. I get out. He awkwardly concludes our discussion after a few minutes of silence by saying “Yeah well, money can be used like this too, to skip the lines”. Solid start.